Terms & Conditions | The National College

These are the terms and conditions applicable to the use of The National College (nationalcollege.com).

Our Professional Development service and our AI service are operated by National Education Group Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 10738856 and its registered office is located at Isaacs Building, Floor 4, 4 Charles Street, Sheffield, S1 2HS.

Our Compliance Management service (formerly known as TheSchoolBus) is operated by Hub4Leaders Limited, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 8368437 and its registered office is located at Isaacs Building Floor 4, Isaacs Building, 4 Charles Street, Sheffield, S1 2HS.

Our People Development service (formerly known as BlueSky) is operated by Atkey Solutions Limited, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 3927663 and its registered office is located at Howard Buildings 69 Burpham Lane, Guildford, Surrey, GU4 7NB.

Any reference to we, us, or our in these terms and conditions is to National Education Group Ltd (in respect of Professional Development and AI), Hub4Leaders Limited (in respect of Compliance Management) and Atkey Solutions Limited (in respect of People Development).

If you use multiple services you will have a separate agreement for each of the services you use. These agreements will be with the relevant entity or entities listed above.

These terms and conditions are divided into two sections:

Part A - Free Account Terms and Conditions: These terms and conditions apply if you have a free account. Your account will be a free account unless (a) you are currently a member of staff, governor, trustee or director at an education setting or organisation and you have been issued with your account as part of a membership which that education setting or organisation has to the relevant site. Or you are accessing services or content, which an education setting or organisation has purchased for you on a “pay as you go” basis. You must read and agree to these terms of use before registering for a free account.

Part B - Terms and Conditions of Purchase: These terms and conditions apply to any paid services that we provide to an education setting, such as a school, nursery or college, or organisations managing education settings such as MATs and LAs, whether that be a membership or a one-off purchase made on a “pay as you go” basis. Purchases can only be made by education settings or organisations such as MATs or LAs and you must therefore only make a purchase if you have the authority of the education setting or relevant organisation to do so. You must read and agree to these terms and conditions on behalf of the education setting or relevant organisation before making any purchase.

PART A: FREE ACCOUNT TERMS AND CONDITIONS

1. REGISTRATION FOR A FREE ACCOUNT

1.1 Anyone associated with an education setting, such as a school, nursery or college, or with an organisation managing education settings such as a MAT or LA (such as a member of staff, governor, trustee, director or parent) can register for a free account.

1.2 These terms only apply if you have a free account. If you are associated with an education setting or organisation which has a membership and are accessing the site through an account as part of a membership which that education setting or organisation has, or if you are accessing content purchased for you on a “pay as you go” basis, these terms do not apply to you and your use is instead governed by our agreement with your education setting or organisation.

1.3 When you register for a free account, you must provide complete and accurate information about yourself and the education setting or organisation that you are associated with.

1.4 We reserve the right to accept or reject any registration for an account for any reason, including (for example) if we discover that you have provided misleading information or otherwise sought to register for a free account in bad faith. If we do allow you to register, these terms are legally binding between us and the person named in the registration (referred to as you or your in this Part A of the terms and conditions).

1.5 Your free account is for your own personal use. You must not allow another person to have access to your free account or provide our content to any other person, nor may you transfer your free account to anyone else. If you have a colleague, friend or family member who is interested in accessing our services or content, please encourage them to sign up for their own free account. If we discover that an account is being used by more than one person, we may suspend or close the account as described in paragraph 1.7.

1.6 If you would like to close your free account at any time, let us know. This will mean that you will no longer be able to access our content and will need to re-register if you need access again in the future.

We may also suspend or close your free account at any time

2. PAID SERVICES AND CONTENT

2.1 We offer a wide variety of paid services and content, which can only be accessed through either a membership or (where available) by purchasing access to a specific items.

2.2 Only an education setting or organisation managing education settings can purchase access to our paid services and content. When you make a purchase, you are making that purchase on behalf of the education setting or organisation, and you must only do so if you have the authority of the education setting or organisation to make that purchase.

2.3 All purchases are subject to our Part B of these terms and conditions. Please read those terms carefully before committing to a purchase.

2.4 If your education setting or organisation has purchased access to content, you will automatically be granted access to the content and functionality which is relevant to you through your account. Please ensure that you have the correct education setting or organisation and role associated with your account so you are given access to the correct content.

3.3.1 add, remove or change the free services and content available to you;

3.3.2 change the release schedule for new free services and content (or not release new free content);

3.3.3 change the way in which the free content is provided to you or in which you access the free services content; or

3.3.4 suspend access to some or all of the free content.

4. OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO YOU

4.1 When you use our services and access our content through a free account, you do so on an “as-is” and “as-available” basis. You must not act in any way in reliance solely on a statement made or information provided in our content or use our services in any way which may cause a loss to you.

4.2 If we are found to be liable to pay any damages, compensation or other amount to you, any payment will be capped at £100. We believe this to be a reasonable condition given that you do not pay us for access to the content or service. We are only prepared to offer the content and service to you on the basis that you agree to this cap. If you do not agree to this cap, you must not register for an account or access any of our content use any of our services.

4.3 The cap described in paragraph 4.2 applies to the maximum extent permitted by law. Nothing set out in paragraph 4.2 or otherwise in these terms is intended to replace, override or exclude any legal rights that you have if the law does not permit us to modify or exclude those rights.

5. OUR SERVICES AND CONTENT

5.1 The services and content that we make available through our site is the result of significant investment of time, money and expertise and are valuable assets of our business. The services and content are protected by intellectual property law and other legal provisions, both in the United Kingdom and internationally.

5.2 We sometimes receive requests or suggestions for services or content from our users. Whilst we cannot offer any commitment to fulfil any requests, if we do launch any new service or create any content in response to a request or suggestion we will nevertheless retain all rights to that service or content, including the right to make that content available to other users (on either a paid or free basis).

5.3 Any right that we grant you to access our services and content is strictly a licence and does not give you any form of ownership or rights in the underlying service or content, nor any right to create a local copy of the service or content. Any service or content must be accessed and used strictly in accordance with these terms.

5.4 You must not attempt to copy or reproduce any of our services or content or to use them for any purpose other than for which we have specifically authorised. You must not use any part of our service or content to train any large language model or other artificial intelligence tool.

5.5 You must not attempt to circumvent any security measure or other restriction.

6. YOUR PRIVACY

6.1 Your privacy is important to us, and we will ensure that your personal data is kept secure at all times.

6.2 To find out more about how we may use your personal data, including the circumstances in which we may share your personal data with the education setting or organisation that you are associated with, please see our privacy notice.

7. SECURITY OF YOUR ACCOUNT

7.1 You must ensure that you choose a secure password and always keep that password secure. If you have any reason to believe that the password may have been compromised, you should change that password immediately.

7.2 For your convenience, we may offer you the opportunity to log in via a third party authentication method, such as Office 365 or Google. We have no association with these providers (other than using their services for user authentication) and you must ensure that any use of these accounts is in accordance with the terms imposed by the relevant provider and keep that account secure in the same way you would for an account created directly with us.

8. LINKS TO THIRD PARTY CONTENT

8.1 In certain circumstances we may provide links to external sites or content or refer to third party publications.

8.2 Any link or reference is not an endorsement or guarantee of that content, and we do not accept responsibility for any site, content or publication which you may choose to access pursuant to a link or reference.

9. GENERAL

9.1 If we fail, at any time, to insist upon strict performance of any of your obligations under these terms, or if we fail to exercise any of the rights or remedies to which we are entitled under these terms, this does not mean that we are waiving those rights or remedies and you will not be relieved from compliance with those obligations.

9.2 If any of these terms are determined by any competent authority to be invalid, unlawful or unenforceable to any extent, that term, condition or provision will to that extent be severed from the remaining terms, conditions and provisions, which will continue to be valid to the fullest extent permitted by law.

9.3 These terms represent the entire agreement between us and replace any previous arrangement, understanding or agreement between us. Neither of us is agreeing to these terms in reliance on any statement, representation, assurance or warranty of any person which is not set out in these terms.

9.4 Unless otherwise expressly stated, any notices which are required to be sent under these terms are to be sent by email. Notices sent to us should be sent to membership@nationalcollege.com. Any notices for you will be sent to the email address you provided when registering (or any other email address you have given us to replace that email address).

9.5 We may revise or replace terms from time to time. If we do, we will post the revised or replacement terms on our site, and the updated terms will take effect from the date that those updated terms are posted (unless otherwise stated). If you object to any revision or replacement of our terms, you may close your account as described in paragraph 1.6.

9.6 These terms, including any associated non-contractual dispute, are governed by English law, and you and we each accept the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts in respect of any disputes arising out of or in connection with these terms.

PART B: TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF PURCHASE

1. MAKING A PURCHASE

1.1 There are two ways to access our paid services and content:

1.1.1 by purchasing a membership; or

1.1.2 by purchasing access to specific services or content on a “pay as you go” basis (where available).

