Access to pupil records

Parental access to educational records containing personal data

Parents of pupils at maintained schools and special schools can request access to records containing by submitting a request directly to the school. As schools are their own data controller’s they hold the responsibility to process requests for any request for personal data that are made. It may be that the request can be processed as a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act (2018) or under the Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005.

If the request is for information that is not deemed to be personal in nature the Freedom of Information Act (2000) may be the more appropriate legislation to process the request under.

Support to assist with requests for access

If you are unclear on which process would be applicable, or you have any wider Data Protection concerns you can obtain support by contacting Legal Services via [email protected]. This support is only applicable if, as a school, you are signed up to the Service Level Agreement (SLA) and any support is provided at an hourly rate as per the SLA.

Transferring records

When education records are required to be transferred to another school this must be done, in full, within 15 days of the pupil leaving. If the destination school is unknown the origin school must make reasonable efforts to find out the destination, for example contacting parents.

Any curricular record requests received from other education providers must be fulfilled within 15 school days, excluding assessment results.