PRIVACY NOTICE - Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement Award 

For the information of parents/guardians of students who will receive a Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement (JCPA) award.

Introduction 

It is required by data protection law that before schools commence processing of any personal data a school must first bring a privacy notice on how the student’s personal data will be processed to the attention of parents/guardians. This privacy notice relates to those students who have undertaken Junior Cycle at either Level 3 or Level 2 of the National Qualifications Framework. Junior Cycle Level 3 includes exams set by the State Examinations Commission (SEC), where the provisional results are provided to schools and students in the September following the sitting of the State examinations. Junior Cycle Level 2 Learning Programmes are designed for students with particular special educational needs and is broadly aligned to Level 2 of the National Framework for Qualifications (NFQ). In some instances students will undertake a combination of a Level 2 and Level 3 programme. 

Process 

This document sets out the information in relation to how students’ Junior Cycle assessment data will be used to produce the Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement (JCPA). The JCPA has replaced the Junior Certificate award. 

Where student details are currently maintained on the Department’s Post-Primary Online Database (PPOD2) the JCPA will be produced by schools via PPOD. Where student details are not held on PPOD (e.g. special schools) the JCPA will be produced via the Junior Cycle Assessment Database (JCAD3). 

Schools will be enabled to record additional assessment student data on PPOD or JCAD for the purpose of producing a Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement (JCPA) for each of their students who completes the Junior Cycle. 

This approach enables 

a] schools to record on PPOD or JCAD the descriptors awarded in Classroom-Based Assessments in subjects and short courses and also reflect achievement in Priority Learning Units (PLUs) for students with special educational needs. 

b] the State Examinations Commission (SEC) to provide state examinations final results electronically to the Department of Education and Skills for upload to PPOD and JCAD and association of these results with each student. 

c] the Department of Education and Skills to provide the JCPAs electronically to schools/centres of education for each student. 

d] Schools/centres of education to complete the ‘other areas of learning’ section of the JCPA for each student and deliver the award to students. The ‘other areas of learning’ section of the JCPA allows the school/centre 

of education to report on other learning experiences and events that the student has participated in outside the formal timetabled curriculum. The data entered at school level for ‘other areas of learning’ will not be stored on the Department’s database. 

e] following production of the JCPA for each student the school/centre of education to retain a copy of the full JCPA for each student. 

f] the data to be anonymised once JCPAs are produced and used in statistical analysis. No identifiable individual data is used by the Department 

It should be noted that only a small number of staff within the Department of Education & Skills has access to the personal data and then solely to provide technical support to your school/centre of education when it is using PPOD or JCAD. 

Student data as set out below will not be shared with anyone else other than another post-primary school in which the student enrols. 

Pursuant to Section 3 and Section 4 of the Data Protection Acts, you may access your personal data and request a copy of your data held on PPOD by contacting your school, or if you are a former student by contacting the Department of Education & Skills 

Under data protection law you may object to the processing of your data or seek to have the data corrected 

More detail on use of personal data by the Department is contained in the FAQ on P-POD available on https://www.education.ie/en/The-Department/Data-Protection/FAQ.html 

The Department of Education & Skills Data Controller for PPOD is the Principal Officer in the Parents, Learners and Database Section within the Department who can be contacted by e-mailing p-podhelpdesk@education.gov.ie 

The Data Protection Officer for the Department may be contacted by e-mailing gdpr@education.gov.ie 

List of post-primary student personal data4 recorded by post-primary schools on PPOD or JCAD for the purpose of producing the Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement (JCPA). 

Sensitive Personal Data for some students with a special education need 

Priority Learning Unit descriptor 

Priority Learning Unit medium – Irish/English 

Priority Learning Unit outcome 

Written consent should be sought from the parents/guardians of students with special educational needs (see template below). 

For each subject where an examination held by the State Examinations Commission was taken 

Level taken in the final examination 

Outcome of Classroom-Based Assessments 1 and 25 

Predicted medium through which final examination taken Irish/English 

Overall grade awarded by State Examinations Commission 

Annotation of result to indicate a subject was assessed except for a particular element e.g. aural is missing 

For each short course taken 

Title 

Level of Learning Programme - 2 or 3 

Medium Irish/English 

Outcome of Classroom- Based Assessment 

In addition the following data provide by the State Examinations Commission will be printed on your JCPA 

Forename and Surname – as provided to the State Examination Commission 

Date of Birth – to aid identification whether there are more than two students with the same name 

State examination candidate number – to assist with any follow up query with State Examinations 

Information on other personal data stored outside of PPOD and used by your school in producing your JCPA is available in your school’s Data Protection Policy a copy of which may be obtained from your school. 

Information on the all other personal data of students collected and processed by schools using PPOD is available in the Fair Processing Note for P-POD copies of which are available at www.education.ie