Data Protection Review Package for Schools

Background

Every day schools capture, process, and store a wide range of personal information about students, staff, parents, and others. This can take the form of a student registration, a class register, examination results, reports to Government agencies or Departments, emergency contact lists, or sign-up sheets for school sports or the Christmas jumble sale.

Add to this an environment beset by almost constant change, limited resources, and an increasing loss of knowledge and experience through early retirement (of teachers and administrative staff), and today's school manager and management board faces an unenviable task trying to ensure that their school meets the requirements for the protection of personal data required under the Data Protecton Acts and associated legislation.

Drawing on our experiences with the Education Sector and on input received from experienced teachers and school managers, Castlebridge Associates has developed a unique offering for schools in Ireland at all levels (Primary, Post-Primary, and Further Education Colleges) to help them

• Identify Privacy risks and issues before they become a crisis
• Ensure that policies and procedures around the management of personal data are appropriate and 'fit for purpose'
• Ensure staff have adequate understanding of the principles of Data Protection and 'Common Sense Information Security' and can apply it in their daily work
• Ensure that appropriate practices and habits are in place around the management of personal data and records.

The Offering

Castlebridge Associates will conduct an in-depth audit of the Data Protection practices in your school. The audit will consist of reviews of your policies and procedures and forms you use to capture and process personal data, interviews with a cross-section of your staff to identify their level of understanding of Data Protection issues and how they apply to their roles, and a Our team are experienced Data Protection professionals who have assisted a number of organisations to prepare for full audits from the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, so we are familiar with the approach taken by the Commissioner and the types of issues and problems that draw their attention.

In addition to the audit (which for most schools would consist of one day on-site and some off-site reading and reviewing of documentation), Castlebridge Associates would provide a half-day "Data Protection Basics for Schools" training course tailored to address the findings of the audit in your school as well as general topics in Data Protection Compliance.

So, for your fee, you get:

1. An in-depth review of your Data Protection Policies, Practices, and procedures following current legislation and addressing issues previously raised by the DPC in this sector
2. A report outlining the Strengths and Weaknesses of your organisation and making specific recommendations for addressing gaps identified
3. A half-day staff training event that is tailored to your school, your staff, and their needs.

Pricing

We like schools. We've been to a few. We wouldn't be where we are without them. Therefore we have worked hard to keep the pricing for this Compliance package as competitive as possible. 'Bulk' rates for groups of schools in a particular area or linked to a particular organisation (e.g. VECs, religious orders etc.) can be negotiated depending on the organisation.

CLICK HERE to register your interest in this service and we will get back to you within 2 working days.