1.2 Any order for access to paid services or content must be placed by a person with authority to contract on your behalf - for example, the headteacher or a director. By placing an order for access to paid services or content, the individual placing the order is confirming that they have authority to make purchases of this nature on your behalf.

1.3 We reserve the right to accept or reject any order in our absolute discretion. We will confirm to you as soon as we can whether your order has been accepted and, if it is, this will form a legally binding contract between you and us. The education setting or organisation placing the order will be our customer and is referred to as you or your in this Part B of the terms and conditions.

2. USER ACCOUNTS

2.1 Our services and content are only accessible through a valid user account.

2.2 A separate user account must be created for each individual associated with your education setting or organisation.

2.3 A user account must only be used by the individual it belongs to. You must ensure that your users do not share their log in details or our content with anyone else, and that user accounts are not transferred between individuals.

2.4 You (as the customer) are responsible for the actions of your users, including ensuring that their actions comply with these terms and conditions.

2.5 You must inform us immediately if any user ceases to be associated with your education setting or organisation (for example, a member of staff you employed moves to a different education setting) and ask us to close that user’s account.

2.6 A user account will be closed if:

2.6.1 your membership comes to an end;

2.6.2 paid services or content that you have purchased on a “pay as you go” basis expire; or

2.6.3 you ask us to close that user’s account.

3. MEMBERSHIPS

3.1 We offer various different memberships to suit your particular requirements. These memberships may vary (for example) in respect of the site(s), channels, services, content and features available through that membership and whether they are single user or multiple user. Before purchasing a membership, please check carefully to ensure that the membership you are purchasing meets your requirements.

3.2 Where a membership is purchased for a single user, it must only be used by that user. You must ensure that neither the account nor the services or content accessible through that account must be shared with other individuals, whether within your education setting or organisation or elsewhere.

3.3 Where a membership is purchased for the whole of your education setting or organisation, it may be accessed by any of your staff, governers, trustees and directors. You must ensure that neither these accounts nor the services or content accessible through these accounts are shared with unauthorised individuals.

3.4 If you are purchasing on behalf of a MAT, LA or similar, it is important to ensure that you have purchased the correct membership to cover your intended use. Unless otherwise stated, a membership can only be used for the customer which purchased the membership (such as the MAT or LA) and a separate membership would be needed for each education setting managed by that customer. Similarly, a membership purchased by an education setting cannot be used by the MAT or LA which manages that education setting (or other education settings managed by the same MAT or LA) unless we have expressly granted this right.

3.5 All memberships are purchased for the initial membership period selected at the date of purchase and are renewable for further membership periods of one year each for as long as you wish to continue to be able to access our services and content.

3.6 To ensure uninterrupted access to services and content, your membership will automatically renew at the end of your membership period unless you tell us otherwise. If you choose not to renew, you must notify us of this decision by person with appropriate authority to cancel by completing and submitting the membership change form. Cancellation can take place at any point from the start of the then current membership period up until 30 days prior to its expiry (except where you have already renewed your membership as described in paragraph 3.8). If you have a membership for multiple services, each service is separately cancellable, so you can choose which membership(s) you want to cancel when you notify us of your decision. Any membership that you do not choose to cancel will be unaffected and continue to renew until you choose to cancel it.

3.7 Unfortunately, we can only accept notice provided in accordance with paragraph 3.6 and do not allow notice to be provided by any other method or at any other time. If you fail to cancel through the proper procedure within the required period, your membership will renew and you will need to request cancellation again in the next cancellation notice period if you still wish to cancel.

3.8 Depending on the membership you have, there may be the opportunity to upgrade your membership, for example to gain access to additional content or features which are not included as standard with the service that you selected. You can upgrade at any time during your membership period, in which case we will also automatically renew your membership for a further membership period to lock in your upgrade pricing. For more information on payment when you upgrade, see paragraph 6.5. Please note that this paragraph 3.8 does not apply if you want to purchase a membership to an additional service. Purchasing a membership for an additional service will form a new and separate membership agreement between you and us and will not affect your existing membership(s).

3.9 It may also be possible to downgrade your membership. If you would like to downgrade your membership, please let us know we will discuss the options available to you. Any change must be confirmed at least 30 days before your next renewal is due and will take effect from your next renewal date. Alternatively, if you wish to cancel your membership to a particular service, please see paragraph 3.6.

