Staff and pupil data: detailed privacy notice

Data we collect

From Local Authorities

The data collected and processed by the Scottish Government will be on both children and young people being educated in Scotland’s schools and staff working within these schools.  The majority of the data on children is initially received by the school or local authority from parents/carers of children and young people when registering their child for education in Scotland, and is regularly maintained by the school and the local authority responsible.  The workforce data is again initially collected by local authorities, and largely held on local authority management information systems.

Information is also collected and held by the Scottish Government on the educational establishments available in Scotland (such as schools), including contact details for those establishments and email addresses.

We do not collect the names of children or of the school workforce

Although schools and local authorities require and collect a lot of additional information about the children and young people it is responsible for educating, and for its own workforce, not all of this information is shared with the Scottish Government.  For example, we will not receive contact details for pupils that are collected for use within the school when contacting parents, etc. 

From other sources

Information on qualifications achieved by young people are shared by awarding bodies (e.g. the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA)) and includes details on the level and result of qualifications taken by young people.  Information on the destinations of school leavers collected three and nine months after young  people leave school are collected and shared with the Scottish Government by Skills Development Scotland. 

Information on pupil performance in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is also shared by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to allow us to analyse Scotland's PISA results. Further details on how PISA is conducted are available in the NFER Privacy Notice

Data Specification Documents

The full list of information on children and young people that will be shared with, and processed by, the Scottish Government is available in the data specification documents and guidance notes, available here:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/ScotXed/SchoolEducation