Privacy notice applicable to school admissions

Southampton City County Council is a data controller for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 and is committed to dealing with your information safely and securely. We need to collect and share information in order to deliver our services effectively. We take our responsibility to protect your data seriously and we will use it in accordance with the legal requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018.

We will be compliant with the School Admissions Code, which has the force of law. The purpose of the Code is to ensure that all school places for maintained schools (excluding maintained special schools) and Academies are allocated and offered in an open and fair way and in accordance with the published admission arrangements for the school. The Code requires local authorities to co-ordinate the admission arrangements for entry to Reception year, Year 3 in junior schools and Year 7 in secondary schools.

In respect of in-year admissions, the local authority is the admissions authority for all community schools and voluntary controlled schools. Academies, free schools, foundation and voluntary aided schools may delegate the co-ordination of their admissions to the local authority, or may remain own admission authority (OAA) schools.

The information you provide to us on your admissions application form, any supporting papers or appeal documentation you provide will be used to:

Process your application
Ensure the efficient co-ordination and fair allocation of school places in accordance with the School Admissions Code and local fair access protocols
Consider Admission Appeals
Populate our education database which runs our admissions and transfers allocation system

We may also use this data for the following purposes:

Forward planning as part of school budget, forecasting and reorganisation proposals
To assist in the development of policy proposals
For the prevention and/or detection of crime or fraud
For research and statistical purposes when we will ensure that statistics are developed in such a way that individual children cannot be identified

In order to administer admissions to schools the following information is collected:

Name, date of birth and gender
Address where the child ordinarily lives at the time of application, which will be used for distance calculation purposes
School preferences
Reasons for requesting a school place
Supplementary information, if required by individual school admission policies
Parent name and contact details
Details of medical and additional needs
Details of siblings
Current or last education provision
Child looked after status
Whether the child is subject to child protection planning
Additional certification if applying for a faith school on denominational grounds
Whether the child has a statement of educational need or EHC Plan
Catchment information
Whether the child has been permanently excluded from their last provision
Whether the child has attended school in England before
Additional information as required under our In Year Fair Access Protocol

Agencies we will share the information with:

Education providers to advise them of upcoming admissions
Other local authorities, to enable neighbouring LAs to accurately run their co-ordinated offer scheme
Department for Education to comply with statutory data collections
Other teams within the LA to verify the information provided so that the admission scheme/process can be accurately administered
School transport operators to enable them to accurately assess requests for LA transport support
Admission appeal panels
The Schools Adjudicator in response to any complaints made
OAA schools to enable them to accurately administer their admission schemes
In Year Fair Access Panel to enable them to appropriately place complex admissions
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman who has a remit for investigating maladministration in respect of school admissions and appeals

If you require any further information about the school admissions data that we hold or how we share it please contact the school admissions team.