Privacy Notice

School Nest is operated by GROWFORTH MEDIA LIMITED, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16022328). We are the controller of the personal information described in this notice.

Privacy questions and requests: hello@schoolnest.co.uk. General enquiries: hello@schoolnest.co.uk.

• You can browse, search and compare schools without an account, and we don't track you for advertising.
• Optional Google Analytics 4 is used only if you give analytics consent. Necessary storage works if you reject analytics. We do not track you for advertising or send enquiry, claim or payment form contents to Google Analytics. We do not send marketing emails.
• School Nest holds information about schools as institutions, not public profiles of children.
• Pro subscription payments are handled by our payment providers — GoCardless for Direct Debit, and Stripe for existing card subscriptions. School Nest never receives or stores full card numbers, security codes (CVC) or bank account details.
• Questions you type into School Nest AI are not stored by School Nest.

Visitors. When you visit, our hosting provider processes technical information needed to deliver and protect the site, such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested. See our Cookie Policy for the necessary storage and separately consented optional analytics storage used.

Location searches. If you search by postcode or place, it is used to find nearby schools and calculate distance. We don't link searches to an identity.

Account holders. Your email address, password (stored only in a secure hashed form by our authentication provider), name if you give it, sign-in records and account settings. If you choose Google sign-in, we receive your name, email address and Google account identifier from Google.

Parents and carers sending enquiries. Your name, email, optional phone number, optional child's age or year group, optional intended entry year, the enquiry topic and your message. Please don't include medical, safeguarding or other sensitive information.

School claimants. Your name, role, work email, phone number, the school you are claiming, any supporting information you provide, and records of how the claim was reviewed.

School members and staff. Your account details, your role at the school, invitations, and the changes you make to the school's listing, news, events and photos.

Billing customers (schools on Pro). Subscription plan, status, dates, payment-provider customer, mandate and subscription references, and payment status. Bank or card details are entered directly with the payment provider (GoCardless for Direct Debit, or Stripe for existing card subscriptions).

School-supplied content. Text, logos, photographs, news and events a school publishes. Photographs may show identifiable people; schools are responsible for having permission to publish them.

AI features. Your question or search description is sent to our AI provider to generate a response. We keep limited usage records (such as request counts and a random per-visit identifier for rate limiting), not the text of questions or answers.

Security and audit records. Records of important actions (for example claim reviews, role changes and billing events) so we can keep the service secure and accountable.

Email delivery. When we send you a service email (for example account confirmation, password reset, claim updates or an enquiry notification to a school), we keep a delivery record.

With your consent, School Nest uses Google Analytics 4, provided by Google, to understand visits to public pages and school discovery. We measure public page views, school-profile views and coarse school-search activity, such as whether standard or AI search is used. We do not send search text or location input. We do not measure claims, Pro-upgrade journeys, paid subscriptions, purchases or revenue in this initial release.

Analytics may process a pseudonymous browser identifier, visit timing, the public page or event being measured, and technical information available through the service. Google receives connection information, including an IP address, when your browser contacts its services. Google states that GA4 does not log or store individual IP addresses. Analytics information is not anonymous merely because we do not send your name.

Enhanced Measurement, Google signals, user-provided data collection and granular location and device collection are switched off. Advertising personalisation is disabled in all regions. Our six reviewed advertising-related product integrations are not linked. We do not use this integration for advertising or install Google Tag Manager. These settings do not mean Google receives no technical information.

School Nest does not include search text, postcode or location input, enquiry messages, pupil or parent details, form names, email addresses, phone numbers, payment or bank details, authentication tokens, or URL query strings or fragments in the analytics events it sends. Analytics is not loaded on sign-in, account, administration, claim-form or billing pages. Claim, upgrade and payment events are not queued for later delivery.

A request about a public page initiated while analytics consent was valid may still finish, or be retried by Google’s service, shortly after you withdraw consent or move to a private page. Removing a script or cookies cannot guarantee recall of an already-started request. This does not permit new analytics events after withdrawal or measurement of private pages or their contents.

