This website is owned and operated by Ten Lifestyle Management Ltd (trading as ‘The Key’), referred to as ‘The Key’ or ‘we’ or ‘our’ throughout these terms and conditions of use (the ’Terms’). Ten Lifestyle Management Ltd (trading as ‘The Key’) is a company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales with company number 04688658, whose registered office is at 30 Market Place, London W1W 8AP.

These Terms govern the content of and relate to your use of the website www.usethekey.org.uk (the ‘Site’) and the information and support services that we provide for school leaders, the school they represent and their staff.

You can access certain parts of the Site that promote our Services (as defined below) as a Guest without paying a subscription fee. These areas shall be subject to these Terms. You can access and use the Site and all the Services it offers by contacting us and agreeing to our online subscription form to which these Terms relate (the ‘Subscription Form’) which shall be subject to these Terms.

For ease of use we have set out our Terms as follows:

1. Our Contract

2. Our Services and your Membership

3. Service Access

4. Service Subscription Fees

5. Your Service Subscription: Duration and Cancellation

6. Your Concerns and Feedback

7. Intellectual Property

8. Our Liability

9. Links to Third Party Websites

10. General

1. Our Contract

Please read these terms carefully before using the Site. A ‘Guest’ is a user of the introductory elements of the Site, which are accessible before registering, or the preview elements of our Site, which are accessible after registering but before subscribing, or a user of our full Site who is invited to use our Services on a trial basis. A ‘Subscriber’ or Member is a user of the Site whose school has agreed to our online Subscription Form and paid a subscription/membership fee. Whether as a Subscriber or as a Guest school, when visiting or using this Site and/or any content or materials available, you agree to be bound by these terms and our Subscription Form (if applicable) which form a legally binding agreement between us (the 'Contract’).

For the avoidance of doubt, we deem the Contract to be with each of: (a) the school leader who first accepts our Terms on behalf of his or her school (the ‘Lead User’); (b) the school that the school leader represents; and (c) individuals who are members of the registered or subscribed school’s senior leadership team, based at the school’s address set out in the Subscription Form or Registration Form and who have registered with us (‘Permitted Users’). Thus, Guests and Subscribers might be the Lead User, the school the Lead User represents and/or the Permitted Users.

The Key reserves the right to change the Terms from time to time at its sole discretion and your use of the Site will be subject to the most current version of the Terms posted on the Site at the time of such use. We recommend that you read through the Terms from time to time so that you can be sure that you are aware of the latest version.

2. Our Services and your Membership

By registering or subscribing to use the Services, the Lead User warrants his or her eligibility as a professional school leader of the maintained school in England set out in our online Registration Form or Subscription Form and that he or she has the authority to enter into the Contract on the school’s behalf.

Our current members are school leaders in primary, secondary special, and independent schools in England and Wales and the nature of the articles published on our Site reflects this membership.

Services we provide from the Site include: (a) the provision of access to articles and other content we publish on our Site and the facility to rate or comment on an article or a search and the ability to ask a new question in relation to the content published; (b) answering school leaders’ questions about leadership and management in schools and publishing each answer in the form of an article that is available to all members; and (c) such other services as we elect to provide from this Site from time to time (together the ‘Services’).

Articles are intended to be of interest to a significant number of members. We do not answer questions that require advice about circumstances relating only to a particular school or individual. We therefore reserve the right at our sole discretion to refuse new questions if they fall outside our scope.

We also reserve the right at our sole discretion to refuse new questions if a school or individual member has asked an unreasonable number or if there is any problem with the school’s subscription payment.

We reserve the right at any time and from time to time to modify the Services we provide and to add or remove content.

3. Service Access

(a) Guest Membership

We may invite school leaders and others to use our Site and Services as Guests free of charge for a limited trial period. If you are using our Site and our Services on a trial basis then such use shall be subject to these Terms and may be cancelled by us for any reason at any time.

Unless expressly invited by ourselves, you may only trial the Site and Service once. If these terms are breached, we reserve the right at our sole discretion to terminate your trial access to our Site and Services.

(b) Setting Up and Using your Member Account

When the Lead User registers to access and use the Services on behalf of the school he or she warrants to us his or her eligibility as a school leader of a maintained school in England and his or her authority to enter into a legally binding agreement on his or her own behalf and on behalf of the school he or she represents. We will then issue an account designation. The school, the Lead User and each Permitted User shall then be responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their registration details, and for all activities that occur under these details. They agree to notify The Key immediately of any unauthorised use of these details and any other breach of security. They agree to ensure that they exit from their account at the end of each session. The Key cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to comply with these obligations.

(c) Terms of Service Access

Access to our Site and the use of our Services shall be limited to the Lead User and Permitted Users.

Access to the Site and use of the Services is subject to a non-exclusive and non-transferable licence permitting Lead Users and Permitted Users to access and use our Site and Services on the terms set out below.

