Practical Law Public Sector addresses the questions that schools may ask local authorities regarding day-to-day school management and sets out the legal issues to consider when responding:
In this edition, we look at the issues involved where a parent of a pupil at an academy wishes to access their child’s educational records without the child’s consent. For details of all our school hotline queries, please see Practice note, Schools hotline FAQs.
Q: My child attends an academy and I want to access her educational record. She has told me that she will not consent to me seeing this information. Am I allowed to see it anyway?
A: Firstly, you should check whether the academy has already published the information you require. Academies must send parents an annual written report of each registered pupil’s progress and attainment in the main subject areas taught (except where agreed otherwise with the parents) (paragraph 24(1)(f), Schedule 1, Education (Independent School Standards) (England) Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/1997)). It is for the academy trust to decide the exact content of the report. An academy must also publish information including its curriculum provision and performance on its website, as required by its funding agreement.
If the information is not already published, then parents will have to make a specific request for it. The child’s consent is not required for parents to access their right to see their children’s educational records under the Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005 (SI 2005/1437). However, these regulations do not apply to academies, only to maintained schools (regulation 4). Therefore, if a parent of a student at an academy is applying for educational information, they must do so under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA 1998), which applies to personal data held anywhere, including by all types of school. Under the DPA 1998 the applicant parents will be exercising their child’s right as the data subject to see his or her own educational records, on the child’s behalf.
The child could therefore refuse to consent to his or her parent access their personal data under the DPA 1998 if the child had reached the required level of maturity (which is generally assumed to be aged 12 or over) (for more information, see Practice note, Pupil records and information: Subject access requests under section 7 of the DPA 1998).