Consent is the basis for optional analytics storage and the associated personal-data processing. Rejecting analytics does not restrict necessary website functionality. Select Cookie preferences in the footer to change or withdraw consent. Withdrawal stops new analytics event delivery and removes accessible first-party analytics cookies where technically possible. It does not automatically delete information already received by Google.

Google may process analytics information outside the UK. We use Google’s applicable data-processing terms and retain information about relevant international-transfer arrangements. The safeguards that apply depend on the recipient and transfer route. You can contact us for further information. Google’s privacy information is available at policies.google.com/privacy.

Privacy requests can be sent to hello@schoolnest.co.uk. The rights, response procedures and ICO complaints information elsewhere in this Notice continue to apply.

• Providing your account and School Nest features — performance of a contract with you.
• Passing a parent enquiry to the chosen school — our legitimate interest, and yours, in connecting families with schools. You also confirm you're happy for the school to contact you.
• Verifying school claims and preventing fraud — legitimate interests in making sure only authorised people manage a school listing.
• Pro subscriptions and billing — contract, and legal obligation for accounting and tax records.
• Security, abuse prevention and audit — legitimate interests in keeping the service safe.
• Service emails — contract or legitimate interests. We don't send marketing emails.
• Optional website analytics — consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• Complying with law or responding to lawful requests — legal obligation.

We rely on consent only where it is genuinely appropriate. Where we do, you can withdraw it at any time.

We use a small number of service providers who process data on our behalf:

• Hosting and database infrastructure — runs the website, database, file storage and sign-in (including Cloudflare at the network edge).
• Resend — sends service emails.
• GoCardless — processes Pro subscription payments by Direct Debit. GoCardless also acts as an independent controller for some payment data under its own privacy notice.
• Stripe — processes payments for existing card subscriptions. Stripe also acts as an independent controller for some payment data under its own privacy notice.
• AI service — questions are sent through our AI gateway to an OpenAI model to produce answers.
• Google — if you choose Google sign-in, and separately for optional Google Analytics 4 when you give analytics consent.
• Postcodes.io — our server looks up postcode coordinates; your identity is not sent.

Parent enquiries are shared with the school you choose to contact. Claim information is seen by the School Nest team reviewing it. We don't sell personal information.

Some of the service providers we use may process personal information outside the UK, including in the European Economic Area or the United States. Where this involves an international transfer of personal information, UK data-protection law may require specific protections. We assess the transfer arrangements that apply to the services we use and will update this notice where necessary. You can contact us for more information about how your information is handled.

• Google Analytics: user-level and event-level retention is configured to two months, without resetting retention on new user activity. This does not govern all aggregated reporting; aggregated reports may remain longer. Consent choices and cookies have separate durations in the Cookie Policy.
• Account information: while your account is active, and for a limited period afterwards where needed.
• Parent enquiries: we aim to keep these for up to 24 months unless needed longer for an active matter or legal reason.
• Claim information and evidence: we aim to keep this for up to 12 months after a claim is finally resolved, unless needed for fraud, dispute or legal reasons.
• Billing and accounting records: as long as accounting and tax law requires.
• Security and audit records: for an appropriate security and legal period.
• Email delivery records and AI usage records: only as long as operationally necessary.

We do not keep personal information for longer than we reasonably need it for the purposes described in this notice. We are establishing retention and review procedures to support the periods described above. Where information is no longer required, it will be deleted or anonymised where appropriate.

School Nest is designed for parents, carers and school staff. Accounts are not intended for children. We don't publish pupil profiles or reviews, and we ask parents not to include sensitive information about their child in enquiries.

Depending on the circumstances, you have the right to:

• access the personal information we hold about you
• have inaccurate information corrected
• have information deleted
• restrict how we use it
• object to processing based on legitimate interests
• data portability, where applicable
• withdraw consent where we rely on it

Making a request. There isn't a self-service download or deletion tool yet. Email hello@schoolnest.co.uk from the address linked to your account (if you have one) and tell us what you'd like. We may need to confirm your identity. We'll respond within one month.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk. We'd appreciate the chance to help first.

We use access controls, encryption in transit, database security rules and audit logging to protect information. No online service can be completely secure, so please use a strong, unique password.

We'll update this notice when the service changes and show the date of the latest version at the top of this page.