Guides
Managing SEND pupil data
Retention, need-to-know access, subject access requests, sharing with outside professionals, and what transfers when a pupil leaves — the record-keeping questions schools ask most often.
The starting point
SEND data is ordinary pupil data, held to a higher standard
Nothing in data protection law creates a separate regime for SEND. What changes is the content: a SEND record routinely contains health information, professional assessment, safeguarding context and family circumstance. Most of that is special category data, which needs a lawful basis and an additional condition before it is processed at all.
In practice that means three disciplines that ordinary attendance or attainment data can survive without: a stated retention period, access restricted by need rather than by job title, and a record of who saw what. A school that can answer those three can answer almost every question a parent, governor or regulator will ask.
Retention
There is no single legal period — you choose one and justify it
The most common question, and the one with the least satisfying answer. No statute sets a retention period for SEND records. Schools in England generally follow the IRMS Information Management Toolkit for Schools, which sets out recommended periods rather than legal ones — typically holding the pupil's educational record until their 25th birthday, and transferring it to the receiving school when they move.
Two things are worth separating out. Safeguarding records sit outside the ordinary schedule and are kept far longer, under their own review. And a retention hold — a deliberate decision to keep something beyond the normal period — should be recorded with a reason and a review date, otherwise it quietly becomes permanent.
Access
Need-to-know is a per-field question, not a per-person one
Every teacher needs the strategies. Very few need the clinical report, the looked-after-child status or the safeguarding history. When access is granted at the level of "the SEND system", the sensitive fields travel with everything else, and the school's answer to "who has read this?" becomes a guess.
The workable rule is to restrict at the field level and enforce it in the system rather than by policy alone. Safeguarding flags, medical and care-plan detail, and looked-after-child information should be visible to the roles that need them and invisible — not merely discouraged — to everyone else.
Subject access requests
One month, from the day it arrives
A parent or pupil asking for a copy of what you hold is making a subject access request, whether or not they use the phrase. The deadline is one calendar month, extendable by two further months where the request is genuinely complex, and there is normally no fee. The clock starts when the request reaches the school — not when it reaches the person who will answer it, which is why an unlogged email to a class teacher is the usual cause of a missed deadline.
The work itself is mostly assembly and redaction: gathering the record from every place it lives, removing third-party personal data that cannot be disclosed, and keeping a copy of what was released. Where a child has sufficient understanding to exercise the right themselves, it is their request to make, and a parent does not automatically stand in their place.
Sharing and transfer
Consent is one basis, and usually not the one you are relying on
Schools frequently ask parents to consent to sharing that they are in fact carrying out under public task. That matters, because consent can be withdrawn and the school then has no basis for something it is required to do. Reserve consent for genuinely optional sharing, be clear in the privacy notice about the routine recipients, and record the basis alongside each disclosure to an outside professional.
When a pupil leaves, the educational record transfers to the receiving school, normally within 15 school days of the pupil ceasing to be registered. Record what was sent and when. Anything retained after that needs a reason and an end date.
Ownership
Who answers which question
Most data incidents in schools are ownership failures rather than knowledge failures — everybody assumed somebody else held the deadline. A short table like this one, agreed once and visible, prevents more problems than a longer policy.
| Question | Who owns it | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides what goes on the SEND register? | SENCo | Threshold is provision that is additional to or different from the ordinary offer. |
| Who answers a subject access request? | Data protection lead / school business manager | One calendar month. SENCo supplies the SEND content, does not own the deadline. |
| Who approves sharing with an outside professional? | SENCo, against the privacy notice | Record the basis and the recipient, not just the fact of sharing. |
| Who reviews retention and deletion? | Data protection lead, annually | Safeguarding holds are reviewed separately and explicitly. |
| Who checks the register reconciles with the census? | SENCo with the MIS lead | Termly. Mismatches surface as funding and inspection questions. |
Common questions
Frequently asked
How long should a school keep SEND records?
There is no single statutory retention period for SEND records. Common practice, following the IRMS Information Management Toolkit for Schools, is to keep the pupil's educational record until the pupil's 25th birthday, and to transfer it to the receiving school when the pupil moves. Safeguarding records are held separately and for longer. Your retention schedule should state the period you have chosen and why.
Who in school is allowed to see SEND information?
Staff who need it to teach or support the pupil. Need-to-know is the operative test, and it is not the same as role: a class teacher needs the strategies and the reasonable adjustments, but rarely needs the full clinical report or the safeguarding history. Safeguarding, medical and looked-after-child information should be tightly restricted and the restriction should be enforced by the system, not by convention.
What do we do if a parent asks for everything we hold on their child?
That is a subject access request. You have one calendar month to respond, extendable by two further months where the request is complex. You must supply the personal data, redact third-party information that cannot be disclosed, and you cannot charge for it in ordinary cases. Log the request the day it arrives — the clock starts then, not when it reaches the SENCo.
Can a child make their own subject access request?
Yes, where the child has sufficient understanding to exercise the right themselves. In England there is no fixed age; the school judges maturity case by case. Where the child can exercise the right, the parent's request is not automatically granted in their place.
Do we need parental consent to share SEND information with outside professionals?
Not always — consent is only one of the lawful bases available, and schools usually rely on public task for core educational sharing. Consent matters most for optional sharing and for special category data such as health information, where a separate condition is needed. Whichever basis you use, tell parents in your privacy notice what you share and with whom.
What happens to a pupil's SEND record when they leave?
The educational record transfers to the receiving school, normally within 15 school days of the pupil ceasing to be registered. Keep a record of what was sent and when. Anything you keep afterwards needs a reason and an end date — most commonly a safeguarding retention hold.
Can we correct or delete information a parent disputes?
Parents can ask for inaccurate personal data to be corrected. Professional opinion recorded as opinion is not inaccurate simply because it is disputed, but the disagreement should be recorded alongside it. Erasure is far more limited in schools than people expect, because most pupil data is held to meet a legal obligation or public task.
Is a spreadsheet good enough?
It is lawful, but it is where most problems start. Spreadsheets copy easily, travel by email, have no per-column access control, keep no audit trail of who read what, and drift out of step with the MIS. If your SEND data lives in a shared file, the honest answer to "who has seen this?" is usually "we don't know".
Related reading: the SEND register covers what to record and when pupils come off it, and provision mapping covers the delivery record the register should reconcile with. For how OMNIA itself stores and protects pupil data, see the FAQ.
This guide is general information about record-keeping practice in England, not legal advice. Check your own retention schedule and privacy notice with your data protection officer.