Maple Talk

Who runs Maple Talk

Maple Talk is an independent, non-commercial tool built and run by a Maple Walk parent for other parents. It is not operated by, affiliated with or endorsed by Maple Walk School or the New Model School Company. The person responsible for it (the data controller) is Ben Seck, contactable at admin@mapletalk.org.

Privacy notice

What it does

Maple Talk reads school communications sent to parents — broadcast emails to the school's distribution lists, the weekly newsletter, the parent portal pages, the school's public calendar, and messages in the year-group WhatsApp groups — and turns them into a list of dated items (events, deadlines, notices, clubs). Only messages addressed to a whole distribution list are read; personal correspondence with the school is never read.

What we store about you

• Account: the username or email you chose, a one-way hash of your password (the password itself is never stored), your role, and sign-in dates.
• Children: the first names, year groups, classes and clubs you enter. These are used only to filter what you see and, if you opt in, to decide which reminders to send you. They are never shared with other accounts.
• Preferences: your filters, ticked-off tasks, items you hid, reminder settings (including the email address or WhatsApp number you gave), and whether you have seen the introduction.

What we store about the school's communications

Items shown in the app carry a title, date, short summary and audience (year or class), plus for administrators a short excerpt of the source. The extraction process is instructed never to include a child's name, and a list of names is removed automatically before anything is stored. The full text of emails and messages stays on a private computer and is not uploaded to the app, with one exception: the latest weekly newsletter PDF, a document the school sends to all parents, is made available to signed-in accounts.

Where data is kept and who processes it

• Vercel hosts the website and Neon hosts its database (account, children, preferences, items).
• Anthropic's API is used to read school communications and extract items; the text of broadcast school messages, not your account data, is sent to it for that purpose.
• Google services are used by the operator's own account to read school email, keep the calendar and an editing spreadsheet; parents' data is not sent to Google.
• If you opt in to reminders by email they are sent from the operator's Gmail account; WhatsApp reminders, when enabled, are sent through a messaging provider.

How long

For as long as you keep your account. An administrator can retire an account (it can no longer sign in) or delete it, which removes the account, its children and preferences permanently. Items about the school are kept while they are current and for the school year.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, or object to a use of it. Email admin@mapletalk.org; you can also delete your children and switch off reminders yourself in the app at any time. You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).

Children

Maple Talk is for parents and carers. Children's names are stored only because a parent typed them, are visible only to that parent's account, and are never used for any other purpose.

Terms of use

In short: the information shown is extracted automatically and may be incomplete, out of date or wrong, so always check important dates and requirements against the school's own message. Accounts and the sign-up passcode are for Maple Walk parents and carers only, and the operator may change or withdraw the service at any time. The full terms of service set out the details, including acceptable use, administrators' responsibilities and the limits of our liability.

Cookies

Maple Talk sets one cookie, mt_session, which keeps you signed in for up to 90 days. It is strictly necessary for the service and is not used for tracking or advertising. Some settings (screen layout, list or calendar view) are kept in your browser's local storage. There are no third-party or analytics cookies.