Privacy

Who we are

First Week is run by Adam Lewis, a sole trader based in Vietnam and registered in the United Kingdom, who is the data controller for the information on this page. Email hello@thefirstweek.co.uk about anything to do with your data.

Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (number to follow).

Children's names

We ask for a learner's first name so it prints on their sheets, but it never reaches us. It stays in your web browser, on your computer. If you write a learner's first name in a message for their family, your browser swaps it for a marker before the message reaches us, and puts the name back when you print. Please don't type surnames, or anything sensitive, in messages or notes.

We never ask for a child's date of birth, nationality, immigration status or reason for coming to the UK. Your school's logo, if you add one, also stays in your browser.

What we hold, and why

• Your account: your email address, your password (scrambled, so nobody, including us, can read it), your name and school if you add them, when you joined, and whether you want reminder emails. We need these to give you your account. We also keep your school's words, region and timetable from your last pack, to start your next one.
• Your packs: each learner's year group and home language, the dates of their sessions, your school's words for things, their timetable, what they like, your class topic, what to bring to school, your messages for their family, which days you've printed, the success criteria you record, and your answers at the end of the programme for the handover report. Packs aren't linked to a named child. We need these to make the sheets you print.
• Pictures you upload for your own word cards, so they print on that pack's sheets. Only you can see them.
• Payments: what you bought, when and for how much, and for a school licence, the school's name, the finance office's email address, a purchase order number and the invoice address if you give them. We need these to take payment and keep the tax records the law requires.
• A school licence: the school's name, its dates, and the email addresses of colleagues the licence holder adds, so they're covered when they sign up.
• Requests you send us for a topic, an interest or a picture, so we can answer them.
• People we contact about First Week: if you work for a school or a local authority, we may email you about First Week at the work address your organisation publishes on its website. We keep your name, work email and organisation, and a note of what we sent and whether you replied, only to follow up about First Week. We never buy contact lists. Ask us to stop at any time by replying or emailing hello@thefirstweek.co.uk, and we will, and delete your details.
• Messages from families: a family can tell us about a problem with a translation from the QR code on a home sheet. Their message is kept with that learner's pack, and we and the school can see it. We don't ask for their name or contact details.

We use this information only to run First Week for you, to email you about your account, your licence and your packs (you can turn off the "ready to print" reminders on Your account), and to keep the site safe. We don't sell it, share it for advertising, or use it to train AI.

The law lets us use it because we need it to provide what you've signed up for or bought, because tax law requires us to keep sales records, and, for keeping the site safe, because it's in our legitimate interests.

Cookies

One cookie keeps you signed in. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies. We count how many times the free sample day is opened each day, as a number only, without recording who opened it.

Who processes it for us

• Cloudflare runs the website and stores the database.
• Stripe takes card payments and sends receipts and invoices. Card details go straight to Stripe; we never see them.
• Resend sends our emails.
• Anthropic translates the text of home sheets and your messages for families into the family's language, and a family's message about a translation into English. It's never sent the learners' names you type. It may be processed in the United States.

Some of these companies may handle information outside the UK, including in the United States. Where they do, it's protected by the safeguards UK data protection law requires.

How long we keep it

• Your account and packs stay until you delete them. Deleting a pack, or your account on Your account, removes it straight away.
• Payment records are kept for six years, because tax law requires it. If you delete your account, they're kept without your email address.
• Sign-ins last 30 days. Password reset links last an hour. Checkouts that were never paid are deleted after 30 days.
• Deleted information can stay in our database host's backups for up to 30 days before it's gone for good.

Your rights

You can ask to see, correct, download or delete the information we hold about you, or ask us to stop using it. You can download everything we hold, and delete your account, yourself on Your account. For anything else, email hello@thefirstweek.co.uk, and we'll usually reply within a few working days, and always within a month.

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, or 0303 123 1113.

Changes

If we change how we use your information, we'll update this page and, for any important change, email you first.