Overview

This document sets out the Terms and Conditions (Ts&Cs) for schools using the GO 4 Schools system ("GO 4 Schools"). It outlines the services offered by Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd

("Hyperspheric") to schools as they are understood by the schools. The Ts&Cs is a living document and may be revised by Hyperspheric from time to time. The latest version will always be available here.

Purpose and scope

The purpose of this document is to ensure that proper mechanisms are in place to provide high quality service and support to GO 4 Schools users. This document provides a clear description of service ownership, roles and responsibilities, service quality metrics, and available support. The scope is limited to the GO 4 Schools system. It is understood that while diligent effort will be made to fulfil the Ts&Cs, there might be exceptional circumstances when they are not realised.  

Stakeholders

The stakeholders in the GO 4 Schools system are listed below:

• Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd – providers of the GO 4 Schools system.
• Schools – subscribers to the GO 4 Schools system.  
• Students – students who attend a school using GO 4 Schools.
• Parents – parents of students who attend a school using GO 4 Schools.
• Governors – Members of the Governing body of a school using GO 4 Schools.
• MAT staff – Members of Multi-Academy Trusts whose schools are using GO 4 Schools.

Responsibilities  

Hyperspheric will be responsible for:

• Managing and maintaining the GO 4 Schools servers, including assuring their internet connectivity.
• Developing and maintaining the GO 4 Schools software, and keeping schools aware of new features and improvements via the GO 4 Schools web site. Web pages will be optimised for modern browsers at 100% zoom with screen resolutions of 1024x768 or higher.
• Fixing bugs within the GO 4 Schools software.
• Data security for data held on the GO 4 Schools servers and for communication between these servers and the internet.
• Secure nightly data backup and disaster recovery of data.
• Backing up and scanning uploaded documents for viruses. See Appendix E for information about data storage limits.
• Providing schools with approved training in the use of GO 4 Schools in line with the level set out on the order form.
• Providing technical support to schools, as outlined in the Available Technical Support section.
• Providing remote assistance for schools to complete the initial installation of the GO 4 Schools feed system.

Schools will be responsible for:

• Installation of the feed system – potentially with assistance from Hyperspheric - within 30 days of the receipt of the purchase order. This includes resolving any firewall issues, etc, so that the initial dataset can be received by Hyperspheric. After this period, a new quotation may need to be issued and a new order form returned to Hyperspheric. Details of the data extracted can be found in Appendix G.

If assistance is required for additional installations, e.g. in cases where the schools MIS is replaced, or new servers installed, this would be chargeable at our standard hourly rate. Hyperspheric will charge a minimum of one hour at the standard hourly rate, for installations taking more than one hour to complete the additional time would be charged in blocks of 15 minutes. Please refer to Appendix B.

• Consuming services offered in a non-malicious manner and promptly reporting encountered problems.
• All communication with students and parents, including acting as the first line of support for students and parents and providing guidance for them in accessing and using GO 4 Schools.
• Providing Hyperspheric with a named contact and email address to which we can refer contact received from students and parents.
• Advising students and parents that they must use services in a non-malicious manner.
• Managing and maintaining the school's IT equipment on which school staff rely in order to access GO 4 Schools, e.g. the school network, internet connection, servers, desktop computers and laptops. In particular, school staff must be provided with "modern, standards compliant browsers" such as Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox, etc.
• Providing the necessary resources for the GO 4 Schools feed system to be run within their school.
• Installing updates of the GO 4 Schools feed system within their school, when necessary.
• Cascading training to staff.
• Maintaining the data inputs required by GO 4 Schools, e.g. class lists in the school MIS.
• Creating and populating markbooks, reports and other objects offered to end users by the GO 4 Schools system.
• Managing the granting of security roles to school staff within GO 4 Schools.
• Guest pupils - if a student has their main registration at a school using GO 4 Schools and is a guest at one (or more) schools in the same trust using GO 4 Schools, we count the students for billing purposes only at the school where they have their primary registration. Please advise your customer service representative if this is the case.
  
  If the school where they have their main registration ceases to be a customer of GO 4 Schools (or leaves the trust), any school (or schools) where they are guests will need to pay as if the student is registered with them. This may result in increases on renewal or during multi-year subscriptions.
  
