Privacy Notice

The National Society for Education, Mentoring and Media (NSEMM), a charitable incorporated organisation (charity number 1209673), is the controller of the personal information described here. Our ICO registration number is ZC161181. This is our only privacy notice. It covers families, pupils, tutors, staff, volunteers, job applicants, donors, referrers and visitors to our websites.

In short

• We collect what we need to arrange and run tutoring and mentoring, keep children safe, pay our tutors and staff, take payments and donations, and run the charity.
• We never sell your information and never use it for advertising.
• What a family pays is private. Only the person who pays, our administrators, finance staff and the Fund officer see it. Tutors, pupils, volunteers and other staff never do.
• Help with the cost. If you ask our Community Education Fund for help, we ask about your household’s money and check documents. A person confirms every amount. Your detailed answers and documents are deleted 28 days after we tell you our decision.
• Lessons are recorded to keep children safe and to check teaching quality. LessonSpace deletes the recording 90 days after the lesson. We keep the written transcript and summary while your family has lessons or an open application with us, and delete them 90 days after you leave, unless they are needed for a safeguarding concern.
• Safeguarding comes first. If we are worried a child is at risk of harm, we may share information with the right people without asking first, as the law allows.
• We keep information only as long as our Data Retention Schedule says, then delete it or make it anonymous.
• You have rights, including to see a copy of your information. Our data protection lead is our Chief Executive Officer: [email protected]

What we hold, why, and for how long

“Retention” points to the row of the same name in our Data Retention Schedule, which has the full detail.

Our website statistics are made anonymous and set no tracking cookies.

Lesson ratings and check-ins

After a lesson we invite you to rate it with one tap, and you can add a comment if you want to. We also ask families for a short check-in: after the second lesson, in late November, in late February, in June (not for pupils in Years 11 and 13, who have exams), and when tutoring ends. There is one form for the family, with a part for the parent or carer and a part for each child, which the child can also fill in from their own Learn login. Each answer is a choice from five (for example from “Not at all” to “Definitely”) or a short comment. The child’s part asks how the lessons are going and how they feel about school work; the parent’s part asks how much the lessons are helping, how confident each child is, and a few questions about NSEMM.

Check-ins are optional, and you can skip any question. Nothing you say changes your tutor, your lessons or your place with us. For places funded by our Community Education Fund, the start and end check-ins are part of the Fund agreement: the parent’s part is needed and the child’s part is strongly encouraged, but your answers still never affect your place. If it is easier, a member of our family liaison team can go through it with you by phone; we then record that the answers were given by phone with them, and a child’s part is only filled in this way if the child gives the answers on the call.

We use the answers to look after the quality of lessons, to improve how we run NSEMM, and to see, in totals, whether lessons are making a difference, so we can show our funders and trustees what changed for children. Tutors never see what any one person said: they see their own overall scores only after talking them through with their lead. Comments are read only by our leads. We report totals only, never a child’s name, and we do not report a group of fewer than five.

If a check-in is open, you will see it on your To do list and your Learn home page. For the optional check-ins we do not email you. For the start and end check-ins of a Fund place we send at most three reminders while it is open (on the day it opens, 4 days later and 10 days later), following your email preferences, and then a member of our team may phone to offer to go through it with you. Nobody loses lessons for not filling it in.

Decisions made with rules

• Your Fund amount. A published rule (in our Community Education Fund Access Policy) compares what your household has left each week after rent or mortgage with the Minimum Income Standard and suggests an amount between £5 and £18 an hour. A person checks your evidence and confirms every amount before you are charged it.
• Priority score. When there are more families than funded places, we put applications in order using: financial need, a child who is looked after or a care leaver, exams soon, time waiting, a professional referral, special educational needs or disability (only with your consent), missing school or at risk of exclusion, and a brother or sister already with us. We never use area, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, marriage or first language. A person makes every offer. The score never changes what you pay.
• Rules applied straight away. Fund help is not offered for children in Year 5 or below, for elective home education, or for independent schools. If an answer we hold is wrong, tell us and a person will check it.
• Your right to a person’s review. You can ask a person to look again at any Fund decision within 28 days, give your view and challenge it. A different person decides a second review.
• Safety checks. Our systems look for words that may show a child is at risk and flag them to the safeguarding lead. They decide nothing on their own.

Safeguarding and onward support

If an application says a child of compulsory school age is not in education, our safeguarding lead is told so they can check the child is safe; we tell the family. If we cannot offer a place, we may give you details of other organisations; we do not send them your information. If another service could help more, our safeguarding lead may ask, through your portal, whether you agree to us passing on your details, and a person does it only if you agree. None of this changes what happens if a child may be at risk of harm: then we follow our Safeguarding Policy.

Who we share information with

We use these organisations to run our services. Each acts on our instructions under a contract.

We also share information when the law requires it, with the police, social care or other agencies to protect a child, and with a referrer as described above. Partner schools see their own pupils’ attendance, lesson notes and group chat.

Information sent outside the UK

Some of these organisations, or their suppliers, are based in or can access data from the United States, the EU or South Africa (LessonSpace). Where that happens, it is protected by UK adequacy regulations or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

• give you a copy of your information (including how a Fund amount was worked out and any priority score);
• correct it, delete it, or limit how we use it;
• stop using it where we rely on legitimate interests, or for marketing at any time;
• give it to you in a format you can reuse;
• have a person look again at a decision made with rules.

Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time, in your portal or by email. If you withdraw consent for health information, we delete it, remove any health reason from a request to pay less, and stop counting special educational needs in the order for funded places. Young people can ask about their own information. We usually answer within one month, free of charge. We may need to check who you are. Some information, such as safeguarding records, may have to be kept even if you ask us to delete it.

Complaints

Please tell us first at [email protected] and we will reply within 4 weeks. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office: ico.org.uk, 0303 123 1113, or Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Contact

Our data protection lead is our Chief Executive Officer: [email protected]

You can also use our support form. To report a worry about a child, follow our Safeguarding Policy.

We review this notice every year and when we change how we use information. Last updated: 19/10/2026.