Community First Academy Trust

Website Compliance 

Community First Academy Trust values the contribution that a website can make to the school.

To review Platt Bridge Community School's 2022-23 website compliance overview click here 

Click Here for April 2023  review further to DfE Changes on what academies, free schools and colleges must or should publish online

The purpose of our websites is to:

• Promote the trust and its schools and educational services.
• Provide information to prospective parents, teachers and the wider community.
• Act as the main communication channel between teachers, parents, pupils and school management.
• Develop the level of pupil learning.
• Continuously raise standards in teaching and learning.

The trust and its schools are required by law to publish certain information, such as the most recent Ofsted report, to comply with The School Information (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2018. This policy outlines the school’s terms of use regarding the creation, development and use of the school website

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1.    Legal framework

This policy has due regard to all relevant legislation including, but not limited to, the following:

• The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)
• Data Protection Act 2018
• Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006
• Freedom of Information Act 2000
• Computer Misuse Act 1990 amended by Police and Justice Act 2006
• The Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014
• The School Information (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2018
• The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017
• Trade Union (Facility Time Publication Requirements) Regulations 2017

This policy also has due regard to guidance including, but not limited to, the following:

• DfE (2021) ‘What academies, free schools and colleges should publish online’
• DfE (2021) ‘Keeping children safe in education 2020’
• DfE (2020) ‘Meeting the Public Sector Apprenticeship Target’
• ICO (2013) ‘Definition document for the governing bodies of maintained and other state-funded schools in England’

This policy operates in conjunction with the following school policies:

• Acceptable Use Agreement
• Online Safety Policy
• Anti-Bullying and Harassment Policy
• Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy
• Data Protection Policy
• Disciplinary Policy and Procedure

2.    Roles and responsibilities

The communications officer is responsible for:

• The overall management of the school website, ensuring that all content is up-to-date and relevant, and that any statutory requirements are met.
• Creating, monitoring and updating the school website content, unless otherwise agreed by the headteacher.
• Approving any content, in liaison with the headteacher, that other members of staff wish to publish on the school’s website.
• Reporting any problems with the school website to the headteacher.
• Meeting regularly with the headteacher and the governing board to work together to ensure the school website is as effective as possible.

The headteacher is responsible for:

• Assisting the communications officer in ensuring that the school’s website meets any statutory requirements and that content is appropriate for the site.
• Ensuring that all staff who publish content on the school’s website are aware of the relevant child protection, privacy, data protection, liberal, defamation, harassment and copyright laws that may apply.
• Ensuring that all members of staff are aware that they are not permitted to express personal opinions on the website and are aware of the consequences of doing so.
• Authors will be accurate, fair and transparent when creating or altering online sources of information.
• Official school website accounts will not be created for trivial reasons.
• All content expressed on the school website, and any social media accounts, will not breach copyright, data protection or freedom of information legislation.

3.    Access and approval

The trust central team will create and distribute the school website terms of use, which all website content will comply with. Parents, pupils and staff will act in accordance with the terms of use at all times.

Before content is published to the school website, it will be approved by the communications officer. In the absence of the communications officer, the headteacher or other designated member of staff is responsible for approving content to be published. Any member of staff wishing to post content to the school website will consult with the communications officer about the purpose of all proposed content and website activity. Any content that is contributed to by other parties or external organisations is discussed with, and approved by, the communications officer. Permission will be sought from the relevant people before citing or referencing their work.

All written content will go through a quality assurance process before being published to ensure a high-standard of quality and accuracy. All content is proofread by the communications officer or another designated member of staff. Any amendments will be discussed with the author, and the material will be revised appropriately. The communications officer manages the quality assurance process, ensuring that content is published in a timely manner.  Consideration is given to the language that is used on the school website, ensuring that it is appropriate for the audience, e.g. swearing and innuendos will not be tolerated on the website.

Staff members are not permitted to disclose information, make commitments or engage in activities with third parties on behalf of the school without authorisation from the communications officer. Approval for participating on behalf of the school, on websites created by third parties, will be obtained from the communications officer.

The communications officer takes responsibility for considering and evaluating the level of engagement of contributors. The communications officer monitors content uploaded by other users, ensuring that it is compliant with the terms of use. Any content deemed to breach the terms of use will be removed from the school website.  Inappropriate or abusive comments will be removed from the school website immediately and reported to the communications officer. In the case of illegal content or behaviour, the communications officer will inform the appropriate authorities immediately, such as the police and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP).

