Terms of service

1. The service

CS Ninja is a homework and practice service for Computer Science and IT. Teachers choose topics; the system generates questions, marks pupil answers and reports progress. What is included depends on the plan the school subscribes to, as described on the pricing page.

2. Your account and responsibilities

• The school administrator manages the school's account, staff, classes and pupils, and must keep their own login details secure.
• The school is responsible for the accuracy of the staff and pupil information it provides, and for making sure it has the authority to share it with us.
• Accounts are for the school's own staff and pupils only and must not be shared with other organisations.
• The school must not misuse the service, attempt to access another school's data, or use the service for anything unlawful.

3. Plans, trials and payment

• New schools receive one free month on the chosen plan. No card is taken up front and no automatic charge is made when the trial ends.
• After the trial, continued use requires a paid subscription, billed monthly or annually as chosen. Prices are shown on the pricing page and may change with notice; changes never apply to a period already paid for.
• Upgrades take effect immediately and are charged pro-rata; downgrades and billing-frequency changes take effect at the next renewal.
• If a subscription ends and is not renewed, the school account becomes read-only and is handled as described in the privacy policy: marked for deletion after six months and erased 30 days after that warning.

4. Availability and changes

We aim to keep the service available and reliable but do not guarantee uninterrupted access. We may update the service from time to time; where a change materially reduces what a school's plan includes, we will give notice and the school may cancel before the change takes effect.

5. Acceptable use and content

Pupils and staff must not enter personal data into free-text answers beyond what is needed to answer the question. Question content provided by CS Ninja remains our property; the school's own data remains the school's.

6. Liability

Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law. Otherwise, our total liability to the school in any year is limited to the fees the school paid us in that year, and we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses such as loss of data caused by the school's own systems or misuse.

7. Ending the agreement

The school may cancel at any time; the subscription then runs to the end of the paid period. We may suspend or end access where the school seriously or repeatedly breaks these terms, after giving warning where it is reasonable to do so.

8. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.

DPA 1. Subject matter, duration and purpose

CS Ninja processes personal data only to provide the homework and practice service to the school: setting and marking work, tracking progress, administering accounts, licences and billing, and keeping the service secure. Processing lasts for as long as the school holds an account, subject to the retention and deletion rules in the privacy policy.

DPA 2. Data and data subjects

• Data subjects: the school's staff and pupils with CS Ninja accounts.
• Personal data: names, school email addresses, roles, class membership, and learning records such as answers, marks, feedback, experience points, streaks and badges.
• Special category data is not required and the school should not provide it.

DPA 3. Processor obligations

• Process personal data only on the school's documented instructions, including these terms, unless the law requires otherwise.
• Ensure people with access to the data are bound by confidentiality.
• Apply appropriate technical and organisational measures, including encryption in transit and encryption of pupil names and most contact details in the database.
• Assist the school, so far as reasonable, with data subject requests, DPIAs and consultations with the Information Commissioner's Office.
• Tell the school without undue delay if we become aware of a personal data breach affecting its data.

DPA 4. Sub-processors

The school gives general authorisation for the sub-processors described in the privacy policy: our hosting and database provider, our email provider, our payment provider and, on the Ninja AI plan only, AI marking providers. We will inform schools of any intended new sub-processor, and the school may object on reasonable data-protection grounds. We remain responsible for our sub-processors' compliance.

DPA 5. AI marking

On the Ninja AI plan, exam-style answers are sent to an AI marking provider together with the exam question and its mark scheme only. No pupil name, email address, school, class or other identifying information is sent. If a pupil types personal data into the answer box itself, that text is sent as part of the answer, so pupils must be asked not to include personal details in their answers. Answers sent for marking are not used to train the provider's models.

DPA 6. International transfers

Service data is hosted in the United Kingdom. Where any processing involves a transfer outside the UK, it is protected by UK adequacy regulations or standard contractual clauses.

DPA 7. Audits and information

We will make available the information reasonably needed to demonstrate compliance with this agreement and will allow audits by the school, on reasonable notice, no more than once a year unless the school has a specific concern or a regulator requires it.

DPA 8. Return and deletion

When the agreement ends, the school may ask for an export of its data. Unless the school subscribes again or asks for earlier deletion, the data is handled as set out in the privacy policy: marked for deletion six months after the licence ends and permanently erased 30 days after that warning.