   If a school with guest students is using GO 4 Schools and introduces another school in the same trust where the students have their main registration, a credit will be given if discounting the guest students would take the school’s subscription into a different price band. These changes will affect new subscriptions only. Please contact your customer service representative if you need any advice or help with this.

Your Subscription 

Start of Service

• The school’s subscription begins upon successful installation of the feed system – i.e. when the first data feed is received. An invoice will be issued on the following day which marks the first day of the subscription.

Termination and renewal

• Subscriptions (single year and multi-year) cannot be terminated part-way through the subscription.  
• Schools are required to provide at least one month’s notice in writing prior to the renewal date to terminate their GO 4 Schools subscription.
• An invoice for the next year’s subscription will be issued automatically on the renewal date unless a cancellation notice has been received.  

Reminders and renewal quotations will be sent to schools a month before renewals are due to allow them to take advantage of multi-year discounts etc.

Please see Appendix F on data protection and GDPR to learn what happens to your data if you terminate your subscription.

Multiple year subscriptions with annual payments

Where a school opts for a multiple year subscription with annual payments, invoices for the second and third years (depending on the option selected) will be automatically issued on the anniversary of the start date of the subscription.     

Adding additional modules to a subscription

Schools can add additional modules at any time. Where new modules are added during a subscription an invoice will be issued for the cost to add the module from the date on which module is added to the end of the main subscription. For subsequent years, the new module will be included in the overall invoice for the package used by the school.

Swapping a module mid-subscription 

A school can change their modules mid-subscription under the following terms:

• There must be more than 3 months remaining on their current subscription.
• If the new module is more expensive, the school will need to pay the difference plus a 10% administration charge (max £100.00)
• No refund will be given if the new module is cheaper and this will also be subject to a 10% administration charge (max £100.00).

If a school wants to disable a module, 75% of the remaining value of the module can be carried over to the renewal, but no refund will be given.

Roll changes during subscriptions

The price of a school’s subscription is based on the number of students they have on roll and the modules they select.  

• For multi-year subscriptions - If, during the subscription period, there is a 5% or more increase in the school roll and as a result, a change to a higher pricing bracket has occurred, an invoice will be issued straight away to cover the period from when the increase occurred to the remainder of your current invoicing period.  

The pricing brackets are 0-399 students, 400 – 799 students, 800-1199 students, 1200-1699 students and 1700+ students.

• For one year, one payment subscriptions – the invoice will be raised on the subscription anniversary.  

Additional discounts

As well as discounts for multi-year subscriptions (identified on the order form), the following additional discounts may be offered, providing the terms stated below are met:

• Long-standing school discount. - To show our appreciation for our loyal schools, we offer a long-standing school discount which is available to schools who have used GO 4 Schools for a continuous period of 10 years or more. A 5% discount will be applied on every renewal in addition to any other discounts applied.
  
• The GO 4 Schools referral scheme, introduced in January 2013, allows schools starting a new subscription to nominate an existing customer as their referring school. This entitles the referring school to a 5% discount on the first year of their next renewal. The discounts are cumulative, so 2 referrals will lead to a 10% discount, etc. Discounts exceeding 100% will result in a free year, with the discount over 100% being applied as a discount to the second year of the renewal. The discount will revert to zero once applied to a renewal.  
• To qualify for the discount, the new customer must nominate the referring school clearly on their order form. New schools can nominate one referring school only, which must be an existing GO 4 Schools customer. Referral discounts cannot be applied speculatively for schools that have not yet placed an order. Referral discounts cannot be applied retrospectively.
• Multi-school discounts are considered for schools within the same trust or group only when purchase orders are placed at the same time. Hyperspheric reserves the right to remove a multi-school discount applied to a price quotation if orders are not placed at the same time.

Service delivery

Availability of services offered

GO 4 Schools has been designed to be maintainable and updateable "on the fly". As such it will be available 24 hours day, 7 days a week, except for:

• Service interruptions for emergency fixes.
• Unscheduled outages.  