Any content written by pupils is reviewed by the communications officer or other delegated member of staff prior to publishing to ensure that no personal details are included that could lead to the identification of the pupil.

All content is checked by the communications officer, or other delegated member of staff, for its suitability for its intended audience. All content is reviewed by the communications officer or other delegated member of staff to ensure that it is in no way defamatory. Content is checked by the communications officer or other delegated member of staff to ensure (as far as possible) that no copyright or intellectual property rights are infringed. All links to external sites will be checked for the suitability of their content for their intended audience.

Parents are permitted to request a paper copy of any information published on the school website, and this will be provided free of charge.

4.    Statutory and recommended content

Contact details:

The school publishes:

• The name of the school
• Postal address
• Telephone number
• The name of the member of staff who deals with queries from parents and other members of the public
• The name and contact details of the SENCO
• Name of the headteacher

Admission arrangements:

The LA remains responsible for deciding the school’s admission arrangements; parents should contact the LA for further details.

The school publishes the admission arrangements at the school, which are published each year and kept on the website for the whole academic year, including the following:

• How the school considers applications for every age group
• What parents should do if they want to apply for a place at the school for their child
• The school’s oversubscription criteria
• The published admission number (PAN), and any updates to the PAN
• Details of the person within the admission authority to whom comments may be sent and the areas on which comments are not sought
• Any variation to the admissions arrangements that may happen during the school year

The school also publishes a timetable for organising and hearing admission appeals by 28 February each year. The timetable:

• Outlines the deadline for submitting appeals which allows those making an appeal at least 20 school days from the date of notification that their application was unsuccessful to submit a written appear.
• Includes reasonable deadlines for those submitting an appeal to submit additional evidence, for admissions authorities to submit their evidence and for the clerk to send appeal papers to the panel and parties.
• Ensures those making an appeal receive at least 10 school days’ notice of their appeal hearing.
• Ensures that decision letters are sent within five school days of the hearing, where possible.

Exclusion arrangements:

The school publishes details of its exclusion arrangements.

Policies and procedures:

The school publishes copies of the following policies and procedures:

• Behavioural Policy
• The complaints procedure, including the number of complaints registered under this procedure during the preceding school year
• Arrangements for handling complaints from parents of children with SEND, including information about the support the school provides
• Charging and Remissions Policy
• Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy
• Freedom of Information Policy
• A statement of the school’s values and ethos
• EAL Policy
• Anti-bullying Policy
• First Aid Policy

Freedom of information documents:

The school publishes:

• The publication scheme, which complies with section 19 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
• The ‘guide to information’.
• The schedule of fees (included in the guide to information).

Assessment and attainment information:

The school publishes details of, or a link to, the school’s most recent Ofsted report and a link to the school’s performance tables on the DfE website.

The school also publishes its most recent key stage results, including the following:

• Average progress scores in reading, writing and maths, including the average progress that pupils have made between KS1 and KS2 in reading, writing and maths
• Average ‘scaled scores’ in reading and maths
• Percentage of pupils who achieved the ‘expected standard’ or above in reading, writing and maths
• Percentage of pupils who achieved a high level of attainment in reading, writing and maths

Curriculum information:

The school publishes its curriculum information, including the following:

• Curriculum approach and content for each subject and year group, including RE even if it is taught as part of another subject or subjects, or is called something else
• How additional information about the curriculum can be obtained by parents
• The names of any phonics or reading schemes in operation

Remote education:

The school publishes information about its remote education provision, including:

• Curriculum expectations.
• The daily number of hours that we expect pupils to partake in remote learning for each key stage.
• How to access remote education.
• The approaches to remote education that are used in the school, e.g. live teaching.
• Expectations for pupils’ engagement.
• Expectations for parental support to pupils during remote education.
• Assessment information.
• What additional support is available for pupils with particular needs.

Pupil premium funding:

The school publishes its strategy for the use of pupil premium funding per academic year, including information about the following:

• The school’s pupil premium allocation
• A summary of the main barriers to educational achievement faced by eligible pupils
• How the school will spend the funding to address those barriers
• How the school will measure the impact of the funding
• The date of the next review of the strategy

For the previous academic year, the school publishes:

• How the funding was spent.
• The effect of the expenditure on eligible and other pupils.

