Terms of Service

1. Agreement

By creating an account or using the Awa Educationplatform (“Service”), your school (“School”, “you”, “your”) agrees to these Terms of Service (“Terms”). These Terms form a binding agreement between the School and Awa Education(“we”, “us”, “our”).

If you are accepting these Terms on behalf of a school, you represent that you have authority to bind that school to these Terms.

2. Description of Service

Awa Education is a cloud-based school management platform designed for New Zealand kura and schools. The Service includes:

• Student progress and curriculum tracking
• SENCO and IEP management
• Staff professional goal setting (PGC)
• Whānau communication and reporting
• Attendance and wellbeing monitoring
• AI-assisted lesson planning and report writing
• Learner Passport for whānau-consented cross-school student data portability
• School policy management and public policy publishing

3. Eligibility

The Service is available to:

• New Zealand registered schools and kura
• Authorised staff members of those schools
• Whānau/caregivers invited by an authorised school administrator

Students do not hold accounts on the Service. Student data is managed by authorised school staff only.

4. Accounts and Access

4.1 School administrator responsibility

The school is responsible for:

• Ensuring only authorised staff are granted access
• Managing user roles and permissions within the platform
• Revoking access promptly when a staff member leaves
• Keeping login credentials confidential

4.2 Multi-factor authentication

We strongly recommend enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all leadership and SENCO accounts. MFA is available within the platform at no additional cost.

4.3 Account security

You must notify us immediately at pipgorrie@gmail.com if you suspect unauthorised access to your school’s account.

5. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Use the Service for any purpose other than legitimate school management
• Upload data about individuals who are not current or former students or staff of your school
• Attempt to access another school’s data
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract source code from the Service
• Use the Service to transmit spam, malware, or any harmful content
• Share login credentials between users
• Use automated scripts or bots to access the Service without our written consent

6. Data and Privacy

6.1 Data ownership

Your school owns all data you upload to the Service. We act as a data processor on your behalf. You remain the data controller under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.

6.2 Privacy Policy

Our collection and use of personal information is governed by our Privacy Policy. The Privacy Policy is incorporated into these Terms by reference.

6.3 Data processing

By using the Service, you authorise us to process personal information on your behalf solely for the purposes of providing the Service, as described in the Privacy Policy.

6.4 Data export

You may export your school’s data at any time from the Admin panel in CSV format.

6.5 Data deletion

You may request deletion of all your school’s data at any time via the Admin panel. Deletion will be completed within 60 days of a verified request, except where retention is required by New Zealand law.

6.6 Retention after termination

If your school’s account is terminated or lapses, we will retain your data for 30 days to allow for recovery, after which it will be deleted unless you have requested earlier deletion.

6.7 Learner Passport and cross-school data portability

The Learner Passport feature allows a school to bundle a student’s learning history into a portable, time-limited record that can be shared with a receiving school when a student transfers. The following conditions apply:

• Whānau consent is required.A Learner Passport cannot be accessed by any party until the student’s whānau (parent or caregiver linked to the student’s record) has reviewed and approved it. Schools must not pressure whānau to approve.
• Whānau hold the token. Once approved, the Passport is represented by a unique access token held by the whānau. The school that generated the Passport does not control subsequent access.
• Revocation. Whānau may revoke a Passport at any time, immediately invalidating the token. Schools must not attempt to circumvent revocation.
• Expiry. Passports expire 30 days after whānau consent. Expired tokens cannot be used to access or import data.
• Safety flags are always included. Identity safety flags (such as custody orders and name suppression) are included in every Passport regardless of which sections whānau select, to protect the child at the receiving school.
• Receiving school responsibility.A school that imports Passport data becomes the data controller for that imported data under the Privacy Act 2020. The originating school’s obligations do not extend to data once imported by a third school.
• Provenance. Imported data is labelled with the originating school and import timestamp. Schools must not alter this provenance information.

The Learner Passport is designed in accordance with Māori data sovereignty principles. Student learning history is treated as taonga held by whānau, not institutional property.

7. Artificial Intelligence Features

Some features of the Service use the Anthropic Claude API to generate content suggestions (such as lesson plans and report drafts).

• AI-generated content is presented to staff for review and is not acted upon automatically
• We do not send identifiable student data (names, NSNs, IEP content) to AI systems
• Anthropic does not use API data to train its models
• Staff are responsible for reviewing and approving all AI-generated content before use

Full disclosure of AI use is provided in our Privacy Policy (Section 5).

8. Fees and Payment

8.1 Current pricing

During the current early-access period, the Service is provided free of charge to participating schools. We will provide at least 60 days’ written notice before introducing any fees.

8.2 Future pricing

When fees are introduced, schools that do not wish to continue under the new pricing may terminate their account and export their data without penalty during the notice period.

9. Availability and Support

9.1 Availability

We aim to provide high availability but do not guarantee uninterrupted access to the Service. Planned maintenance will be communicated in advance where possible.

9.2 Support

Support is available by email at pipgorrie@gmail.com. We aim to respond to all enquiries within 2 business days (New Zealand time).

9.3 No critical dependency

The Service is a supplementary tool and should not be used as the sole repository for critical student records. Schools are responsible for maintaining their own records in accordance with the Education and Training Act 2020.

10. Intellectual Property

10.1 Our IP

The Service, including all software, design, and documentation, is owned by Awa Education. These Terms do not grant you any rights to our intellectual property other than the right to use the Service as described herein.

10.2 Your data

You retain all rights to the data you upload to the Service. By uploading data, you grant us a limited licence to process that data solely for the purpose of providing the Service to you.

10.3 Feedback

If you provide suggestions or feedback about the Service, we may use that feedback to improve the Service without obligation to you.

11. Confidentiality

We will treat your school’s data as confidential. We will not disclose your data to third parties except:

• As necessary to provide the Service (e.g. hosting providers listed in the Privacy Policy)
• As required by New Zealand law or a valid court order
• With your prior written consent

12. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by New Zealand law:

• The Service is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind
• We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential loss arising from your use of the Service
• Our total liability to your school for any claim arising from these Terms is limited to the amount paid by your school for the Service in the 12 months preceding the claim (or NZD $500 if no fees have been paid)

Nothing in these Terms limits liability for death, personal injury, or fraud caused by our negligence.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Awa Education from any claims, losses, or damages arising from:

• Your violation of these Terms
• Your school’s use of the Service in a manner not authorised by these Terms
• Any data you upload that infringes a third party’s rights

14. Termination

14.1 By you

You may terminate your school’s account at any time by contacting pipgorrie@gmail.com. You may export your data before termination.

14.2 By us

We may suspend or terminate your access if:

• You materially breach these Terms and fail to remedy the breach within 14 days of notice
• Continued access poses a security or legal risk
• We discontinue the Service (with 60 days’ notice)

14.3 Effect of termination

On termination, your right to access the Service ceases. We will retain your data for 30 days and then delete it unless you request earlier deletion or an export.

15. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand. Any dispute arising from these Terms will be subject to the jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts.

We encourage schools to contact us first to resolve any dispute informally before pursuing formal proceedings.

16. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Where changes are material, we will notify school administrators by email at least 30 days before the changes take effect. Continued use of the Service after that date constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

The current version of these Terms is always available at this page.

17. Contact

For privacy-related enquiries, see our Privacy Policy.