Due to the unpredictable nature of such occurrences it is not possible to specify the exact outage duration, however due diligence will be taken to resolve them in a timely manner.

Students or parents who are identified by Hyperspheric as engaging in malicious use of GO 4 Schools may be blocked from accessing the GO 4 Schools System.

Performance of services offered

GO 4 Schools is a web-based application. Hyperspheric will ensure that the GO 4 Schools servers and their connection to the internet are capable of delivering a full screen load of a student details page within 10 seconds 90% of the time to a computer on a network with sufficient end-to-end bandwidth and low latency.

DDOS Mitigation

Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks are criminal attempts to prevent users from accessing a website/service. Although we can’t prevent DDOS attacks against GO 4 Schools, we have implemented a mechanism to allow schools to continue to access GO 4 Schools in the event of a DDOS attack

Providing GO 4 Schools with your outgoing IP address

We need your school’s dedicated, static, outgoing IP address/addresses to ensure traffic from your school is allowed to access the “Priority” IP address at our end. 

There are a few points to note about this:

• The IP address needs to be static. If your school’s IP address is dynamic, it could change at any point which would undermine your access to the priority IP address and could result in the whitelisted IP address falling into the hands of an attacker. For this reason, we cannot accept dynamic IP address.
• The IP address needs to be dedicated to your school/trust rather than an IP address that is used by, say, a range of school and non-school organisations who have web sites at a hosting centre. If we can’t be sure that traffic from the IP address is coming from your school/trust, we cannot accept the IP address for whitelisting.
• We will accept up to 5 whitelisted IP addresses per school/trust • You must inform us of changes to your static, outgoing IP addresses.

Our priority is always to provide unhindered access to GO 4 Schools to the majority of customers. For this reason:

• If we determine that an attack is coming from within your school/trust we reserve the right to temporarily remove it from the whitelist  
• If we determine that your IP address is being spoofed by an attacker, we reserve the right to temporarily remove it from the whitelist.

“Priority” IP address

GO 4 Schools is accessible to the whole Internet on a “public” IP address. It is also accessible to schools via an alternative IP address – the “priority” IP address - as long as we have whitelisted the school’s own IP address. The two run seamlessly and in parallel in normal operations. 

If a DDOS attack occurs as a last resort (e.g. if the DDOS protection we have in place fails to repel the attack), we will have the option of blocking traffic on the public IP address, while allowing schools using the priority IP address to continue to use GO 4 Schools unhindered.

There are two routes available for taking advantage of this:

1. Have users in your school access GO 4 Schools via https://priority.go4schools.com/. The downside to this is that this will not work outside school, so they will have to remember to switch between https://priority.go4schools.com and www.go4schools.com.
2. Configure your school network so that www.go4schools.com resolves to the priority IP address. If all internet access from your schools is via a proxy server this may be as easy as adding a “hosts” entry on that server. If you do not use this method the automagic login and feeds may not work.

This approach will deliver the best experience for users and is the approach we recommend. It will also ensure the GO 4 Schools feed system continues to operate.

Resilience

The system runs on a cluster of servers designed and built with ‘high availability’ in mind. This means that if any single component fails, the website continues to run. To this end, we have two web servers, two database servers, two firewalls, etc. The data centre itself has a backup power generator, dual connections to the internet and fire suppression systems.

Variation of service

Hyperspheric will release updates to the GO 4 Schools software from time to time that offer extensions, enhancements and bug fixes. Schools will automatically benefit from these as and when they are deployed to the GO 4 Schools servers. Schools cannot opt out of receiving these.

However, from time to time Hyperspheric may add significant new features that require an additional annual payment from the school for activation. Schools are not obliged to make these payments but will not benefit from the new features unless they do. They will not experience any degradation to their existing feature set if they decide not to activate the new features.

Hyperspheric reserves the right to vary the school's annual cost for the use of GO 4 Schools from year to year, but only at the point where a new subscription is taken out.