3.10 We may suspend or terminate your membership if you (or any users accessing the content as part of your membership) breach any of these terms and conditions, including (but not limited to) misuse of our site, services and/or content and failure to make payment in accordance with the applicable payment terms. Any suspension or termination in accordance with this paragraph 3.93.10 will not affect your obligation to make payment in full for the relevant membership period.

3.11 If we offer you a free trial of a membership, the following special terms will apply during the period of your free trial:

3.11.1 we do not offer any warranties or guarantees in respect of our services or content during the period of your free trial;

3.11.2 we reserve the right to end a free trial at any time and for any reason on notice to you;

3.11.3 you may end your free trial at any time and for any reason by arranging for a person with appropriate authority to cancel it through their account; and

3.11.4 if neither we or you cancel the free trial, it will automatically convert to a full paid membership at the end of the free trial period, and will then be subject to these terms in full, including that you will benefit from the promises set out in paragraph 5 and be subject to the terms regarding payment and renewal.

4. OTHER WAYS TO ACCESS PAID SERVICES AND CONTENT

4.1 You may also be able to purchase access to specific content or features separately to a membership.

4.2 Unless otherwise stated, each purchase allows a single individual to access the selected content or feature once.

4.3 If you require access for multiple individuals, to multiple items of content or features or to be accessed multiple times, multiple purchases are required.

5. OUR PROMISE TO YOU

5.1 We are proud of the services and content and service that we provide, and we promise to do our best to ensure that:

5.1.1 our services are provided with reasonable skill and care;

5.1.2 all our paid content is accurate and up-to-date (at the time that the content is published);

5.1.3 our paid content is relevant to the education sector and of good quality; and

5.1.4 our paid services and content and our site are always available to access (other than where we are undertaking maintenance, which we will try to carry out overnight or at weekends).

Please be aware that this paragraph 5.1 does not apply to free content or to content from external content providers (see paragraphs 5.8 and 5.9 for more information) nor does this paragraph apply if you are using a service as part of a free trial (see paragraph 3.11).

5.2 In addition, we will at all times comply with:

5.2.1 all applicable laws, regulations, codes and sanctions relating to anti-corruption, including the Bribery Act 2010 and Criminal Finances Act 2017 (and will not engage in any activity, practice or conduct which would constitute a tax evasion facilitation offence under sections 45(1) or 46(1) of the Criminal Finance Act 2017); and

5.2.2 all applicable employment, anti-discrimination legislation and supply chain legislation, including the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

5.3 However, you should be aware that:

5.3.1 depending on the nature of the content, statements may represent the opinion of the speaker, presenter or author rather than a statement of fact (and may not necessarily reflect our opinion);

5.3.2 our services and content are not designed to be used in circumstances where there is a threat to life, health, wellbeing or property, and in such circumstances you must always seek professional / specialist advice; and

5.3.3 unless you are viewing the content live, information, circumstances and guidance may have changed between the time that the content was recorded / published and the time that you are viewing it;

5.3.4 unless you are viewing the content live, information, circumstances and guidance may have changed between the time that the content was recorded / published and the time that you are viewing it;

5.3.5 we may from time to time remove content from our service or update or revise content to ensure that the content available through our service remains accurate, up-to-date and relevant.

5.4 Some of our services and content are designed to help you meet statutory and regulatory requirements and evidence your compliance with those requirements, and our services and content can play an important part in ensuring that your education setting or organisation is compliant. However, all our services and content are designed for general application (unless stated otherwise) and are not tailored to any particular education setting, organisation, individual or circumstance. In addition, unless otherwise stated, all services and content are primarily aimed at education settings based in the UK and have been prepared in light of UK statutory and regulatory requirements. Therefore:

5.4.1 no decision about a specific circumstance should be made solely in reliance on our services or content;

5.4.2 you should exercise particular care if you are utilising our services and content in relation to an education setting or organisation located outside (or with operations outside) the UK including, where applicable, taking local legal advice; and

5.4.3 where you are using our model policies, you must adapt any documentation that you wish to put in place for your education setting or organisation and must check it for suitability before submitting the finalised document for viewing by your staff.

5.5 In addition to the points in paragraph 5.4, it is important that you:

5.5.1 develop and maintain an appropriate appropriate appraisal and professional development programmes for your staff, governors, trustees and directors, including determining which elements of those programmes should be mandatory, and monitor your users’ use of our site(s) to ensure that they are participating in all mandatory elements;

5.5.2 exercise particular care when utilising our AI service, including verifying any results by checking other sources, including our other services or third party resources;

5.5.3 implement appropriate monitoring and safeguards within your education setting or organisation to ensure that all applicable training isappraisal and professional development requirements are being implemented and policies are being complied with, to seek to prevent or minimise the risk of non-implementation or non-compliance and to promptly identify and resolve any non-implementation or non-compliance which does occur; and

5.5.4 regularly review your training programme and any policies for any updates which may be necessary or desirable in light of changes to statutory and regulatory requirements or circumstances within your education setting or organisation and review your training programme and policies as appropriate.

