Schools hold data on all their pupils, which they and others use for a variety of purposes. This page makes available to parents and pupils information on which organisations have access to this data and what they use it for.
Organisations with access to information on pupils, such as schools, Local Authorities, the Department for Education, are all "data controllers" under the Data Protection Act 1998. They determine the purposes for which "personal data" (i.e. data about living individuals, from which they can be identified) is processed, and the way in which that processing is done.
The following document contains more detailed information on the kinds of organisations that have access to this information, and what they use this data for.