Available technical support

Available technical support for schools will include:

• The Help Centre and other documents available via the website.
• Self-service support via knowledge base articles available online.  
• Email support via a free-to-use online system for raising support tickets.   
• Remote assistance with the initial installation of the GO 4 Schools feed system.
• Three months of telephone support is available for free following an approved GO 4 Schools training session at the school. For schools that have two initial training sessions the telephone support will commence after the first training session. Telephone support is not available before or without an approved training session. 
• Schools that have purchased the attendance module (tiers 2 and 3 only) will receive an additional 2 months’ telephone support from installation of the attendance module. If the attendance module is installed at the same time as the rest of the modules the additional 2 months will not be included.  
• Additional telephone support for an annual fee which is identified on the order form.
• Technical consultancy at our standard hourly rate. This might cover areas such as: visiting the school to install the GO 4 Schools Feed System, assistance in developing report templates, or assistance in tracking down data problems which are caused by "dirty data" within the school's MIS. At least 24 hours’ notice must be given if a site visit related to technical consultancy needs to be cancelled or rescheduled by the school.
• Report templates. Hyperspheric will provide two hours of report customisation work per school free of charge, after which payment will be required based on our standard hourly rate – see below. If customisation of the standard report templates is required, the request should be made via the support ticket system. The work involved will be assessed and a quotation for the work will be issued if necessary. Please give at least seven days’ notice of requested changes; we endeavour to make all changes within this period but cannot guarantee this if the changes are complex.

To get the most out of the two hours free customisation work, we recommend collating all the changes that you need into a single request. We can handle a single change request more efficiently than a trickle of small change requests.

Please note that customised report templates are not automatically updated to incorporate new functionality added to GO 4 Schools after the template’s creation date.

• Data Recovery. In situations where school data entered directly into GO 4 Schools has been removed by the school, Hyperspheric can perform a data search and recovery. This would be charged at our standard hourly rate – please see below. Please allow 48 hours for the recovered data to be provided. Note: data is backed up every night and daily backups are retained for the last 30 days. A monthly backup is retained for the last three months. If data is added and deleted on the same day – i.e. between backups – it will not be available for recovery from a backup. If there is uncertainty about when the school’s data was last present this will extend the effort required as we may need to check a sequence of backups for you.

Support will be provided to school staff only. Hyperspheric will not engage in communication with students or parents. Any support requests from students or parents that are received by Hyperspheric will be forwarded to the school.

Means of problem reporting

If the GO 4 Schools website is accessible by the school, i.e. the website is not "down"; problems must be reported via the built-in "support ticket" system. If the website is not accessible, problems can be reported by telephone.

Service Interruptions – users do not need to report issues related to service outages. GO 4 Schools is monitored with automated tools. Hyperspheric will be automatically notified via e-mail of any service interruptions. We have a dedicated twitter account that will report outages to users, which we would recommend following - @GO4SStatus.

Change requests

Schools are free to suggest new features but Hyperspheric is under no obligation to implement them. If schools are interested in paying for the incorporation of new functionality into GO 4 Schools they can lodge a change request. Although Hyperspheric is happy to consider such change requests we are under no obligation to act upon them.

If a change request covers functionality that Hyperspheric is happy, in principal, to incorporate into GO 4 Schools, Hyperspheric will engage the school in a requirements-capture process to gain a deeper understanding of the change. If the change is extensive, Hyperspheric may require payment by the school for the requirements capture process at our standard hourly rate – see below.  

Involvement in a requirements capture process does not imply that Hyperspheric will proceed with the change. Once the change has been captured in detail, Hyperspheric may choose to provide the school with a fixed-price quote for performing the change plus an indication of the timescale for delivery of the change. The quote will include all costs (e.g. project management, software development, testing, debugging and deployment to our servers) and will be charged using our standard hourly rate – see below. Hyperspheric will require a purchase order from the school before work on the change can commence.  

Hyperspheric will retain all rights in the GO 4 Schools system and will be granted all rights to the intellectual property associated with the change by the school making the change request.

Hyperspheric reserves the right to make a change available to all schools or to limit the change to the school that requested it.  

Support hours

Support for responding to service problems will be available 9AM – 5PM, Mon-Fri excluding public holidays. For example, service interruption reported on Friday at 6 PM may not be looked at until 9AM the following Monday.

