STEER Student Mobile App Privacy Notice
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STEER Privacy Notice for Student Mobile App
STEER Assessment Information-Mobile App [Privacy Notice for the Student App-last updated 28/03/2025]
What is the STEER Assessment?
The STEER assessment is a short online exercise that will help your school to know and understand you better. It’s provided by a company called STEER Education Ltd [‘STEER’]. The assessment isn’t like the usual kind of questionnaire you might have done at school before with questions like “Do you like school?” It is very quick (only takes 10 minutes) and involves you doing a short imagination exercise, then clicking on your answers, 1-6.
Your answers are combined to measure what we call your ‘steering’ using an automated calculation (called an algorithm). You should know that there are no right or wrong answers to the questions, only your answers. The assessment measures the following factors about you, but they are not ‘fixed’ and your profile may change over time; they do not measure ‘who’ you are, but ‘where’ you are with your social and emotional adolescent journey:
1.Self-disclosure – measures how much you choose to share or keep private what you are thinking or feeling.
2.Trust of Self – measures how much you choose to trust or question yourself.
3.Trust of Others – measures how much you choose to trust or question others.
- Seeking change – measures how much you seek or limit change, novelty and risk.
By completing the assessment each term your teachers can understand how best to support you over time especially when you face challenges in your life.
Do I have to take part?
You should talk to your teachers about any objections you have about participating in STEER. Your school has responsibilities to support your social and emotional development and STEER is a system that will enable your teachers to do that well. The information provided about you when you do the assessment will be used for the purposes of supporting your social and emotional development.
The legal basis under the UK GDPR
Your school will confirm the legal basis applied for the STEER assessment. As a third-party data processor, STEER would claim legitimate interest for the processing of your data for the purposes of STEER assessments under Article 6 because without processing the data your school would not be able to use STEER.
What information is collected about you?
For you to take the STEER assessment, information will be added to the STEER platform (for example your name, date of birth, gender, school year and your school ID). These are the minimum data fields needed for STEER. A ‘pseudonym’ or name code may be added instead of your full name as an additional way to keep your identity (name) safe on the platform.
Sometimes, extra information allowing a more detailed picture of how all the STEER data fits within your school community groups is added if your school decides the categories are important to evaluate. This is to make sure all the different groups in school are given the best pastoral support possible. You can ask your teacher to confirm the additional fields they have chosen to include for this purpose. A full additional data list is here that your school will select from: Tutor, Boarding/Academic House, Form/Tutor Group, Campus, Passport Nationality, Ethnicity, Special Educational Needs or Disability-SEND flag, Additional Educational Needs-AEN flag, English as an Additional Language-EAL flag, Gifted and Talented, Looked After Child/Ever in care (LEA/LAC), Free School Meals Premium, Pupil Premium, school email address].
Assessment data: When you complete the assessment, the results are numerical for the four factors mentioned above and this also counts as special category personal data about you.
The STEER platform only holds the information needed to make the best use of the STEER. It is not possible for you to complete the STEER assessment without uploading some of your personal information to the STEER platform (your name, date of birth, gender, school year and your school ID).
How do STEER use the information about you?
STEER does not share, disclose or sell any of your personal data being processed for STEER with other companies or people.
Aggregated or ‘merged’ assessment data is used for statistical analysis or scientific research and is anonymised for this purpose, so you cannot be identified from it and no information is left meaning someone could guess who you are.
Student Wellbeing Development Platform
*New for Sept 2025 is the Student Feedback feature. This new addition to the Student Wellbeing and Development Platform allows your school to send targeted feedback and support for students in Year 7 to 13 via your school email. The feedback will be sent after each assessment. The feedback will provide an explanation for a ‘focus’ question from the assessment for the answer you provided from the Likert Scale (1-6). The focus questions will change each round of assessment. The explanation will explain your strengths and potential challenges academically, socially and for your well-being. Additionally, some reflection questions will support your personal development. Example feedback here
The STEER Mobile Phone App
STEER has developed a mobile App (‘the App’) so that you are able to complete the STEER assessment on your own mobile device rather than having to log in to the STEER platform on a school device or PC. You will use your STEER school credentials to log in to the App, which contains your name/name code and password but no other personal information. STEER does not collect any additional personal information about you when you install or use the App
on your device apart from the assessment data (your answers). The STEER answers will be available for your pastoral tutors to see on their platform as they have been previously once you have completed the assessment on the App.
Who will have access to the information we hold about you?
Only people who need access to the data are given access and this is strictly controlled by your school and STEER. Your school and STEER must look after your personal information very carefully and, because you are young, the law regards your data, which includes the assessment results, to be especially worthy of the greatest care and responsibility, so it is known as ‘special category data’.
STEER has highly skilled trainers, all qualified and experienced teachers, who will be helping your teachers to be able to understand the STEER assessment information. After this training, your teachers will be able to read the assessment results without help from STEER. For the training provided to your teachers, STEER will not see your full name, only the name code, even if your school uses your full name on the platform.
Keeping your information secure
STEER goes to great lengths to keep your personal information safe. This includes technical and organisational security measures to protect your information, which is held in UK/EU data centres. STEER has a separate Data collection, Retention and security document which details those arrangements. You can request a copy of this document from your teacher as it is available on the teacher STEER platform.
How long is your personal data kept for STEER?
Your STEER data is kept on the STEER platform for the time you are participating in the STEER assessment. Once you have left your school, and the STEER account becomes inactive, all your personal data is anonymised, and only the assessment results are kept for scientific research and statistical purposes. No one will be able to guess that the data is about you after it’s been anonymised.
Who is STEER?
STEER is a pioneering educational research and technology company based in the UK founded in 2000. Its founders are Dr Simon Walker DProf, MTh, MA Oxon, BTh, MBPsS, a cognitive scientist and Honorary Fellow Bristol Graduate School of Education, and Dr Jo Walker, DProf, BA, QTS, former Deputy Head, BESD Local Authority advisor and expert in adolescent self-regulation. Together they have over 40 years of educational experience.
Who can I contact for further information?
If you would like further information about STEER, please speak to the Deputy Head Pastoral or your pastoral tutor who will explain more and provide extra information for you.
Your data protection rights
You have the right to a copy of the information held about you on the STEER platform and to request a correction, if needed. Please ask your teacher if you have any objections to your data being processed or would like to exercise your data protection rights.
STEER is a data processor but will assist your school (data controller) with any request they receive from someone about the data held on the platform, if needed.
Further Information about STEER
Registered Company Address: Jasmine House, 7 St Margaret’s Street, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, BA15 1DA STEER ICO Registration Number: ZA193698
Email address and phone contact of STEER DP Lead: [email protected], 01225 667232; or the registered DPO for STEER: Data Privacy Services or [email protected]
Complaints
If you wish to make a complaint about how your personal data is being processed by your school or STEER, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the data regulator (The ICO) who can be contacted here: Home | ICO
By Post: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