5.6 We may from time to time offer you or your users the opportunity to achieve “excellence standards”. Certain excellence standards may be designed by us, and we will determine the qualifying criteria to achieve these standards. We may also offer you the opportunity to design your own excellence standards, and you will be fully responsible for determining the qualifying criteria to achieve those standards. An excellence standard indicates that, in our view, you or the relevant user have met the qualifying criteria to achieve the excellence standard as at the time that the standard is awarded. However:

5.6.1 for the reasons given in paragraphs 5.4 and 5.5, purchasing a membership (or access to specific content) does not5.5, we cannot provide aany guarantee that your education setting or organisation is or will be fully compliant with all relevant statutory and regulatory requirements and you remain fully legally responsible for your compliance.or is achieving or will achieve any particular performance or outcome;

5.6.2 the award of an excellence standard does not provide a guarantee that you will continue to meet the qualifying criteria, and an excellence standard may expire (or may, in our discretion, be withdrawn), in which case you may need to undertake further work to be re-awarded the excellence standard;

5.6.3 the qualifying criteria for an excellence standard may change at any time, including after you have started working towards an excellence standard, and an excellence standard can only be awarded if you meet all of the applicable criteria in force as at the date of the award;

5.6.4 we have no responsibility for any excellence standards which you design, other than awarding them if it appears that you or the user has met the relevant criteria you specified, and when using any such excellence standards you must make clear that these are determined by you, not us; and

5.6.5 you must not publish, display or promote any excellence standard which you have achieved in any way which misrepresents what the excellence standard represents and we may withdraw the award of any excellence standard if we are not comfortable with the way in which it is being used.

5.7 The promises set out in paragraphs 5.1 and 5.2 are the only promises that we make to you and are in place of any terms or obligations implied by statute, common law, custom, trade usage, course of dealing or otherwise, all of which are excluded.

5.8 Whilst most of the services and content on our sites are only available to members, a small amountproportion of our services and content is free content, which isare available to everyone for free. We do not offer any warranties or guarantees in respect of thisthese services or content, even if you access itthem whilst you have a membership., and we reserve the right to take any of the following steps at any time without prior notice to you:

5.9 To further enhance the range of content available on our site, we may offer specially selected content from external content providers. Where we do make this content available to you then, unless otherwise stated, it will be available at no additional charge. To help you identify this content, it will be on separate channels to our own content. As we are not responsible for this content, we cannot offer any warranties or guarantees in respect of it.

5.10 For information purposes, we may provide you with details of third party training programmes, services or products. Any such reference should not be treated as providing advice, recommendation or endorsement relating to the relevant third party programme, service or product or indicating that it will be suitable for your or your user’s specific circumstances, and you should undertake your own investigations before deciding whether it is right for you.

5.11 If something does go wrong in connection with these terms or our provision of services or content or services to you, the following limits apply:

5.11.1 Current membership: The maximum amount you can claim in respect of any causes of action arising in any membership period will be equivalent to the amount that you paid to us for that membership period.

5.11.2 Expired membership: The maximum amount you can claim in respect of any causes of action arising after your membership expired will be equivalent to the amount that you paid to us for your last membership period.

5.11.4 Purchased content: The maximum amount you can claim in respect of any causes of action arising in connection with services or content that you have purchased outside of a membership is the amount that you paid to us for that purchase.

5.12 Whilst you have a membership or have otherwise purchased access to services or content, our relationship is with you and not directly with your users. Your users will therefore have no right to bring a claim against us. If a user brings a direct claim against us despite this, you will be responsible for defending this claim and for any loss, damage, cost, payment or expense arising out of that claim.

5.13 In addition, we cannot accept responsibility for:

5.13.1 special types of loss that are specific to your circumstances and would not ordinarily be expected to arise from that type of breach or incident;

5.13.2 loss of anticipated savings or additional expense incurred in obtaining services or content elsewhere;

5.13.3 loss of data (except where the loss involved the data being wrongfully disclosed to an unauthorised third party); or

5.13.4 any failure to perform, or delay in performance of, any of our obligations where that failure or delay is caused by events outside our reasonable control.