Standard hourly rate

Hyperspheric will provide additional services, e.g. additional software development services or onsite technical assistance at our standard hourly rate. The rate is fixed at £120 per hour + VAT until 31^st March 2025.  

Training

A range of training sessions is available to assist schools with the initial set-up of the system (to be taken within 12 months of the initial order) as well as to support continuous use. Details of the different training offers are available on request.

Training sessions are highly recommended for schools purchasing the full version of GO 4 Schools and for schools using the starter version with no previous experience of the system.  

Depending on the modules purchased, we recommend that the training is provided to curriculum leaders, data managers and whoever is responsible for managing student reports. The school is responsible for cascading training to other members of staff.  

For training delivered off mainland UK, travel expenses including flights, accommodation and subsistence will be charged to the school.

If additional modules are purchased after the initial order, training can be purchased for those modules as additional training or module training. Details of these options can be provided on request. 

The GO 4 Schools customer service team can provide advice on the best options for training based on the school’s requirements, please contact the team to discuss on 01223 967556 option 1.

We recommend booking training as early as possible as dates for INSET days tend to be common across the UK. Note that training sessions can also take place at other times, e.g. for twilight sessions and even school holidays.  

At least 24 hours’ notice must be given if a training session needs to be cancelled or rescheduled by the school, charges may apply if not.

Service Faults

Priority impact examples

Any reported bugs will be triaged by Hyperspheric who will make an assessment of their priority after an initial investigation. The table below sets out the priority levels used when triaging problems:

The resources and immediacy with which reported bugs are addressed (if they need addressing) will depend on their priority.  

• Critical - Resources will be diverted to investigating and resolving critical issues immediately.
• Major - Major issues will be investigated immediately, but a resolution may be held back until the end of the working day rather than being deployed as soon as it is available.
• Low and ordinary priority issues will be added to the support list maintained by Hyperspheric.

Hyperspheric is not under any obligation to address low priority bugs.

In cases where it is determined that Hyperspheric needs to fix a problem an effort will be made to address the issue in a timely manner. However, the actual response time will be based on the priority and complexity of the issue.   

The priority of an item may change over time. If it is determined that an issue affects more users than initially estimated, the priority will be increased and more effort spent on finding a solution. Likewise, if it is determined that a work around, such as using an alternative browser, is available, the priority may be lowered. The team working on the problem will be responsible for changing the priority. The priority of an item may also be changed if a partial fix is made available, e.g. one that resolves the problem for most users.

The user reporting the problem will be notified by telephone, via email or via the support ticket system when a fix or partial fix is in place.

Quality metrics for services offered

Quality metrics are used to evaluate success of the services offered and to determine when a change in strategy is required or additional resources are needed.

Monthly Uptime % = (Total Hours – Hours of Down Time)/Total Hours x 100%

Please note that uptime will be determined based on data reported by automated monitor agents. Downtime due to announced maintenance will not be used in uptime calculations. Reports of downtime submitted by users will be investigated, but won’t be used to calculate uptime, since downtime experienced by users can be related to network issues on the user side or anywhere between user's computer and the GO 4 Schools servers.  

Limitation of liability

The GO 4 Schools site and all information, content, materials, software and services included on or otherwise made available to you through this site are provided by Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd on an “as is” and “as available” basis. Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, as to the operation of this site or the information, content, materials, software or services included on or otherwise made available to you through the GO 4 Schools site, unless otherwise specified in writing. You expressly agree that your use of this site is at your sole risk. To the full extent permissible by applicable law, Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd disclaims all warranties, express or implied.   

Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd does not warrant that this site; information, content, materials, software or services included on or otherwise made available to you through the GO 4 Schools site; its servers; or e-mail sent from GO 4 Schools are free of viruses or other harmful components. Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd will not be liable for any damages of any kind arising from the use of the GO 4 Schools site or from any information, content, materials, software or services included on or otherwise made available to you through the GO 4 Schools site, including, but not limited to direct, indirect, incidental, punitive, and consequential damages.  

