Cookie Notice
Cookies and similar technologies store small amounts of information on your device. This page explains which categories this website uses, what each is for, and how to say no without losing anything that matters.
At a glance
- No advertising cookies
- No cross-site tracking
- Declining changes nothing you need
- Last updated 15 August 2026
The short version: the only things this site needs in order to work are a handful of strictly necessary items, and everything else is optional and off until you say otherwise.
What a Cookie Is, and What the Law Requires
This document has not yet been reviewed by a solicitor and is a working draft: London Maths & Science College should have it checked by a qualified adviser before the site goes live.
A cookie is a small file a website asks your browser to store, so that the site can recognise your device on a later page or a later visit. Several other technologies do much the same job, local storage in your browser, tracking pixels in an email, small scripts embedded in a page, and the rules treat them the same way. Where this page says "cookie", it means all of them.
Regulation 6 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 governs storing information on, or reading information from, your device. The starting point is that we may not do it. Consent is what lifts that prohibition, and the law also allows a short list of exceptions where consent is not needed: where storage is purely to transmit a communication, where it is strictly necessary to provide a service you have asked for, and, following amendments now in force, for limited statistical and appearance purposes, provided you are given clear information and a simple, free way to object.
Where the thing we are storing also involves personal data, the UK GDPR applies on top, and consent under that regime means a clear, positive action. A pre-ticked box is not consent. Continuing to scroll is not consent. Nothing on this site treats them as if they were.
The Categories We Use
We describe categories rather than individual files, because the specific tools may change and a list of names goes stale faster than anyone updates it.
| Category | What it does | Do we need your consent? |
|---|---|---|
| Strictly necessary | Keeps the site working: security, load balancing, remembering that you have made a cookie choice, and keeping a form you are filling in from losing its contents. | No, these fall within the strictly necessary exception, and they cannot be switched off without breaking the site. |
| Preferences | Remembers a choice you made about how the site appears or behaves, so that it does not have to ask again. | Either consent, or the statutory exception for appearance and functionality with a simple way to object. We tell you which applies in the banner. |
| Measurement and statistics | Counts visits and page views so that we can see which pages are read and which are not, and improve them. Data is used to improve this service, not shared for anyone else’s purposes. | Yes, unless we rely on the statutory statistical exception, in which case you are told and given a free and simple way to object. |
| Embedded content | Where a page includes something served by another organisation, a video, a map, that provider may set its own cookies when the content loads. | Yes. Embedded content is not loaded until you agree, so nothing is set before you choose. |
| Advertising and cross-site tracking | Building a profile of you across websites, or targeting advertising at you elsewhere. | Not applicable. We do not use this category at all. |
A table of individual cookie names, providers and durations belongs on this page and will be published here once the site’s final configuration is confirmed. We would rather leave that gap visible than fill it with names we have not checked.
What Happens If You Decline
Nothing you need stops working. You can read every page, use every link, download every document, contact us, book a consultation and enrol without accepting a single optional cookie.
What changes is small. Embedded content, a video, for instance, will not load until you allow it, and you will see a placeholder with a button instead. A preference you set may not survive to your next visit, so the site may ask again. And our page statistics will not count your visit, which affects us rather than you.
Declining has no effect on your application, your enrolment, your teaching, your examination entry or anything else in your relationship with the college. It is not recorded against you, and nobody on the teaching side ever sees it.
How to Change Your Mind
Your choice is not permanent. You can change it at any time from the cookie settings link in the footer of every page, which reopens the same controls you saw on your first visit and lets you turn a category on or off.
Withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it, which is what the law requires. When you withdraw it, we stop setting cookies in that category. Anything already stored on your device from that category can be cleared by you at any time using your browser, as described below.
Because your choice is itself remembered in a cookie, clearing your cookies also clears the record of what you decided, and the site will ask again on your next visit. That is not the site ignoring you; it is the site having genuinely forgotten.
Controlling Cookies in Your Browser
Every major browser lets you block or delete cookies without touching our controls at all. The settings live in slightly different places, but the options are the same everywhere.
- Block all cookies. This works, and it will break parts of many websites, including ours. Forms may not hold their contents and a cookie choice cannot be remembered.
- Block third-party cookies only. A reasonable middle setting, and most browsers now do this by default.
- Delete cookies when you close the browser. Useful on a shared or public computer.
- Delete cookies for one site. Every browser has a way to clear stored data for a single website, which is the cleanest way to reset your relationship with this one.
- Use private or incognito browsing, which discards cookies at the end of the session.
- Some browsers also send a global privacy signal on your behalf. Where a browser sends one, we treat it as an objection to non-essential storage.
Cookies and Your Personal Data
Measurement data tells us that a page was read, roughly where in the country the reader was, and what kind of device they used. It is not used to identify you, and we do not combine it with your student record.
We do not sell data collected through this website, and we do not share it for anyone else’s marketing. Where a category involves personal data, the wider explanation of your rights, including the right to object, is in our privacy notice.
If you want to know exactly what is stored on your device by this site at any moment, your browser will tell you. Developer tools in every major browser list stored cookies and local storage for the current site, and you do not have to take our word for it.
Questions
Cookie Questions
The site works normally. You can read, navigate, contact us, book a consultation and enrol.
Embedded content such as a video will show a placeholder until you allow it, a saved preference may not survive to your next visit, and your visit will not appear in our page statistics.
Use the cookie settings link in the footer of any page. It reopens the same controls and lets you switch a category on or off. Withdrawing consent is as simple as giving it.
Because we have not confirmed the site’s final configuration, and publishing a list we had not verified would be worse than publishing none. A named list with providers and durations will appear here once it is settled.
In the meantime, your browser’s developer tools will show you exactly what is stored for this site.
No. We do not run advertising on this site, we do not build profiles across websites, and we do not share website data for anyone else’s marketing.
Yes, and it is a perfectly sensible approach. Every major browser can block or delete cookies for all sites or for one site.
Blocking everything will stop us remembering your cookie choice, so the banner will reappear on each visit. That is the browser doing what you asked, not the site nagging.
No, in any respect. Your choice is not attached to your student record. It is not visible to teaching or admissions staff, and it plays no part in any decision about you.
Local storage, pixels in emails, device fingerprinting and small embedded scripts can all do the job a cookie does. The rules apply to what is being done, not to the file format.
That is why this notice talks about categories of purpose rather than about cookies alone.
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