Parental Information

Parental Information

As a parent, you want to make sure that your child is safe when they undertake any type of activity without your supervision.

British Cycling’s Go-Ride Club Accreditation has been designed to incorporate Sport England’s Club mark standard, which supports the development and recognition of quality junior clubs. British Cycling has aligned the Go-Ride programme to Club mark and over 100 Go-Ride registered cycling clubs are in the process of working towards this accreditation with the help of British Cycling.

The Go-Ride cycling activities are also delivered, usually through the club network, in both primary and secondary schools throughout the UK, giving children within schools a link to a local club where they can develop their skills further.

Quality Coaching in traffic free, controlled environments

A programme of safe, structured coaching activities will teach your child the fundamental skills they need in order to ride their bike in a responsible and controlled manner. Furthermore, all Go-Ride coaching activities are delivered in a traffic free environment. Any type of bike can be used, so long as it is in good condition, and a cycling helmet must be worn.

What will my child gain from this?

The Go-Ride programme of cycling activities promotes good health and includes fun activities that are easy to learn. As obesity levels in young people rise, cycling can be seen as a very enjoyable way of getting exercise and countering sedentary lifestyles. Cycling can be easily incorporated into daily life.

As your child gains confidence, he or she can take on a variety of challenges, games and competitions and all of the activities can be adapted to meet varying needs within the group.

Will my child be safe?

All Go-Ride clubs have a commitment to ongoing training for their volunteers, coaches and officials, to have a sound structure, to be fair and equitable and to undertake training to support British Cycling’s Policies and Guidelines for child protection and best practice.

The programme of Go-Ride coaching activities can only be delivered through British Cycling qualified coaches who have signed up to a coaching code of conduct. Parents therefore have peace of mind that children are receiving their training from qualified instructors.

Club officials also have an ongoing commitment to training, to have a structure within their club, and to be fair and equitable. Each Go-Ride club is required to have a Club Welfare Officer who must undertake NSPCC endorsed child protection training. The Club Welfare Officer will promote and support the implementation of British Cycling’s policy on good practice and child protection.

What qualifications will British Cycling coaches have?

All coaches in Go-Ride clubs must be British Cycling qualified coaches. All British Cycling coaching awards include sports coach UK’s Good Practice and Child Protection workshop and British Cycling’s Including Everyone: Cycling Equity home study module, which help to ensure that Go-Ride clubs are safe and welcoming environments for young people of all backgrounds. Coaches are also encouraged to broaden their knowledge to suit their particular requirements, for example attending the sports coach UK Working With Disabled Sportspeople workshop. British Cycling has a Coach Licensing Scheme that requires all qualified coaches to retain annual membership and hold a valid First Aid certificate.

Youth Policy

West Lothian Clarion is keen to encourage youth riders to progress in the sport and to participate in events which match their ability level and allow them to develop as cyclists. Full details of the club’s inclusion policy can be found here and the key details are summarised below:

Club Runs
Club runs are the core club activity and are a great way for younger riders to develop both their stamina and speed. Club runs are open to club members over the age of 12 years.

Members aged 16 or under must be accompanied by a parent/guardian who assumes full responsibility for the youth rider at all times. All youth riders must be club members and have completed a parental permission form with the club secretary or welfare officer before attending a club run.

It is highly recommended that the parent/guardian of riders aged 16 or under contact the club captain to check the suitability of the club run route before attending.

Club confined time trials
As above, the club confined time trial series is an ideal stepping stone for younger riders to progress in the sport. Youth members can compete in these events provided they are club members and accompanied by a parent/guardian who assumes full responsibility at all times.

Internet & Social Media
The club social media accounts are an ideal way for all club members to communicate and share information. It is recognised that youth members may also like to use these platforms, and the club is keen to allow this whilst recognising the need to safeguard younger club members using the internet.

It is recommended that youth members and their parents read this internet safety guide before using the forum. Click to read guide

Disciplinary Procedure
If a member is being disruptive and/or not following the code of conduct they will be given a warning by a coach.

If unacceptable behaviour continues during the same training session they will not be able to participate in any of the activities that session and may be given other duties to carry out.

Continual bad behaviour over a series of sessions will result in a telephone call to the child’s parents/guardian possibly leading to suspension from the Club.

