We are committed to providing excellent education to all our students and we really appreciate every comment and compliment we receive. We take the time to review all feedback and use it to improve the college. Please use the Comment & Compliment form at the bottom of this page to give us your feedback.

However, we recognise that there are times when our students, parents and carers may feel we have not got it right, so if there is something you are unhappy with, please let us know. Our Complaints Policy is designed to resolve any concerns or complaints at the earliest opportunity and we try to do this through the informal stage of the process.

Swanmore College defines a complaint as:

‘an expression of dissatisfaction with the College however made about actions taken or a lack of action which requires a response’

If you have a concern that you would like to take up with the College you should initially inform a member of staff – your child’s tutor either in person, over the telephone or in writing.

The College will not respond to anonymous complaints under this policy, however, the Head teacher and/or Chair of Governors will consider whether the issue and fear of identification are genuine, or the issue is one of child protection.

Any complaint (other than those relating to the head teacher) made direct to the Chair of Governors will be referred to the Head Teacher for investigation and a response under Stage 1 of the College's Complaints procedure.

Privacy Statement

Why do we collect and use personal information?

We collect and use personal information:

• to enable contact in dealing with your complaint effectively

The categories of personal information that we collect and hold include:

• Personal information (such as name, address, phone number, email address)

The General Data Protection Regulation allows us to collect personal information with the consent of the data subject, where we are complying with a legal requirement, where processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of a data subject or another person and where processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.

Swanmore College collects and uses the complaints information to comply with legal obligation and protection of vital interests.

Collecting personal information

Whilst the majority of personal information you provide to us is mandatory, some of it is provided to us on a voluntary basis. In order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation, we will inform you whether you are required to provide certain personal information to us or if you have a choice in this.

Where we are using your personal information only on the basis of your permission you may ask us to stop processing this personal information at any time.

Storing personal data

We hold complaints data in accordance with our retention schedule (a copy of which can be found on the policies section on the college website.) This schedule will detail the length of time for which the personal data will be stored.

Data collection requirements

To find out more about the data collection requirements placed on us by the Information Commissioners’

Office (ICO) go to https://ico.org.uk/

If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office at

https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Contact

If you would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice, please contact:

• Mr K Jonathan – Head Teacher

• Mr B Parker – Data Protection Officer

If you would rather download printable copies of our complaints or compliments documents please click the links below.

We also have a link to our policies page.

• Complaints Policy – Policy Page
• Complaints Form
• Comment & Compliment Form