Because the festivals involve children performing at a licensed venue in front of a paying audience, they come under legislation designed to protect child performers; this legislation is not primarily aimed at educational events like ours, but we need to ensure we are compliant with the law.

The Local Authority has agreed to grant us a Body of Persons Approval licence. This licenses us to run the events rather than the Local Authority licensing children individually.

Normally a BOPA licence would mean we would be asked to collect and hold information relevant to safeguarding for all the children concerned – specifically names, addresses, ages, and medical information, as well as DBS numbers for the adults looking after those children. Because of the way our events work, it is understood that schools take responsibility for their children on the day, and that they should be responsible for this information, much of which is sensitive personal data.

However, we do need summary information to help ensure we organise the event properly.

It is important that you answer the questions below knowing who is going to attend on the day. Please do not estimate numbers. We need this summary information in advance as a condition of our license.

BOPA Form

Information required for the Festival BOPA Licence