5.14 Nothing in these terms limits or excludes in any way our liability for matters for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation or any other matter for which it would be unlawful for us to exclude, or attempt to exclude, our liability.

6. PAYMENT

6.1 You can pay by card or by invoice:

6.1.1 Payment by card: Payment for your selected membership period or purchased services or content will be taken by card on the date or dates specified in your order (or immediately on purchase, if no such date is specified), and (unless you request otherwise) we will charge the same card for any membership renewals on or around the renewal date. If we are unable to charge the card we will in the first instance contact you to request details of an alternative card. If no valid alternative card is provided we will invoice you for the fee.

6.1.2 Payment by invoice: We will issue the invoice to you for your selected membership period or purchased services or content on the date or dates specified in your order (or immediately on purchase, if no such date is specified), and the invoice will be payable within 30 days. We will issue subsequent invoices for membership renewals on or around the renewal date, and each of these invoices will also be payable within 30 days.

6.2 We will notify you of the applicable renewal fee at least 30 days prior to renewal. Except where your renewal fee has been price locked as described in paragraph 6.4, this renewal fee may be higher than the membership fee you paid in respect of the preceding membership period. For the avoidance of doubt, any discount offered in respect of the preceding membership period will not apply to the renewal period unless expressly indicated in the renewal notification. You can cancel renewal in accordance with paragraph 3.6 if the renewal price is too much for you. If you do not decide to cancel, your membership will renew at the quoted renewal price.

6.3 If we do not provide notice of a renewal fee in accordance with paragraph 6.2,6.2, your membership will renew at the same membership fee which applied to your previous membership period (except that any discount which was offered in respect of the preceding membership period, including any reduced initial charge or free of charge period, will not apply to the renewal period).

6.4 Where your renewal fee has been price locked, for example where you upgraded part way through a membership period (see paragraph 6.5.2), the renewal fee for the forthcoming renewal period will always be charged at the price locked fee.

6.5 Where you upgrade part way through a membership period, we will calculate the amounts due from you as follows:

6.5.1 Upgrade fee: This fee covers your access to the upgraded membership for the remainder of your current membership period. This fee is calculated as the difference between the price you paid and the price for the upgraded membership and will be adjusted pro rata to cover only the remaining duration of your current membership period. This fee will be charged to your card or invoiced to you (depending on your usual payment option) immediately.

6.5.2 Renewal fee: This is the fee for your next membership period. This will be based on the current price for the upgraded membership you have chosen. This fee is price locked, so it will not change even if our membership pricing increases before your next renewal date. This fee will be charged to your card or invoiced to you (depending on your usual payment option) on your next renewal date.

6.6 Any prices quoted are exclusive of VAT, which is payable in addition.

7. YOUR CONTENT

7.1 Where you have a membership, we may offer the opportunity for you and/or your users to submit content, such as your own training videos, details of external CPD undertaken by users, the finalised version of your education setting's policiessetting’s or organisation’s policies, information relating to appraisals and performance reviews, reviews of our content and answers to tests and assessments.

7.2 You must not submit content which:

7.2.1 is inaccurate or expresses an opinion which is not genuinely held;

7.2.2 is likely to deceive any person;

7.2.3 is defamatory or derogatory of any person;

7.2.4 is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory;

7.2.5 promotes sexually explicit material, violence, any illegal activity or discrimination based on race, sex, gender identity, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age;

7.2.6 infringes any copyright, database right, trade mark or other rights of any other person;

7.2.7 is made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence;

7.2.8 is threatening, abusive or invades a person's privacy, causes annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety, is likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person; and/or

7.2.9 advocates, promotes or assists any unlawful act, for example copyright infringement or computer misuse.

7.3 We will not ordinarily check the content that you submit. However, we reserve the right to do so in our absolute discretion. If we have any concerns of any nature we may suspend or delete any content that you have submitted, or suspend or remove your right to submit further content.

7.4 If any person claims that any content that you have submitted infringes their rights, you agree to fully reimburse us for any loss, damage, cost or expense we incur as a result of that claim, including any legal costs we incur and any amounts that we are ordered to pay to that person or agree to pay to that person as part of a settlement.

7.5 In general, any content that you submit will be kept private to you and will not be shared with anybody else. However, :

7.5.1 it may sometimes be necessary to share content submitted by one user with other users – for example, if you are using People Development, as part of the performance management and appraisal process it may be necessary for an appraiser to access information submitted by an appraisee (and vice versa) – it is your responsibility to ensure that users are aware of this and that you have the appropriate lawful basis for this sharing; and

7.5.2 if any of your users submit reviews of our content, we may share these reviews publicly (including the name of the reviewer and the customer) to publicise our content and help others choose the content which is most relevant to them.

