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This page should be read in conjunction with our Privacy Policy.

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.

We use three types of cookie on our websites:

  • Session or temporary cookies that are deleted after each visit. These cookies help us monitor visitors' movement from page to page, so we can ensure any choices you make and/or details you submit are 'remembered' as you navigate the site.
  • Persistent cookies that are valid across visits. They help our websites remember you as a user each time you use the same computer to revisit us.
  • Third-party cookies that are used by external content from other third-party websites within our website. These include sites such as Facebook and Twitter, whose cookie usage policy you can view on their own websites.

An essential one is the session cookie, called MoodleSessionSMMC. You must allow this cookie into your browser to provide continuity and maintain your login from page to page. When you log out or close the browser this cookie is destroyed (in your browser and on the server). Under the terms of the data protection legislation, this is classed as a "strictly necessary" cookie which is required for this website to work properly.

The MOODLEID persistent cookie is purely for convenience. It just remembers your email address within the browser. This means when you return to this site the email address field on the login page will be already filled out for you. It is safe to refuse this cookie - you will just have to retype your email address every time you log in.

We also use Google Analytics on this website - a free web analytics tool offered by Google that collects information about how visitors use our site. We use this information to help us improve our website, for example by making the navigation easier to use or by improving access to under-used pages.

Google Analytics sets four cookies. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. These cookies use an unique identifier for tracking purposes.

  • _ga is a session cookie used to distinguish users. It expires after 2 years.
  • _gid is a session cookie used to distinguish users. It expires after 24 hours.
  • _gat is a session cookie used to throttle request rate. It expires after 1 minute.
  • Amplitude is a persistent cookie used to identify unique users.

It is safe to refuse the cookies set by Google Analytics. You should read the Google Analytics privacy document for more details about the data collected by Google Analytics.

Google have also provided the ability to prevent data from being used by Google Analytics. See https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout for more information.

We also use Google ReCAPTCHA on some of our online forms to prevent spam through our public contact forms. This is an essential cookie and under the terms of the data protection legislation, is classed as a "strictly necessary" cookie which is required for this website to work properly. You should read the Google privacy information notice to understand what information they collect.

We use a Facebook Page plugin so that we can easily embed and promote relevant Facebook Pages on our website. Facebook sets a session cookie called fr which expires after 3 months. You should read Facebook's cookie policy for more information about their privacy policy and practices, including what types of information Facebook receives and how information is used and shared.


Managing cookies

Most web browsers allow you to choose whether or not to allow cookies to be stored on your computer and to manage any cookies already stored on your computer. For more information, go to www.aboutcookies.org.uk/managing-cookies