Schools and their Lead Users shall ensure that all their Permitted Users are made aware of and comply with these Terms and, in particular the terms relating to access to our Site and the use of the Services set out in Section 7 below. Schools acknowledge and agree that they are solely responsible for each of their Permitted Users’ use of our Site and the Services and shall be liable to us for any damage or loss we suffer as a result of any Permitted User’s breach of these Terms.

(d) Other Permitted Users

Each proposed Permitted User must complete our registration procedure and we shall then at our sole discretion decide whether or not to issue a new account designation to such proposed Permitted User. If any Permitted User ceases to be a member of the school’s senior leadership team, the school must notify us so that we can terminate that Permitted User’s registration or arrange for the user to register from another school.

Schools shall maintain a written list of current Permitted Users and shall provide such list to us as we may reasonably request from time to time.

Schools shall ensure that each Permitted User keeps a secure password for his or her use of our Site and that each Permitted User keeps his or her password confidential.

If you discover that our Site is being accessed and used by third parties who are not Permitted Users you agree to inform us immediately.

4. Service Subscription Fees

(a) Founder Membership

Schools and school leaders who joined The Key during our pilot phase (between 4 June 2007 and 17 March 2009), and confirmed their subscription during this period, are eligible for Founder Membership of The Key and a preferential subscription rate. We reserve the right to offer Founder Membership to other school leaders entirely at our own discretion.

(b) General Membership

The Key offers a variety of other subscription rates as advertised from time to time. We reserve the right to offer the rates we consider to be appropriate. There is also a standard joining fee. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to waive this joining fee.

When you subscribe to our Service you agree to pay the fees set out in our Subscription Form.

(c) Payment Terms

All our fees are exclusive of VAT.

Payment of fees shall be due on the date(s) shown on your invoice. If fees are left unpaid after 30 days of the date indicated on the invoice, The Key reserves the right to disable your account until payment is received and/or to terminate your subscription.

Once you have subscribed to the Services, the subscription fees you pay will apply for the whole of the subscription period. We will not implement any subscription fee change until the date of your yearly renewal. We will always inform you in good time of any subscription fee change. 

5. Your Service Subscription: Duration and Cancellation

(a) Duration of your Subscription

Your subscription to the Services shall commence on the date that you complete our Subscription Form (or, if earlier, when we provide you with your account designation). Subject to your right to terminate below, your subscription shall then continue for the specified number of months.

(b) Cancelling your Subscription

Either of us may cancel your subscription at any time by giving the other 30 days’ written notice.

In appropriate circumstances and at our sole discretion, The Key may terminate the account of members who are deemed to be repeatedly breaching these Terms. We may also at our sole discretion limit access to the Service and/or terminate the membership of any user who infringes our (or our licensors’) intellectual property.

(c) What happens to your Subscription on Cancellation?

If your school’s subscription is paid by monthly direct debit instalments, we will not take the payments for the remainder of the subscription period after the 30 days has elapsed.

Subscription fees paid by annual direct debit instalments or other means are not refundable in whole or in part, though we may at our sole discretion elect to refund all or part of the fee.

The joining fee, where applicable, is not refundable in any case.

On cancellation of your subscription your rights to receive the Services and to access the subscription-only areas of the Site shall cease. Any rights that have accrued to either of us at the date of cancellation shall remain enforceable after cancellation.

6. Your Concerns and Feedback

If you have any concerns or feedback about the Services please notify us using the contact details or feedback facilities available on the Site or via the following email address: enquiries@usethekey.org.uk.

Feedback from members is important to us and we shall use our reasonable endeavours to acknowledge and reply to your e-mail as soon as we can but give no guarantee that we shall be able to resolve your query.

7. Intellectual Property

(a) The Key’s and Third Parties’ Intellectual Property

For the purposes of these Terms, ‘Intellectual Property’ or ‘IP’ means copyright (including, but not limited to, such rights in computer software and databases), database rights and moral rights, patents, registered and unregistered trade marks and service marks, domain names, registered designs and design rights (in each case for the full period thereof and extensions, revivals and renewals thereof), applications for any of the foregoing and the right to apply for any of the foregoing anywhere in the world, and all similar rights anywhere in the world including, but not limited to those subsisting in inventions, designs, drawings and computer programs.

The content and material on this Site is protected by copyright and other Intellectual Property Rights. ‘The Key’ as a word and logo is an unregistered trade mark licensed to Ten Lifestyle Management Limited (‘The Key’s Trade Marks’). The Site includes or links to content and materials protected by IP owned by The Key or licensed to us by the Training and Development Agency for Schools (‘TDA’) (‘The Key’s Content’). The Site also includes or links to content and materials protected by IP owned by third parties (‘Third Party Content’). The Site, The Key’s Trade Marks, The Key’s Content and all IP that protects it is owned by and shall remain owned by The Key, TDA or their licensors (as applicable). Third Party Content and all IP that protects it is owned by and shall remain owned by that third party.