Appendices

Appendix A – Definitions

• Approved Trainer – someone who has been trained by Hyperspheric to deliver training on the use of the GO 4 Schools system. Approved Trainers may be members of Hyperspheric or third parties.
• GO 4 Schools Servers – the servers used by Hyperspheric to deliver the functionality of the GO 4 Schools web application.
• GO 4 Schools System – the hardware, software and processes used by Hyperspheric to deliver the GO 4 Schools service.  
• GO 4 Schools Feed System – the software installed within a school that periodically sends updates to the GO 4 Schools System
• GO 4 Schools Subscription – The total period during which a school has used GO 4 Schools, from the initial installation onwards. The renewal of a subscription does not start a new subscription, but simply continues the existing subscription.

Appendix B – Additional installations or assistance relating to the GO 4 Schools feed system

The GO 4 Schools team will work with you on the initial installation and configuration of the GO 4 Schools feed system within your school.  

Following that, you may occasionally need to reconfigure, update or re-install the GO 4 Schools feed system, e.g. due to updates to the feed system from GO 4 Schools to provide new features, due to the installation of new servers within the school or due to server/network configuration changes. These are referred to as additional installations.

There is extensive free advice available for these activities in the form of:

• The Installation and Configuration guide
• A knowledge base article on updating the feed system
• A knowledge base article on troubleshooting issues with the feed system
• The GO 4 Schools support ticket system.

Most schools are able to successfully carry out the required changes using these sources of advice.

Telephone support and/or remote login support for additional installations falls outside the terms of this Terms and Conditions document:

As covered by this document, support can be purchased for additional installations at our standard hourly rate. This can be in the form of telephone support and/or a remote session.   

Please note that our technicians will use the guidance documents mentioned above when assisting you, so we recommend working through the documents first whenever possible. 

In the interest of providing fair and timely support to all of our customers, a support session should be pre-booked with the GO 4 Schools support team.

How to book a support session

To book a support session please contact the GO 4 Schools support team via the support ticket system. Please entitle your support ticket Support Session required.

At time of booking please state your preferred date and either AM or PM session. A purchase order or purchase order number is also required at point of booking for the minimum value of one man hour at the standard hourly rate, to cover the first hour. For sessions where more than an hour is required, we will request an update of the purchase order to cover the final amount prior to invoicing.

Please note that if the problem is due to issues with the GO 4 Schools feed system itself, charges to the school will be not be applicable.

Schools within their 3 month telephone support period

For new schools that are still within their three months’ telephone support time, or those schools that have purchased the extended support package, telephone support for these activities will be provided free of charge but sessions must still be pre-booked. The support team may not be able to undertake a support session instantly when an issue is reported, however a session will be arranged at the earliest possible convenience to provide assistance.  

Please note that if a remote log in session is required this will be chargeable as per these Terms and Conditions.

Urgent assistance

If urgent assistance is required due to exceptional circumstances (imminent Ofsted inspection, etc.) please call the support team who will endeavour to arrange a support session as soon as possible.

Appendix C – Installation disclaimer

When providing assistance with an installation we may occasionally determine that the configuration of your server or workstation is not compatible with the GO 4 Schools software. For example, a registry key may be corrupt or a vital service may not be running. We may advise making remedial changes to your computer configuration and will make such changes to the computer on your behalf if requested to do so, but we accept no liability for any problems caused thereby. It is the school's responsibility to ensure that a good, recent backup is available should any problems occur.

We request that an authorised technician is available during any such sessions in case there is a need to discuss computer configuration issues.

Appendix D – Attendance module disclaimer  

The attendance module is available in 3 tiers depending on how schools wish to record their attendance data. Tier 1 provides analysis tools and statistics based on attendance information extracted from the schools MIS via the nightly feeds. Tier 2 allows schools to record session (AM/PM registration) attendance data directly into GO 4 Schools. Tier 3 allows schools to record both session and lesson attendance data directly into GO 4 Schools.  

Session attendance marks recorded in GO 4 Schools (tiers 2 and 3) need to be written back into your MIS (currently only available to SIMS schools) via the feed system to allow your school to submit an accurate school census. It is therefore essential that the feed system transferring the data between GO 4 Schools and your MIS runs reliably. Problems affecting the feed system may result in inaccurate attendance data in your MIS and therefore in your census return. (N.B. If there are problems with the feed system which are subsequently corrected, the data in your MIS will be correctly brought up to date.)