The PE and sport premium:

The school publishes information surrounding the PE and sport premium, including the following:

• The allocation for the current academic year
• How the funding will be spent
• The effect of the premium on pupils’ PE and sport participation and attainment
• How last year’s allocation was spent
• How the funding impacted pupils
• How the school will ensure these improvements are sustainable
• How many pupils within the Year 6 cohort can swim competently, confidentially and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres; use a range of strokes effectively; and perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

Coronavirus (COVID-19) catch-up premium

The school publishes details of how the grant will be spent and how the effect of this expenditure on the educational attainment of those pupils at the school will be assessed.

SEND information:

The school publishes:

• A SEN information report on the school’s SEND policy, which will be updated annually and updated during the year as a result of any changes.
• The school’s accessibility plan.
• Details of how the report complies with the Children and Families Act 2014, the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014, including the following details:
  • The kinds of special educational needs for which provision is made at the school.
  • Information about the school’s policies for the identification and assessment of pupils with special educational needs.
  • Information about the school’s policies for making provision for pupils with special educational needs, whether or not pupils have an education, health and care plan.
  • The arrangements for the admission of disabled pupils
  • The steps the school has taken to prevent disabled pupils from being treated less favourably than other pupils
  • The facilities the school provides to help disabled pupils to access the school
  • How the school increases the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the school’s curriculum
  • Plans to improve the physical environment of the school for the purpose of increasing the extent to which disabled pupils are able to take advantage of education and benefits, facilities and services provided or offered by the school
  • Plans to improve the delivery to disabled pupils of information which is readily accessible to pupils who are not disabled

Governance information:

The school publishes up-to-date details of the structure and responsibilities of the governing board and its committees.

The school publishes the following information about each governor:

• Name, data of appointment, terms of office, date they stepped down (where appropriate) and who appointed them
• Business and financial interests
• Governance roles in other educational institutions
• Any material interests arising from relationships between governors or relationships between governors and school staff, e.g. spouses
• Attendance record at governing board and committee meetings over the last academic year

Academy oversight information:

The school publishes:

• The annual accounts, published no later than the end of January following the financial year to which the accounts relate.
• The memorandum and articles of association, annual report, funding agreement (including master and supplementary agreements), and the names of charity trustees and members.
• The structure and remit of the trust’s members, board of trustees, its committees and local governing boards, and the full names of the chair of each (where applicable), including the scheme of delegation for the trust and terms of reference detailing clear lines of accountability.
• Each trustee’s attendance records at board and committee meetings over the last academic year.
• Each local governor’s attendance records at local governing board meetings over the last academic year.
• The full names, dates of appointment, and date of resignation (where applicable) of each member who has served over the past 12 months, and their relevant business and pecuniary interests.
• The full names, dates of appointment, terms of office, dates of resignation (where applicable), the appointing person, and the relevant business and pecuniary interests of each trustee and local governor who has served over the past 12 months.

Financial information:

The trust publishes how many school employees, if any, have a gross annual salary and benefits of £100,000 or more, in increments of £10,000.

Equality objectives:

The school publishes the following details:

• How the school is complying with the public sector equality duty, which we will update every year
• The school’s equality objectives, which we will update at least once every 4 years

Performance tables:

The school includes a link to the school and college performance tables, as well as our performance tables page.

Gender pay gap reporting:

The trust publishes the following gender pay information annually once it employees 250+ employees:

• The difference between the mean hourly rate of pay of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees.
• The difference between the median hourly rate of pay of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees.
• The difference between the mean bonus pay paid to male relevant employees and that paid to female relevant employees.
• The difference between the median bonus pay paid to male relevant employees and that paid to female relevant employees.
• The proportions of male and female relevant employees who were paid bonus pay.
• The proportions of male and female full-pay relevant employees in the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands.

The Trade Union (Facility Time Publication Requirements) Regulations 2017:

As per section 8 of The Trade Union (Facility Time Publication requirements) Regulations 2017, if the employee number condition is met in respect of a relevant period, the school publishes the information that comprises the response to questions, or requests for information, as set out in Schedule 2.

The employee number condition is met if the relevant public sector employer has a full-time equivalent employee number of more than 49 throughout the entirety of any seven of the months within the relevant period.

