Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Wirral Rise is the data controller for the personal information collected through this website and our provision services.

• Business name: Wirral Rise
• Address: 143–145 Ford Road, Upton Village, Wirral CH49 0XB
• Email: admin@wirralrise.co.uk
• Phone: 07515 117816

If you have any questions about how we use your data, please contact us at the details above.

2. What Personal Data We Collect

Via the contact form

• Your name
• Your email address
• Your phone number (optional)
• Your role (parent/carer, school, local authority, other professional)
• The content of your message, which may include information about a child's educational needs, diagnosis or circumstances

Via the newsletter sign-up

• Your email address

Automatically when you visit our website

We do not use tracking cookies or analytics. However, our website uses Google Fonts — a service provided by Google LLC — which may collect your IP address and browser information when fonts are loaded. Please see Google's Privacy Policy for details. We are reviewing options to self-host our fonts to eliminate this dependency.

3. Special Category Data

When you enquire about a placement for a child, you may share information about that child's health, disability, neurodevelopmental profile, or educational needs. This is special category data under UK GDPR and we treat it with the highest level of care. We process this information only:

• To assess whether we can support the child and to respond to your enquiry
• To provide our specialist alternative provision, where a placement is agreed
• To fulfil our safeguarding and legal obligations

We rely on Article 9(2)(b) (social protection obligations), Article 9(2)(g) (substantial public interest) and the UK Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 provisions for education and welfare as our lawful basis for processing special category data.

4. Why We Use Your Data (Lawful Basis)

• Legitimate interests — responding to enquiries about our provision, communicating with parents, schools and local authorities
• Contract performance — delivering our provision where a placement is agreed
• Legal obligation — safeguarding, EHCP compliance, statutory reporting
• Consent — newsletter sign-ups (you may unsubscribe at any time)

5. Children's Data

Where information about a child is shared with us, that information is processed only for the purpose of assessing and delivering appropriate provision. We do not collect personal data directly from children through this website. All child data is handled in line with our Safeguarding and Data Protection policies and is accessible only to authorised staff.

6. How We Store and Protect Your Data

Contact form submissions are processed through Formspree (Formspree Inc.), a third-party form processing service. Data submitted via our contact form is transmitted securely to Formspree and delivered to our email inbox. Formspree's privacy policy is available at formspree.io/legal/privacy-policy.

Email correspondence is stored on our secure GoDaddy Microsoft 365 email system. We do not store contact form submissions in a database.

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against unauthorised access, loss or disclosure.

7. How Long We Keep Your Data

• Enquiries that do not result in a placement: deleted within 12 months of last contact
• Active placement records: retained for the duration of the provision and for 7 years after the placement ends, in line with educational records retention guidelines
• Safeguarding records: retained in accordance with the child's age and statutory requirements (minimum until the child's 25th birthday)
• Newsletter subscriptions: until you unsubscribe

8. Who We Share Your Data With

We do not sell or share your personal data with third parties for marketing purposes. We may share information with:

• Schools and local authorities — in connection with a child's placement and EHCP
• Other professionals — e.g. NHS therapists, social workers — only where relevant to the child's provision and with appropriate authority
• Formspree — for processing contact form submissions (see Section 6)
• Statutory bodies — where we are legally required to do so, including Ofsted, safeguarding boards or law enforcement

9. Your Rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to:

• Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Rectification — ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Erasure — ask us to delete your data (where no overriding legal obligation to retain it applies)
• Restriction — ask us to limit how we use your data
• Portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format
• Objection — object to processing based on legitimate interests
• Withdraw consent — unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at admin@wirralrise.co.uk. We will respond within one month.

10. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO):

• Website: ico.org.uk
• Helpline: 0303 123 1113

We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns directly before you contact the ICO.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised. Continued use of our website after any changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.