(b) Your Rights to use the Site

In consideration for payment of joining and/or subscription fees to us, you, your school and its Permitted Users may view, download and reproduce free of charge The Key’s Content in any format or media without specific permission from us subject to the following conditions:

• The Key’s Content may only be used for your personal and non-commercial purposes, save that you are permitted to the extent necessary to use such material for professional educational purposes and to share such material with your work colleagues;
• The Key’s Content shall not be reproduced or included in any other work or publication in any medium, save that you are permitted to the extent necessary to reproduce or include such material in professional presentations to work colleagues and/or senior management and/or in relation to any other professional educational purposes;
• The Key’s Content may not be modified or altered in any way, save that you are permitted to the extent necessary to modify or alter such material for use in professional presentations to work colleagues and/or senior management and/or in relation to any other professional educational purposes;
• The Key’s Content may not be shared with or sold to any third party and/or otherwise be distributed, issued or communicated to the public;
• You may circulate copies of any of The Key’s Content within your organisation provided that the source and copyright status of the Key’s Content is acknowledged with the following copyright legend: “Used with the kind permission of the copyright owner being Ten Lifestyle Management Ltd (trading as ‘The Key’) or its licensor”;
• You may not remove any copyright or other proprietary notices contained in The Key’s Content; and
• You must not use any of The Key’s Content in a derogatory manner, a misleading context or in any way which is illegal.

(c) Third Party Content

The Key shares effective practice between school leaders and offers a broad range of information in response to their questions. It is therefore understood that much of the information on this Site is drawn from or links to Third Party Content (e.g. schools, local authorities, government departments or agencies, national associations).

The Site’s researchers may actively consult third parties for their contribution to a subject and write an account or summary of this response or include the contribution in its original form. The site may review published third party material without specific discussion with its publishers, summarise the key points or provide a link to it. We are very careful to respect third party copyright and endeavor only to refer to or fairly summarise third party ideas.

The permission to use The Key’s Content as set out above does not extend to your use of any Third Party Content included or referred to on this Site or linked to from this Site. Prior written authorisation to reproduce, adapt, edit, communicate to the public, issue copies to the public or otherwise exploit any such Third Party Content must be obtained by you from the relevant third party IP holder.

Please note that any materials on third party websites or microsites linked to this Site will be subject to third party IP Rights. No licence is granted by us to use, reproduce, adapt, edit, communicate to the public, issue copies to the public or otherwise exploit such material and any such use may be subject to additional third party terms and conditions.

(d) Third Party Content Policy

If this Site publishes references or links to your material on this Site without your specific permission and you object to this use, please contact us in accordance with our ‘Your Concerns and Feedback’ section above. Please provide us with the following information and we will handle your concern accordingly (a) who you are and, if applicable, who you represent; (b) how we may contact you; (c) the exact and full URL where you found references or links to your material which is the subject of your concern; (d) proof that you are the rights holder; and (e) an explanation as to why the references or links to your material should not be published on our Site. 

(e) Contributions

If you are commissioned by The Key to create and provide for the Site any content or material, any such commissioned content or material shall be subject to separate terms and conditions which deal specifically with commissioned contributions.

Save as set out above, if you submit any content or material or agree to provide any content or material to the Site by agreeing to these Terms you grant to The Key, free of charge, a non-exclusive, worldwide licence to publicly perform, copy, reproduce, display, communicate to the public, modify, manage, distribute and store such content and material. You are free to use such materials outside of the Site in any way you choose and in turn we shall not distribute or use any of the material contributed by you other than in connection with this Site.

If you submit any content or material or agree to provide any content or material to the Site you hereby warrant to us that the content and material: (a) is original to yourself (or otherwise that you have all necessary rights and permissions to submit the material for use on the site); (b) is not (and does not contain anything) unlawful, defamatory, infringing, obscene, sexually explicit, harmful, fraudulent, confidential, libellous, hateful, discriminatory, threatening or otherwise illegal or anything which might constitute a criminal or civil offence or promote violence; and (c) does not contain anything which is in violation or an infringement of any existing copyright or licence or of any other right of any other person or party whatsoever.

8. Our Liability

The purpose of this Site and of the Service provided is to aggregate information and material from a variety of sources in answer to questions from school leaders.

The Key will exercise reasonable skill and care in providing the Services. While The Key endeavours to ensure that the information on the Site is relevant, accurate, complete and up to date, The Key does not give any warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy, completeness, currency or reliability of any of the material on the Site (including, but not limited to, The Key’s Content and/or Third Party Content) or that any such material will meet your requirements. Commentary and information does not constitute advice and you should not rely on it without seeking independent advice for your circumstances or otherwise verifying such information.