The GO 4 Schools support team regularly check the feeds arriving from schools and contact schools where appropriate to advise of potential problems. However we would also recommend that feed activity is checked regularly by the school using the Status and Health check page on the site, which shows how many days since a feed was received. (Data is sent via the feed system only when there are changes, so values of 5+ are common during holiday periods. Values below 5 may indicate problems during term time if you make regular changes to the data in your MIS.)

In some circumstances where a school’s internet connectivity is not reliable enough Hyperspheric will not offer tiers 2 or 3. If you regularly experience problems with your feed system please contact us prior to purchasing the attendance module.  

Appendix E - Data storage limits

Schools using GO 4 Schools will use two different types of storage:

• Data storage, i.e. the data held in the GO 4 Schools database.
• Document storage, i.e. uploaded documents, such as IEPs.

There are no limits on the amount of data storage that schools can use. However, there are limits on the amount of document storage that schools can use.  

Each school receives an initial document storage allowance which is increased if they subscribe to the Online Homework module, as follows:

If you unsubscribe from the Homework module the extra Homework allowance will be removed, and the documents deleted.

A clear indication of the total and available storage allowance is displayed where documents are uploaded.

All uploaded documents are backed up securely every night and are scanned for viruses. The following do not count towards usage of the school’s allowance:

• PDF files generated by GO 4 Schools for progress reports  
• External resources, such as YouTube videos, that are referenced in homework tasks.

Additional document storage can be purchased in blocks of 10GB, currently at a rate of £50 + VAT.

Appendix F – Data protection and GDPR

General data protection points

• There is a GO 4 Schools Privacy Policy covering school data held within the GO 4 Schools system, and a separate Privacy Policy covering other data held by Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd.   
• Where the GO 4 Schools system is concerned, Hyperspheric acts as a Data Processor and the school/academy acts as the Data Controller. (Most schools/academies will have a “lawful basis” to use Hyperspheric as a Data Processor (and will not require explicit consent from students, parents and staff), but are responsible for having appropriate arrangements in place.)
• Subject access requests (SARs) – the school/academy is responsible for handling Subject Access Requests. GO 4 Schools will refer SARs received from parents/students/staff to the school/academy.
• Registration with the Data Controller - We are registered with the Information

Commissioners Office as a Data Processor for school data and as a Data Controller for our own data. Our registration number is Z8182695.

Data security

• Communication of nightly feeds from the school to GO 4 Schools – The ‘Feed system’ software is installed at the school to extract data from the school’s MIS and send it across to GO 4 Schools each night. The data that is sent contains information such as the timetable, student demographic information, class lists, student photographs, registration groups, teacher names and parental contact details. The feed system also extracts and sends details of user accounts for staff and students. (This information usually comes from the school’s ActiveDirectory system, but can be drawn from a text file instead if required.) All data is encrypted before being sent to our servers via http or smtp. Whichever transfer method is used, ‘standard’ https encryption (SHA 256 encryption with 2048-bit RSA signing) ensures the information cannot be read by unauthorised parties.

Microsoft’s Office 365 service is used to hold the (strongly encrypted) transferred data for 6 months during an active GO 4 Schools subscription to assist with troubleshooting for the customer. This data is held within the United Kingdom.

• Accessing data in GO 4 Schools using web browser - All access to GO 4 Schools using a web browser takes place over an encrypted connection, using the https protocol. (‘Standard’ https encryption is used: SHA 256 encryption with 2048-bit RSA signing.)
• Server security - The GO 4 Schools infrastructure is located in Microsoft Azure UKSOUTH datacentre spread across three zones, behind packet-filtering firewall devices. The data centre is physically secure and access to the servers can only be access by authorised Microsoft personnel.
• The data centre has backup power supplies and fire detention and extinguishing systems.
• Data backups - Data is backed up every night to the Datto SAAS Protection environment, which is stored within the United Kingdom. The data is encrypted before it is transmitted (using AES-256 encryption) and is encrypted at rest within the Datto environment. Access to the storage is restricted to IP addresses used by Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd.
• Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd IT systems are configured to report their need for security patches on a weekly basis. Unless critical, security patches are applied monthly. Critical patches are applied within 7 days.
• Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd IT systems are protected by industry standard antivirus/antimalware software which automatically updates antivirus definitions on the equipment and continuously monitors the equipment. Warning about out-of-date definitions or suspect files are communicated to the us via email for attention.
• To ensure resilience, Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd’s servers use built-in monitoring software to report warnings and failures so that remedial action can be taken to restore full resilience. 
• Access to Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd’s IT systems from outside the office are protected by Multi-Factor Authentication.
• Company laptops taken outside the office are encrypted.

