Rye College and Aquinas Church of England Education Trust (collectively referred to as 'We' or 'Us') acknowledges the importance of the privacy of the users (Your/ You) of its websites.

Your right to privacy is an important concern to Us and We wish to protect the privacy of the personally identifiable information You share with Us when You choose to contact Us via the website such as Your name address, email address, phone number, IP address and the page requested. This information is automatically received by Us and stored on our servers.

We only use the information which is provided through the website to help Us provide You with the information You have requested and for other operational and internal purposes. We will only collect Your personal information if You provide it voluntarily. If You do not want this information to be collected by us, please do not submit it. We will never pass any of these details on to any other party unless legally compelled to do so and We will not retain Your personal information longer than is necessary for the purpose for which it is collected.

We also believe it is important to inform You about how We will use Your personal data, and to give You choices about how Your data will be used. Therefore, We encourage You to read the Trust’s Data Protection Policy.

We may from time to time, but are not obligated to, monitor Your use of the web site and collect, store and use personal information about You for providing the service requested. You hereby consent to such collection, storage, use and disclosure and waive any right of privacy You may have. You may access, correct and delete your own personal information stored by Us by contacting Us in writing.

There is no guarantee that personal information and transactions on this web site or on the internet will be maintained confidential and secure. The use of this web site and the content is at your own risk and the school assumes no liability or responsibility pertaining to the content, your use of the web site or the receipt, storage, transmission or other use of your personal information. 

Information about cookies

We are aware of our responsibility to protect your privacy. As part of this responsibility, we let you know what information we collect using cookies when you use our websites, why we collect it and how we use it to improve your experience. You should read this policy in conjunction with the Privacy Policy for our website.

What is a cookie?

Cookies are small files that allow a website to recognise and track users. They consist of simple text files of letters and numbers which are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit our website.

Most cookies will not collect information that personally identifies you. They will collect more general information such as how users arrive at and use our website, or a user’s general location.

How we use cookies

We use cookies to provide you with a positive experience when you browse through our website. Cookies measure how many people use our website so that we can make it easier to use and ensure there’s enough capacity to make pages load quickly.

Generally, our cookies perform up to three different functions:

• Strictly Essential Cookies– These are cookies that are required for our website to operate properly. They enhance the site’s functionality and provide you with an optimal experience as a website user. They also allow you to make use of our online systems, for example, our online “Contact” form. Without essential cookies, our site won’t function properly, and if you set your internet browser to reject all cookies, then some elements of the site may not work for you.
• Third Party Cookies– These are cookies found in other companies’ internet tools which we are using to enhance our site. For example, we have the school’s Twitter feed on our homepage, and use Google Maps to show where our school is located. We have no control over the cookies set by Twitter or Google. You can visit help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-cookies to find out more about how Twitter uses cookies or policies.google.com/technologies/cookies to find out more about how Google uses cookies.
• Analytical/Performance Cookies– These are cookies that allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors to the website and see how visitors move around the website when they are using it. We use Google Analytics cookies to track anonymous usage statistics and do not collect any personal information that can be used to identify you. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. For further information see Google’s Privacy Policy at www.google.com/policies/privacy.

While there are many legitimate uses for cookies to improve convenience and efficiency, some uses of cookies can lead to privacy concerns. These concerns typically emerge when a cookie holding personal information identifying you (e.g., name, email address, postal address etc.) is used across multiple sites to track users and internet usage.

We are aware of our responsibility to protect your privacy. As part of this responsibility, we let you know what information we collect using cookies when you use our websites, why we collect it and how we use it to improve your experience. You should read this policy in conjunction with the Privacy Policy for our website.

The Aquinas Church of England Education Trust does not use cookies to hold any personal information or track users across multiple sites.

How you can withdraw your consent to the use of cookies

If you do not consent to the use of cookies on our website, you can exit our site now, or you can choose to disable/block cookies through your browser’s settings and continue to use our site without cookies. You can learn how to disable cookies, or how to remove cookies that have already been set on your computer/mobile device at: www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies.

Disabling cookies will, however, impact on the functionality of our website and you may find that some pages fail to display correctly or some of our interactive features do not work for you.

For any queries relating to the use of cookies, please contact our Data Protection Officer:

Data Protection Officer

Aquinas Church of England Education Trust

Magpie Hall Lane

Bromley BR2 8HZ

Or, by email to info@aquinastrust.org.

If you would like a paper copy of this policy, we will provide this free of charge.

Further information on cookies

For more information about how to manage cookies and their uses visit All About Cookies.

For information regarding the updated law on cookies, visit the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).