Any advice or opinions or statements made or given in any Third Party Content are those of such third party and not The Key. Third Party Content is not approved, vetted, checked or endorsed by The Key and The Key accepts no responsibility for its contents.

All other conditions, statements and warranties (including, but not limited to, any implied warranty of the fitness for a particular purpose of the Site, The Key’s material or third party material or that your use of such will not infringe the rights of any third party) are hereby excluded to the fullest extent permissible by law. Without limiting the foregoing, The Key gives no warranty that the Site and/or any materials and information provided through it will meet your requirements.

Except as expressly provided in these Terms, you agree that The Key shall not be liable for: (a) any direct loss, claim or damage; (b) any indirect loss, claim or damage, or any incidental or consequential damages of any kind; or (c) any loss of profit or loss of savings or loss or corruption of data (in each case whether direct or indirect), in each case whether based in contract, tort (including but not limited to negligence), strict liability, or otherwise, which arises out of or is in any way connected with (i) any use of this Site, The Key’s Content or Third Party Content; (ii) any failure or delay in the use of any component of the Site or any service including, without limitation, any unavailability of the Site or the services irrespective of the duration of any period of unavailability; or (iii) any use of or reliance upon any information, material, software, products, services and related graphics obtained through the Site (including without limitation The Key’s Content and Third Party Content), in all cases even if The Key has been forewarned of the possibility of such loss or damage.

9. Links to Third Party Websites

This Site contains links to websites and microsites operated by third parties that are not under our control. The Key makes no warranties or representations whatsoever about any other websites, microsites or any other material which you may access via a link from this Site. Without limiting the foregoing, these sites and third party materials are in no way approved, vetted, checked or endorsed by us and you agree that The Key shall not be responsible or in any way liable for the content, accuracy, compliance with relevant laws or accessibility of any third party materials, information, data, advice or statements or for the quality of any other products or services available on such sites. Any use of third party materials and/or third party websites or microsites is at your own risk. In addition, use of any third party materials or third party websites or microsites may be subject to your acceptance of additional terms and conditions.

10. General

(a) Dealing with our Rights and Obligations: We may at any time assign, transfer, charge or deal in any other matter with our obligations and the benefit of or any of our rights under the Contract. We may sub-contract any of our obligations hereunder to any third party.

(b) Events Beyond our Control: We shall not be liable to you for any breach of the Contract or any failure to provide or delay in providing our services through our Site resulting from any event or circumstance beyond our reasonable control including, but nor limited to, strikes, lock-outs and other industrial disputes, breakdown of systems or network access, failure of Internet access, fire, explosion or accident.

(c) Variations: The Contract constitutes the entire understanding and constitutes the entire agreement between the parties in relation to its subject matter and supersedes any previous agreement between the parties as to such subject matter. The Contract may not be altered, amended or modified except in writing signed by duly authorised representatives of each of us. We reserve the right at any time without notice to revise the content on our Site (including, but nor limited to, the Services offered by us).

(d) Notices: Any notice we need to serve on you under the Contract shall be in writing and shall be delivered by hand or sent by pre-paid first-class post or recorded delivery post to you at your address set out in the Subscription Form, or such other address as may have been notified by you for such purposes, or sent by fax or email to your fax number or email address as set out in the Subscription Form. A notice delivered by hand shall be deemed to have been received when delivered (or if delivery is not in business hours, at 9am on the first business day following delivery). A correctly addressed notice sent by pre-paid first-class post or recorded delivery post shall be deemed to have been received at the time at which it would have been delivered in the normal course of post. A notice sent by fax or email shall be deemed to have been received at the time of transmission (as shown by the timed printout obtained by the sender). For any notice you need to serve on us, the same delivery arrangements shall apply but the address, fax and email address to effect service shall be as shown on our invoice or the Site.

(e) Third Party Rights: The Contract is made for the benefit of the parties to it and (where applicable) their successors and permitted assigns, and is not intended to benefit, or be enforceable by, anyone else.

(f) Waiver of Remedies: No failure or delay by The Key to exercise any right or remedy provided under the Contract or by law shall constitute a waiver of that or any other right or remedy, nor shall it preclude or restrict the further exercise of that or any other right or remedy. No single or partial exercise of such right or remedy shall preclude or restrict the further exercise of that or any other right or remedy.

(g) Governing Law and Jurisdiction: The Contract between us is governed by and shall be construed in accordance with English law. You and The Key irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

(j) Privacy: We process information about you in accordance with our separate privacy policy which is deemed incorporated into the Contract. By using our Site and agreeing to the Contract you consent to such processing and you warrant that all data provided about the school, you and Permitted Users is accurate.

See also our privacy policy.

© The Key, 2011

Last reviewed, April 2011: Version 2