Private schools and GDPR

[froggery]

We are about to send our DS to a pre-prep and I was going through school's T&C's that we are to sign and came across this section: "we can notify other educational institutions of your outstanding payments"... I am not planning to default in any way but I thought that sharing this sort of data with third parties is in breach of GDPR...? I am not a lawyer, hence my question is of pure ignorance, but how can something like this be packed into a standard contract...? Is this normal? What am I missing here?

That’s usually in the case that you apply to another school and are going to remove your child. It is a legitimate interest of the new school to know whether you are behind! I don’t think they just share the info with all private schools.

This is ‘normal’ as otherwise people could in theory get intentionally behind with school fees, apply to another school and do the same there and end up getting an independent education for free! Wouldn’t be ideal for the kids but, unfortunately, some people are more keen on avoiding payments than their child’s well being. You’d be surprised how much chasing of fees goes on!

Surely there's no GDPR issue because, by signing, you are giving your consent to the info being shared? Totally up to you whether to join that school, and therefore whether to sign the contract.

Thank you so much, of course, makes perfect sense!

I think a lot of private schools probably ask for this information as part of a reference request when a childs moving schools so they may also specify that you had to agree to letthe previous school disclose info on payment history/arrears. I certainly saw something like this in the admissions procedure when apply to my son’s senior school and needing a reference from his prep school.