8. OUR SERVICES AND CONTENT

8.1 The services and content that we make available through our site is the result of significant investment of time, money and expertise and is aare valuable assetassets of our business. The services and content isare protected by intellectual property law and other legal provisions, both in the United Kingdom and internationally.

8.2 We sometimes receive requests or suggestions for services or content from our members. Whilst we cannot offer any commitment to fulfil any requests, if we do launch any new services or create any content in response to a request or suggestion we will nevertheless retain all rights to that service or content, including the right to make that service or content available to other customers (on either a paid or free basis).

8.3 Any right that we grant you to access our services and content is strictly a licence and does not give you any form of ownership or rights in the underlying service or content, nor any right to create a local copy of the service or content. Any service or content must be accessed and used strictly in accordance with these terms.

8.4 You must not attempt to copy or reproduce any of our service or content or to use itthem for any purpose other than for which we have specifically authorised. You must not use any part of our service or content to train any large language model or other artificial intelligence tool.

8.4 If using the AI service, you must not attempt to distil any part of any model used within the AI service, or attempt to ascertain or duplicate any instructions or guardrails used by the AI service to guide the artificial intelligence tool in the creation of the results.

8.4 You must ensure that your users only use our services and content in connection with their role at your education setting or organisation.

8.4 You must not attempt to circumvent any security measure or other restriction, including attempting to circumvent any guardrails or to override or modify any instructions given to our AI service.

9. CONFIDENTIALITY

9.1 You and we each agree to keep the other's confidential information confidential and not to disclose it to any third party or to use it for any other purpose except as permitted by these terms or by the other in writing.

9.2 Our confidential information includes any services and content available on our sites which requires registration to access (whether that service or content is made available for free or only on a paid basis) and any other information that we may provide to you which is either marked "“confidential"” or that you otherwise reasonably ought to know is confidential.

9.3 Your confidential information includes your content (as described in paragraph 7) and any other information that you may provide to us which is either marked “confidential” or that we otherwise reasonably ought to know is confidential.

9.4 The confidentiality obligations do not apply to any information which is already public (except where it is public as a result of a breach of confidentiality) or which was received from a third party which was not under an obligation of confidentiality in respect of it.

9.5 If you input any content or information into the AI service, you acknowledge that this may be used to train the model used to power the AI service. We recommend that you do not input any confidential information into the AI service, and in no circumstances should you input any personal data into the AI service.

9.6 The confidentiality obligations also do not prevent disclosure:

9.6.1 where and to the extent it is required to do so under operation of law, by court order or by any regulatory body of competent jurisdiction;

9.6.2 to employees, agents, directors, officers, authorised sub-contractors, professional advisors and consultants (and, in your case, to governers, governors and trustees and parents) who have a need to know the same, provided that whichever of us makes the disclosure makes those persons aware of, and ensures the compliance of those persons with, these obligations as to confidentiality; or

9.6.3 where and to the extent required under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and/or the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (and we will, at your cost, provide any assistance as you may reasonably require to enable you to comply with a request of this nature).

10. USER DATA

10.1 10.1 We take our obligations under data protection law very seriously. To enable you to obtain the benefit of our services, we may need to collect personal data relating to your users, for example their names, email addresses and roles, information relating to external CPD undertaken by your staff and information relating to appraisals and performance reviews.

10.2 Except in the circumstances set out in paragraph 10.4, we are considered to become a “processor” for the purposes of data protection law. To ensure that you are lawfully entitled to provide this personal data to us, we are required to make certain commitments to you. When we are acting as a “processor”, we will:

10.2.1 comply with the applicable provisions of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), together with the Data Protection Act 2018 and any other law applicable to the protection of personal data in effect from time to time;

10.2.2 carry out the processing only for the purposes of fulfilling our obligations to you under these terms and only during the term of your membership (or, where content is purchased outside the membership, until this content has been viewed);

10.2.3 perform the processing activities only on your instructions (unless otherwise required by law or a regulatory body);

10.2.4 other than as permitted by Chapter 5 of the UK GDPR, not transfer or allow the transfer of the personal data outside the United Kingdom without your written consent;

10.2.5 ensure that any persons authorised to process the personal data are subject to a duty of confidence in respect of such processing;

10.2.6 implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk, in compliance with article 32 of the UK GDPR;