Public sector apprenticeship target:

The school will publish, on an annual basis, the ‘Data Publication’ information as outlined in ‘Meeting the Public Sector Apprenticeship Target’ (2018), once it employes 250+ employees including:

• The number of employees whose employment in England by the body began in the reporting period in question.
• The number of apprentices who began to work for the body in that period and whose apprenticeship agreements also began in that period.
• The number of employees employed in England that the body has at the end of that period.
• The number of apprentices who work for the body at the end of that period.
• The number of apprentices who worked for the body immediately before that period.
• Headcount on the day before the first day of each reporting period in the target period.

Additionally, the following as percentages:

• The number of apprentices who began to work for the body in that period and whose apprenticeship agreements also began in that period, as a percentage of the number of employees whose employment in England by the body began in the reporting period in question.
• The number of apprentices who work for the body at the end of that period as a percentage of the number of employees employed in England that the body has at the end of that period.
• The number of apprentices who began to work for the body in that period and whose apprenticeship agreements also began in that period as a percentage of a headcount on the day before the first day of each reporting period in the target period.

5.    Information we will not publish

The trust and its schools will not publish information which could reveal confidential information about individual members of the school community. Information which is exempt under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, or is otherwise properly considered to be protected from disclosure, will not be published. We will not publish any information in draft form.

Information which is no longer readily available as it is contained in files that have been placed in archive storage, or is difficult to access for similar reasons, will not be published.

All information that is to be published will be checked by both the DSL and the DPO, where appropriate, to ensure that the content is in accordance with safeguarding and data protection regulations.

6.    Data protection

School website content will not identify any pupil by their full name nor will the school allow identifying information to be published without the written consent of a parent. Personal details of pupils or staff, such as home addresses, telephone numbers and personal email addresses, will not hosted on the school website.

Images and videos of pupils will not be published without written consent from a parent. Any images of pupils will not be labelled with their full names. The school website does not feature any close-up pictures of individual pupils – only group photographs with two or more pupils will be published. Pupils are only shown in photos where they are suitably dressed – the DSL will be consulted before photos are published.

Permission is obtained from parents before publishing the work of any pupil. Only the pupil’s first name and year group are used to identify the work. Parents have the right to refuse permission for their child’s work and/or image to be published on the school website. Those wishing to exercise this right should express their wishes in writing to the headteacher, clearly stating whether they object to work, images or both being published.

The school website uses cookies, also known as internet cookies or web cookies, which are a type of message that is given to a web browser by a web server. The school has a duty to notify users if a cookie is sent to them, which may be stored by their browser on their computer's hard drive. The school may use the information obtained from the cookie in the administration of the school website, to improve the website's usability and for marketing purposes. The school may use the information gathered from the cookie to recognise a user’s computer when they visit the school website, and to personalise the school’s website for the user.

7.    Moderating and reviewing website content

All content is moderated and reviewed, using the terms of use as guidance.

The central team with other designated members of SLT review the content of the school website on an ongoing basis and ensure all information is up-to-date. In case of absence, other members of staff are adequately trained and prepared to maintain and moderate the school website and any social media accounts.

All external links used on the school website site are checked and monitored to ensure that they are safe and appropriate for the intended audience.

8.    Website disclaimer

The information on the school website is provided free-of-charge, and therefore, the school believes that it would be unreasonable to hold the school liable in respect of the website and the information on the website. The school ensures that the information on the website is correct and kept up-to-date as much as possible.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the school excludes all representations, warranties and conditions.

An appropriate disclaimer features on the website, outlining the school’s legal position and interests in terms of the use of the website.

The school will not be liable for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage arising under this disclaimer or in connection with the school website, whether arising in tort, contract, or otherwise – including, without limitation, any loss of profit, contracts, business, goodwill, data, income, revenue or anticipated savings.

9.    License to use the website

Parents and the public may view and download school website content for caching purposes only, and print pages from the website, provided that:

• Material is not republished or reproduced from this website (including republication on another website) in any public or private electronic retrieval system.
• Material on the school website is not reproduced, duplicated, copied, sold or otherwise exploited for a commercial purpose, without the school’s express written consent.

10. Breaches

Any breach of this policy may lead to disciplinary action being taken against the staff member(s) involved, in line with the school’s Disciplinary Policy and Procedure. Any action that is taken against breaches of this policy will be in accordance with the relevant disciplinary procedures. Breaches of confidentiality, defamation or damage to the reputation of the school may result in disciplinary action or dismissal.