School recording advice

[Lottiemum79]

Hi,

im hoping someone on here might be able to help me, after having some problems with my daughters school and trying to find out how information about my daughter and myself that was only school knowledge got repeated to me by someone who should not have knowledge of this as it was private information,I asked the school if they could tell me or look into who has accessed my daughters file without consent or shouldn’t have and they have come back to me saying that they don’t record who accesses your child’s file so anyone in the school could have accessed it and looked up details etc including printing off photos without the knowledge of the school or parents and there is no trace of this or recording? Is this correct surly it’s not? Surly that safe guarding and data protection breaches? Also after speaking with someone in the school they can access children’s files etc from home as well and the school don’t record this?

is this correct?

is this legal?

any help would be great as it worrying me sick thinking about it.

lottie.

Staff will have access usually to all behaviour and attendance data. However this will not be all staff. Where I work it is teaching staff, TAs, pastoral and admin staff. Safeguarding information is not accessible to all and is on a need to know basis.

I think the things to focus on here are:

• should this person have access to this type of info at all eg are they a teacher or a lunchtime supervisor?. I'd expect different roles to have different access
• have they access to info outside their role. Even if they're a teacher they shouldn't be accessing info from another class, even if they technically can
• have they used the info they've accessed in a way that is outside of acceptable use. Teacher using it in class is fine. Talking to you about it when it's not their role to do so, not fine.

The school IT system won't be tracking this in the way the NHS systems would so they may not have evidence. But if someone knows something that would be in your child's records and has spoken to you about it in a way that's not in their remit, then something has happened which shouldn't have done and both how she got the info and how she used it should be investigated by the school if you make a complaint.

At a minimum they'll need to speak to her about it and find out what happened and if it's serious and bothering youz then I wouldn't let it go and would take it to the school' data controller and them governors if needs be.

I think you need to establish from the person how they got whatever information they mentioned to you first. From that you can perhaps establish the trai to the culprit.

In any event the data controller at the school will need to tighten up their policies and procedures, the response you got is not good enough.

So i would make a complaint, which may ultimately lead you to complaining to the information commissioner.

Thank you all for your responses very much greatful for your opinions they have helped me a lot.
after emailing the school trust they have said Arbor the app they use at school doesn’t record or monitor staff logging into children files and that all staff and Ta can access arbor and see all out personal details address etc. which surly for safe guarding and data protection it should be record incase there is a incident to do with someone person information getting into the wrong hands.

What role foes the person who had the information have at the school?

She is a TA and does have full access to the systems. I have this in a email from he trust confirming this all

Is she your child's TA?

The orher thing to consider, if the issue she mentioned to you is serious, all staff will have been told in a small school to ensure the safety of your child.

I think that you can expect that all teaching and face to face staff in a school will know information about your child. Systems such as arbor are simply an electronic way of recording things that were once just spoken about or jotted down somewhere. You haven't really said what the conversation ws about or how you came to be talking about it.

The only information she might not and in sone cases should not know is sensitive safeguarding information. As a teacher I only know things that slt think I should know for safety for example.

That's a normal level of access for a TA.

Safeguarding records will be held separately and with higher security - and seeing as I deal with this stuff daily (so know what is visible on each level of access), there's nothing on the main MIS that you'd need to keep secret from a TA.

Does she work with your child?

Are you absolutely sure that she should not know this information?

Is the information actually a 'safeguarding' thing, eg details of DV in the home? Or is it medical notes (eg 'epilepsy' or 'brain trauma from accident aged 3').

Sometimes these details do need to be shared with staff, to ensure safeguards (eg 'only mum to pick up...police should be called if dad tries to engage at all'). With medical issues, staff DO need to know so that they can spot signs.

I'd say it all depends on the actual information the TA has spoken to you about, whether it falls into the 'really needs to know this in case of issues' or 'only key people need to know this'.

Yes. Another thought is that the child can be a source of information.

The younger they are the more they say sometimes.

What system do they use? If it is CPOMs they can ‘audit’ who has clicked on what. It may be the same with other programs or MIS (like SIMS)

It’s amazing the things children tell us about. ‘Mummy’s boyfriend shouted at us and hit mummy’, ‘no, I wasn’t ill last week, we went on holiday”, ‘mummy was crying last night because she didn’t have enough credit for the electricity’…

Ask the person how she knew. If it is through accessing files she is allowed to read she still shouldn’t be speaking to you about it, unless there is a reason (eg SENCO calls you to discuss a diagnosis you’ve disclosed). Just ask. And then call a meeting with the school and discuss the fact she has repeated something she has no right to discuss. Either way the school needs to step in, unless she says ‘oh Amanda told me’ and Amanda has nothing to do with school.

or if you don’t want to acknowledge what she said is true ‘what makes you say that?’

I'm a safeguarding lead so have full access to all records, what I record on c-poms is only shared with the head, deputy & occasionally teachers but on a read only function.
Sims can be accessed by teaching staff but they can't see addresses, contact numbers etc The office have full access to sims and all safeguarding leads too.

I've worked in schools where staff seem to have more access and much prefer working somewhere with a stricter approach.

Sorry if I missed this but is the TA someone you know outside of school?

I have had a year ten tell me they are having d&v next week. They can feel it coming on. They might need the week in Tenerife to recover..