Requesting my child's Subject access request?

[Lisa900]

Is it simple to request this from my child's primary school, it's relevant in something I need . But, some one told me that's schools can get quite funny if you ask for it - it's a really good school and I don't want them to get funny with me for asking ?

Why don’t you just ask them for whatever it is you need? A SAR is a complete pain as they’ll have to trawl through and copy everything. And then spend ages redacting stuff related to other kids in the same document.

Subject access requests are easy to make, but can be harder and more time-consuming to fulfil. If you can narrow down what you need, it can be incredibly helpful. For instance, requesting all emails that include your child's name can be vastly different from asking for the emails with her name from September 2026. Or, might you want only those sent to either parent? Or, only those sent to either parent during a given time frame?

In my experience, we'd have someone in the tech department pull the emails and then someone on the leadership team had to make redactions and a third needed to check the redactions. I don't remember ever giving anyone a funny look, but I do remember wondering if a particular parent of 3 children who requested all communications regarding her children over their many years at the school had any idea how much time I spent reading about their grades, discipline, potential use on the school's social media... (every mundane communication) to respond to her request.

Where I work it’s a whole day of work for one person. You have to find everything. Convert it to pdfs. Use the redacting tool. Look out for names. Proof it all again. Convert it to something else. Stick it through another programme. It is a pain in the arse.

Really good advice from @JustChattingAway if you're trying to not fall out with the school but you need something specific then make your SAR specific. Dates or particular types of documents or communication will really limit the work involved.

Came here to say what other people have already said. We don't need to know why you need it, but please be really specific what you needz between which dates if possible, for which child, for which parent, from which teacher, etc etc. it helps a lot and saves so much work.

Why do you actually need one, OP?

I’m head of a one form entry school. SARs are a real headache. There’s no ‘team’ who can compile the information. It’s down to me and it takes hours and hours - time taken away from being with the children or doing all the other leadership tasks I have.

if you feel you have to do one, and it’s for a specific document, then just request that document.

We have had two of these last year (the second was because the parent was friends with the first parent who asked, and thought she was missing out). It caused hours of work-usually for the senco, class teacher, HT and the business manager. We are all professional enough to not give you ‘funny’ looks, but I truly secretly resented the extra workload caused me due to the deadline.

Why do you want it? Can’t the information be gathered by a friendly conversation instead of adding a huge amount of workload on people already overworked?

Someone is doing this at my school. It’s taking HOURS of time. Don’t do it unless you desperately need it. It will not make you popular.