Privacy policy

School Science Days is a trading name of Education Group, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 04305230, with its registered office at 2 Debdale Road, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, NN8 5AA. Education Group holds the school relationships and delivers the workshops booked through this site.

For the purposes of the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 we are the data controller for the personal data described here. This policy covers the website schoolsciencedays.co.uk and the enquiries, bookings, visits and invoicing that follow from it.

For anything to do with your data - a question, a request or a complaint - call us on 01536 411334 or write to Data Protection, School Science Days, Education Group, 2 Debdale Road, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, NN8 5AA. Please tell us first if something has gone wrong: you can always go to the Information Commissioner’s Office, but we would rather have the chance to put it right.

This policy explains how we handle personal data when you use this website, send us an enquiry, book a workshop or correspond with us afterwards. It sits alongside anything else we tell you at the point we collect information - a note on a form, for example - and does not replace it.

Our booking terms are separate and are set out in our terms and conditions.

Almost everything we hold is work contact information given to us by a member of school staff.

• Enquiry details: school name, your name, your job role, your work email address, your telephone number, the school postcode, the date or half-term you are asking about, the number of classes or children involved, the workshop you are interested in and anything you write in the message box.
• Booking and delivery details: the confirmed date, timings, the hall or room we are working in, site access and parking notes, and the name of the staff contact on the day.
• Correspondence: emails, letters and notes of telephone calls between us, so we have a record of what was agreed.
• Billing details: purchase order numbers, invoicing contacts, the school finance address and payment records.
• Marketing preferences: whether you have asked to hear from us about availability or new workshops, and whether you have since asked us to stop.
• Technical information: routine records created by our website and its hosting when a page or the enquiry form is requested, which can include an IP address and a timestamp. We do not use this to build a profile of you.

Our customer is the school, not the pupil. We do not ask for, and do not need, personal data about individual children in order to quote for or deliver a workshop.

• Children take part as a class, led by our facilitator alongside your own staff. They are not asked to give us their names, do not sign in to anything and do not create accounts on our equipment.
• Our virtual reality headsets are set up, run and packed away by the facilitator. They are shared between classes through the day and are not used to keep a record of who wore them.
• Facilitators working in schools are DBS-checked and follow your safeguarding and visitor procedures on site.
• Please do not email us pupil names, medical details or safeguarding information. If something about a class needs to be known in advance - an adjustment for a pupil with additional needs, for example - describe it in general terms, and anything more detailed can be discussed with the facilitator on the day.

If pupil information does reach us by mistake, tell us and we will delete it rather than keep it on file.

We collect personal data directly from you: when you complete the enquiry form on this website, when you email or telephone us, when your school confirms a booking, and when we correspond about the visit and the invoice afterwards.

The enquiry form sends what you type to our own website system. From there the enquiry is stored so we can answer it, notified by email to the person who will reply to you, and recorded in the customer-relationship system we use to keep track of school bookings. Nothing you enter is shared with advertisers and nothing is published.

Under the UK GDPR we must have a lawful basis for each use of your personal data. Ours are:

• Responding to enquiries and sending quotes - legitimate interests. It is in our interest and yours that we can reply to a school that has asked us for a price, using the contact details you gave us for that purpose.
• Arranging and delivering a booking, and invoicing for it - performance of a contract with your school, or taking steps at your request before entering into one.
• Keeping accounting and tax records - legal obligation, because UK tax law requires us to retain financial records.
• Sending occasional updates about availability, new workshops or key dates, where you have asked to receive them - consent. You can withdraw it at any time by telling us, or by using the unsubscribe link on the message.

We do not sell personal data, we do not share it with advertisers and we do not use it for automated decision-making or profiling.

Your details are seen only by people who need them to do their job. That means:

• Other companies within Education Group, which delivers the workshops booked through this site and runs the shared booking, invoicing and equipment operation behind them.
• The facilitator delivering your booking, who needs the school address, timings, site contact and access notes.
• Suppliers who process data on our instructions under a written contract: our website host, our email provider and the customer-relationship system we use to record school enquiries.
• Our accountant, and HM Revenue & Customs where the law requires it.
• Professional advisers, insurers, or the authorities where we are legally obliged to disclose information.
• A buyer or successor, if the business or part of it is ever sold, transferred or merged. Your data would continue to be handled as described here.

We keep school contact data within the United Kingdom wherever we can. Where a supplier we rely on stores or handles data outside the UK, we only use them if the transfer is protected by a lawful safeguard - UK adequacy regulations, the International Data Transfer Agreement, or the addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses. You can ask us which suppliers this applies to and we will tell you.

We use reputable business suppliers, keep accounts protected by strong passwords and multi-factor authentication where it is available, and limit access to the staff, facilitators and contractors who have a business need to see it. No system is completely secure, but we take the protection of school contact data seriously and will tell you and the ICO about any breach that meets the reporting threshold.

• We keep personal data only as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it for, including meeting our legal, accounting and reporting obligations.
• Financial records, including invoices and the contact and transaction details attached to them: six years after the end of the financial year they relate to, because UK tax law requires it.
• Enquiries that do not lead to a booking, and booking records once a visit is complete: kept while they are still useful for answering questions and arranging repeat visits, then reviewed and deleted.
• Marketing consents: until you withdraw consent, after which we keep a minimal record of the withdrawal so we do not contact you again by mistake.

When we no longer need data we delete it, or anonymise it so it can no longer identify anyone.

This website does not run advertising, does not track you across other sites and sets no analytics or marketing cookies. The pages and the enquiry form work without them.

If we ever add analytics, embedded video or anything else that stores information on your device beyond what is strictly necessary, we will update this section and ask for your consent first.

Under the UK GDPR you have the right to:

• Be told what personal data we hold about you and ask for a copy of it.
• Have inaccurate data corrected.
• Ask us to delete data where we no longer have a good reason to keep it.
• Ask us to restrict how we use it while a query is resolved.
• Object to processing carried out on the basis of our legitimate interests.
• Ask us to transfer data you gave us to another organisation, where that applies.
• Withdraw consent at any time where consent is the basis we rely on.

To exercise any of these rights, email [email protected], call 01536 411334 or write to us at the registered office above. We will respond within one month. There is no charge unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, please tell us first so we have the chance to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK supervisory authority for data protection.

The ICO can be contacted through ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, where their current postal address and helpline number are published.

We review this policy when the way we work changes, and at least once a year. The date at the top shows when it was last updated. Material changes affecting schools that have already booked will be notified by email.