10.2.7 let you know as soon as possible if we become aware of a personal data breach, and work with you to resolve the issue;

10.2.8 subject to reimbursement of our reasonable costs, assist you to fulfil your obligation to respond to requests made by data subjects to exercise their rights under Chapter III of the UK GDPR;

10.2.9 subject to reimbursement of our reasonable costs, assist you to ensure compliance with your obligations under articles 32 to 36 of the UK GDPR;

10.2.10 impose upon each sub-processor (and ensure each such sub-processor’s compliance with) the terms of this paragraph 10.2 as if the processing being carried out by the sub-processor was being carried out by us (and we will be for the acts and omissions of such sub-processors as if they were our own);

10.2.11 impose upon each sub-processor (and ensure each such sub-processor's compliance with) the terms of this paragraph 10.2 as if the processing being carried out by the sub-processor was being carried out by us (and we will be for the acts and omissions of such sub-processors as if they were our own);

10.2.12 make available to you all information necessary to demonstrate compliance with our obligations under this paragraph 10.2 and allow for and contribute to audits, including inspections, you may conduct (or that you appoint an auditor to conduct); and

10.2.13 on the termination or expiry of the relevant services, either delete or return (at your option) all personal data processed on your behalf, and delete any copies (except to the extent retention is required by law or for our own purposes as permitted by these terms).

10.3 As the “controller” of your users’ personal data, you are fully responsible for ensuring that any use that you make of their personal data complies with applicable data protection law.

10.4 We may also use users' personal data for our own purposes, as described in more detail in our privacy notice. These purposes include:

10.4.1 sharing reviews submitted by your users (as described in paragraph 7.5);

10.4.2 monitoring use of the relevant site to help ensure that we are providing a positive user experience and to understand content usage patterns; and

10.4.3 analysing usage data for statistical and analytical purposes and disclosing this information (in an anonymised form) to third parties in connection with our or their businesses.

10.5 Where we process personal data as described in paragraph 10.3, we are considered to be a “controller” for the purposes of data protection law. This means that we are responsible for ensuring that these activities comply with applicable data protection law.

10.6 When you provide us with any personal data, you must ensure that you are lawfully entitled to provide us with that personal data so that we can use that personal data for the purposes described in paragraph 10.3.

11. SECURITY OF USER ACCOUNTS

11.1 You are responsible for ensuring that your users keep their passwords and other login details secure and confidential. You must ensure that your users do not share their passwords or login details with any other person, including any other user at your education setting or organisation.

11.2 For convenience, we may offer your users the opportunity to log in via a third party authentication method, such as Office 365 or Google. We have no association with these providers (other than using their services for user authentication) and your users must ensure that any use of these accounts is in accordance with the terms imposed by the relevant provider and must keep that account secure in the same way they would for an account created directly with us.

12. LINKS TO THIRD PARTY CONTENT

12.1 In certain circumstances we may provide links to external sites or content or refer to third party publications.

12.2 Any link or reference is not an endorsement or guarantee of that content, and we cannot accept responsibility for any site, content or publication which you may choose to access pursuant to a link or reference.

13. GENERAL

13.1 If we fail, at any time, to insist upon strict performance of any of your obligations under these terms, or if we fail to exercise any of the rights or remedies to which we are entitled under these terms, this does not mean that we are waiving those rights or remedies and you will not be relieved from compliance with those obligations.

13.2 If any of these terms are determined by any competent authority to be invalid, unlawful or unenforceable to any extent, that term, condition or provision will to that extent be severed from the remaining terms, conditions and provisions, which will continue to be valid to the fullest extent permitted by law.

13.3 These terms represent the entire agreement between us and replace any previous arrangement, understanding or agreement between us. Neither of us is agreeing to these terms in reliance on any statement, representation, assurance or warranty of any person which is not set out in these terms.

13.4 Unless otherwise expressly stated, any notices which are required to be sent under these terms must be sent by email. Notices sent to us should be sent to membership@nationalcollege.com. Any notices for you will be sent to the email address you provided when registering (or any other email address you have given us to replace that email address).

13.5 We may revise or replace terms from time to time. If we do, we will post the revised or replacement terms on our site, and the updated terms will take effect from the date that those updated terms are posted (unless otherwise stated). If you object to any revision or replacement of our terms, you must let us know within 30 days of the new terms being posted, in which case any membership or right to access content will end immediately.

13.6 These terms, including any associated non-contractual dispute, are governed by English law, and you and we each accept the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts in respect of any disputes arising out of or in connection with these terms.