Youth Privacy Policy

The West Lothian Clarion Youth Section (WLCYS) cycling club holds information about its members and their parents/guardian. This information is supplied by parents/guardians and is used for the purposes of processing membership of WLCYS, running of the WLCYS and is also passed to the National Clarion Cycling Club as all members automatically become a member of the Nation Clarion Cycling Club on joining WLCYS.

WLCYS are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. For any personal data you provide for the purposes of your membership WLCYS is the Data Controller and is responsible for storing and otherwise processing that data in a fair, lawful, secure and transparent way.

What personal data we hold on you
You may give us information about you by filling in forms at an event or online, or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. This includes information you provide when you register with the Club and update thereafter.

The information you give us may include the following relating to parent/guardian/carers:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Email address
  • Contact phone numbers

The information you give us may include the following relating to child members:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Date of Birth
  • Relevant medical notes for the purposes on informing coaches

You may also provide other data associated with attendance at WLCYS events. We additionally hold information on attendance at club sessions and we track payments of fees.

Why we need your personal data
The reason we need your your personal data is to be able to administer your membership and provide the membership services you are signing up to when you register with the club. Our lawful basis for processing your personal is that we have a contractual obligation to you as a member to provide the services you are registering for.

Reasons we need to process your data include:

For training and competition entry: 

  • Sharing personal data with club coaches or officials to administer training sessions. This includes noting to coaches of relevant medical information regarding a child at the beginning of any training session.
  • Sharing personal data with club coaches and committee members to enter events.
  • Sharing personal data with facility providers to manage access to facilities.
  • Sharing personal data with leagues other competition providers for entry in events.

For reporting purposes:

  • To monitor attendance at club sessions for the purposes of managing the number of coaches, and ensuring attendance meets minimum club policy
  • Analysing anonymised data to monitor club trends

For membership and club management: 

  • Processing of membership forms and payments
  • Sharing data with committee members to provide information about club activities, membership renewals or invitation to social events
  • Club newsletter, information emails promoting club activity
  • Publishing of race and competition results

On occasion we may collect personal data from non-members, such as those who are on our membership waiting list or a non-member participant who fills in a health disclaimer or form at a taster event.

Membership waiting list data will be stored only until membership is granted or declined and will be checked annually with the individual supplying the data. Other information will be securely destroyed after the activity for which it was collected has expired. Our lawful basis for processing data is consent. Therefore, we will also need explicit consent from non-members to process this data, which we will ask for at the point of collecting it.

The club has a Facebook social media page and a Twitter feed. All members/parents/guardians are free to join these pages. If you join one of the Social Media pages, please note that provider of the social media platform(s) have their own privacy policies and that the club do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data on the club social media pages.

Who we share your personal data with
When your child becomes a member of the WLCYS, they will also automatically be registered as a member of the National Clarion Cycling Club and memberhip information is shared with them.

National Clarion will subsequently send you membership details. The National Clarion has its own privacy policy, which is available here: https://clarioncc.org/2018/05/24/privacy-notice/

WLCYS will use the National Clarion Membership database in future to administer our membership and as such National Clarion will be the Data Controller and WLCYS will be the Data Processor.

How long we hold your personal data
We will hold your personal data on file for as long as you are a member with us. We will check data is updated every year on annual membership forms. Any personal data we hold on you or your child will be securely destroyed after four years of inactivity. Your data is not processed for any further purposes other than those detailed in this policy.

Your rights regarding your personal data
As a data subject you may have the right at any time to request access to, rectification or erasure of your personal data; to restrict or object to certain kinds of processing of your personal data, including direct marketing; to the portability of your personal data and to complain to the UK’s data protection supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office about the processing of your personal data.

As a data subject you are not obliged to share your personal data with the Club. If you choose not to share your personal data with us we may not be able to register or administer your membership.

Youth Attendance Policy

At times in the past we have had a large waiting list and operated an attendance policy to try to ensure that we could offer places to as many young people as possible. Members with low levels of attendance can have their membership forfeited to allow other people on the list to be offered a place. The club will monitor attendance and the size of any waiting list in the future. Absence to attend racing, cluster sessions, RACE sessions, track accreditation sessions, etc does not count towards these totals, so please remember to let us know if this applies to your rider!

We recognise, of course, that there are any number of other valid reasons why kids can’t attend a session, and these will be taken into account when logging attendance, which will be considered at the coaches’ discretion. Hopefully, however, you and your rider will understand and support the need to maintain an active membership for the club so that it can continue to grow. Our coaching sessions are also structured in linked blocks, so a good attendance will benefit the rider’s development.