What happens with school data after termination

If a school ends their GO 4 Schools subscription, data held within the live system will be:

• Anonymised within four weeks of cancellation.
• Deleted within sixteen weeks of cancellation.

Backups of data containing user-identifiable information will be deleted within 6 months.  

Data disposal

On request, we will delete data for you for a specific academic year, e.g. a historic academic year within which students are now over 25 years old.

Privacy

Links between student data in GO 4 Schools and specific student/parent user accounts must be setup in GO 4 Schools before a student or parent can access that data. The links between student accounts and student data is controlled by the upload of a CSV ‘mapping file’ by the Controller; for parental links to student data, the linkages are drawn from the Controller’s MIS. The Controller also has control over the provisioning/deprovisioning of staff user accounts.

Students only ever see their own information through their accounts, and parents only see their own children. Where behaviour events link multiple children, only a count of “other children” is shown to non-school-staff.

Out privacy policy can be found here. 

Appendix G – Data extracted from school systems

Student data sent to GO 4 Schools

The data extractable from the school systems varies depending on the Management Information System (MIS) used by the school. The following assumes that the Controller is using the latest version of the GO 4 Schools feed tool to send data to GO 4 Schools.

In addition to the specific fields listed below, we also extract the following for each student unless the Data Controller has configured the feed tool not to extract the data:

• Session attendance summary statistics
• Session attendance marks  
• Lesson attendance marks
• Points for behaviour events
• The student’s timetable (groups, subjects, teachers, rooms, periods)

The school can exclude any of the fields below from the data sent to GO 4 Schools if they so desire. However, certain fields such as UPN and the various “name” fields are essential for the correct operation of GO 4 Schools. Schools can also exclude specific students to be excluded from the data sent to GO 4 Schools.

Student data extracted from ESS SIMS and sent to GO 4 Schools unless specifically excluded

Other MIS’s

Data is retrieved from the MIS’s API ‘endpoints’, to which the school can control access. The endpoints give access to a broader set of fields that needed by GO 4 Schools and any not on the “ESS SIMS” list above are discarded.  

Parent data sent to GO 4 Schools

The school can exclude any of the fields below from the data sent to GO 4 Schools if they so desire. However, certain fields such as email address and the various “name” fields are essential for the correct operation of GO 4 Schools.  

Schools can also exclude specific parents to be excluded from the data sent to GO 4 Schools.

Telephone numbers are used for data cleaning (to eliminate duplicate records) as well as for SMS messaging if enabled. On request, they can be displayed to staff within GO 4 Schools. 

Parent data extracted from ESS SIMS and sent to GO 4 Schools unless specifically excluded

Other MIS’s

Data is retrieved from the MIS’s API ‘endpoints’, to which the school can control access. The endpoints give access to a broader set of fields that needed by GO 4 Schools and any not on the “ESS SIMS” list above are discarded.  

Staff data sent to GO 4 Schools

A list of staff user accounts and email address are retrieved from the schools Active Directory system (or from a text file if preferred) to provision staff accounts in GO 4 Schools. In addition to this, basic details are extracted from the school’s MIS.

Staff data extracted from ESS SIMS and sent to GO 4 Schools unless specifically excluded 

Other MIS’s 

Data is retrieved from the MIS’s API ‘endpoints’, to which the school can control access. The endpoints give access to a broader set of fields that needed by GO 4 Schools and any not on the “ESS SIMS” list above are discarded.