We take the privacy of your information seriously and we ask that you read this Privacy Notice carefully as it contains important information. We will only use and share personal information as explained in this Privacy Notice.
Dudley Learning Support Service (LSS) is part of Dudley MBC. We are contracted by schools and settings in Dudley and the surrounding area to assess and teach pupils who are not achieving age appropriate educational outcomes.
We work within the remit of the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice 2015, providing advice and strategies on an individual level to assist each pupil to improve their educational outcomes. We also provide specialist teaching to individual pupils or small groups.
Before we see a pupil we must have a signed consent form to allow us to work with them. (See the section below on ‘Consent’). The school or setting who has contracted the work, will give us background information about the pupil’s educational ability, which will guide initial assessment of that pupil. Following the initial assessment, this background information is confidentially destroyed. Our Specialist Teachers work with each pupil and administer a number of standardised tests to check the pupil’s strengths and weaknesses and to establish why they are not achieving their targeted educational outcomes. The Specialist Teacher will interpret the results of these tests and identify strategies for the school to use with the pupil in order to improve their individual outcomes.
The information we collect on our reports relates only to the pupil’s educational ability and is always confidential.
We use the information collected on the background forms alongside standardised tests to formulate strategies for the school/setting to employ to improve the pupil’s targeted outcomes.
We will always share the pupil reports with the school who have commissioned our service. We intend to share information with schools/settings at the point of transition and with the following services as part of the pupil’s educational record: Dudley Educational Psychology, Speech and Language, SENDIASS, SEND, School Improvement, Specialist Inclusion Services (PIMIS, Autism outreach, Hearing and Visually Impaired, Specialist Early Years, Speech and Language) and all relevant services in other Local Authorities who are involved with the pupil. If other non-Local Authority services are involved with the pupil, we will share information with them as long as the appropriate written consent has been obtained.
Each report is emailed directly to the commissioning school/setting who then provide the parent/legal guardian/pupil (if aged 13 years and over) with a copy of this report.
Whilst the pupil’s report is being compiled, this information is temporarily stored on either an encrypted memory stick or a dual security-protected laptop. On completion, we use a secure link to email the report to the school/setting who have commissioned the work. The report is then stored by LSS on the secure Dudley data store in line with the Local Authority retention rules* for this type of information. (*date of birth + 25 years). When a pupil referral is closed, all paperwork is shredded and confidentially disposed of by a specialist company, contracted by Dudley MBC, who adhere to ISO 9001 Standard, BS EN 15713 - the European standard for Information Destruction
We will only see a pupil on receipt of a written consent form from the parent/legal guardian/pupil (aged 13 years and older). The consent form will allow us to work with the pupil, produce a report and share it with the school/setting who have commissioned the work. On the consent form, the parent or pupil will be able to consent to the information being shared with other non-Local Authority services involved with the pupil’s education.
To assist with the practicalities of managing the service, we have adopted a process that when a pupil reaches the age of 13 years, parental consent will expire and the pupil must then consent for themselves.
In extraordinary circumstances, where the pupil does not have the capacity to understand the consequences of consenting, they cannot give informed consent. A third party, with the legal right to make decisions on their behalf, can then give consent.
Any safeguarding concerns will be reported to the appropriate Designated Safeguarding Lead in the school/setting, irrespective of consent given.
Please see the main Dudley website for details of how to request or redact any personal information which we may hold:
http://www.dudley.gov.uk/privacy-disclaimer-statement/corporate-privacy-disclaimer-statement/
