Privacy Information

The department collects information to ensure compliance with its obligations under laws governing or relating to compulsory school education such as those in the areas of education, public health, disability discrimination and child protection and its duty of care. Information the department may collect includes:

• child medical and health conditions and their management, medical records and medical practitioner details
• family details, relevant court orders and parent/carer and emergency contact information, schooling history including previous schools attended
• details about child welfare and wellbeing including attendance and behaviour management
• information on special learning and support needs including disability
• records of children’s educational progress and outcomes
• confirmation of the child’s identity and date of birth and of the address where home schooling will take place

Information is collected for the primary purpose of providing every child with the opportunity to achieve their educational potential and for other directly related purposes including but not limited to:

• the review, assessment and determination of applications for home schooling and management of such registration, including communicating with parents and carers
• ensuring the safety and welfare of children, staff and others involved with the management of home schooling
• conducting lawful research and compiling statistics relating to the delivery of home schooling
• informing State and Federal Governments on matters that may affect resourcing of educational authorities
• operational and administrative purposes
• determining whether children are meeting compulsory school requirements
• satisfying the department’s legal obligations, in particular, its duty of care

Information is generally collected directly from the person to whom it relates. In many circumstances information about children is collected from parents or carers with responsibility for the child’s welfare and learning.

Collection of information from a child depends on the nature of the information involved, the maturity and capacity of the child and whether it is in the child’s best interests.

When parents and carers provide the Home Schooling Directorate with personal information about others, such as emergency contacts and other parent /carer details they should obtain the person’s authority and inform them that the information is held by the Home Schooling Directorate so they may access it.

The Home Schooling Directorate may collect personal and health information about children named in an application for home schooling or registered for home schooling from other agencies or individuals if required and permitted by the Education Act 1990, child protection legislation or other law.

The department endeavours to ensure that the personal and health information it collects and holds is accurate, complete and up to date by encouraging families to regularly update the information if there are changes and by allowing access to and alteration of the information.

Requests to access and update personal and health information should be made directly to homeschooling@det.nsw.edu.au. The department’s Privacy Standards has information about how requests are handled.

Parents and carers may be denied access to student information in certain circumstances such as when it may result in a breach of the department’s duty of care or other legal obligation, it would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others or where the information was provided in confidence.

The department will only disclose personal and health information to other agencies or persons outside the department in compliance with privacy legislation or as permitted or required by any other law.

The department may disclose personal and health information to other government agencies for the purposes of national reporting.

The department may disclose personal and health information for research and evaluation purposes under some circumstances. Such disclosure only occurs if it is consistent with privacy legislation, where the research or evaluation will be of public benefit and where the department is confident that personal and health information will be protected against further disclosure.

The department’s Privacy Standards details the department’s practices and procedures for handling personal and health information. It can be accessed from the department’s website. Concerns about the collection or handling of personal or health information should initially be raised with relevant staff at homeschooling@det.nsw.edu.au.