Welcome to Oldham Sixth Form College Change back to standard template

• How Do I Apply
• Interview
• Entry Requirements
• Data Protection & Personal Data

Personal Data and how we use it: Student Services

Applicants who have been offered a place at College, please read the information below and then complete the Data Protection section in the Student Acceptance Pack.

Oldham Sixth Form College stores information about students manually in secure filing cabinets and on computer with restricted staff access.  Manual files are kept for a period of 5 years, computerised information may be held indefinitely. You provide information at the time of your application and enrolment and we may also obtain data from your previous school and/or the Connexions Service.  Additional information will be generated and stored about you during your time at the College, such as attendance data, progress, course/timetable information, examination/test results and disciplinary records.

• Information stored about you will be used internally by the College staff in order to ensure that you receive the support you need.  Staff have access to computerised data via access rights and passwords.  Information about medical conditions/learning difficulties will be treated sensitively and only relevant staff will have access.

• The information you provide will be passed to the Chief Executive of the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) or Skills Funding Agency (SFA) to enable those organisations to fulfil their statutory obligations, principally under the apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009.  Both organisations are registered as data controllers with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office.  The information you provide will be shared with other organisations for the purpose of administration, the provision of career and other guidance and statistical and research purposes, relating to education and training.  Other organisations include the Department for Education, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, Connexions, Local Authorities, Higher Education Statistics Agency, Higher Education Funding Council for England, educational institutions and organisations performing research and statistical work on behalf of the SFA, the YPLA or partners of those organisations. Further information about use of and access to your information is available at – SFA: http://skillsfundingagency.bis.gov.uk/foi.htm or YPLA: http://ypla.gov.uk/foi.htm. At no time will your personal information be passed to organisations for marketing or sales purposes.

• The Skills Funding Agency also administers the learner registration service (LRS) which uses your learner information to issue you with a Unique Learner Number (ULN), and to create your Personal Learning Record. Further details of how your information is processed and shared can be found at www.learningrecordsservice.org.uk/privacynotice.  You can opt-out of sharing your participation and achievement data through The Learning Record Service – see Data Protection Section of the Acceptance Pack.

• Your Learning Contract and the College Charter states that we will provide information about your progress, attendance and punctuality to your parents/guardians.  However, in exceptional circumstances you can request that information is not passed onto your parents.  Requests should be made in writing to the Student Services Manager.  The College may inform your parents/guardians if this request is agreed.

• We will share information about you with examination boards.  We publish examination results to departments internally and in national/local newspapers.  Details of your examination results and destination are provided to your previous school, the Connexions Service and destinations are published in the Celebration Evening Booklet. If you require us not to publish this information you should request this in writing to the Examinations Office prior to the results publication date.

• We will provide references for UCAS, employers, etc on request for up to three years after you leave college.  References will be given in confidence. An employer may request your personal details prior to work experience or work shadowing.  A CRB check may be required for enrolment onto some courses.

• If you are in receipt of an Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) we will provide information about you, including your courses, attendance and progress to the Leaner Support Service. 

• The college will publish statistical information regarding: age, gender, ethnicity, medical condition, learning difficulty, type of programme, results, destinations, etc.  Care will be taken to ensure that individuals cannot be identified from statistical reports.

• Photographs and films may be taken in College and used for publicity purposes.  We will ask for your consent before using information identifying you by name in College publicity materials or press releases.  It is an essential part of some courses that photographs and films are used to demonstrate your abilities; your parent’s consent is required.

We will not supply information to anyone else (other than relating to crime prevention or the prosecution of offenders) unless covered by the College’s Data Protection Registration.  We endeavour to ensure that information we keep about you is accurate and up-to-date and we regularly request that you check information held and confirm its accuracy. It is your responsibility to inform the college as soon as possible if any of your personal details do change.

Obtaining a copy of the information we hold about you

The Data Protection Act gives you the right to write to us as a data user and request a copy of the personal data held about you.  Your request needs to be in writing and we reserve the right to make a charge of up to £10 per request.  We will respond within 40 days of you making a request.