For schools

Student data in Method classes.

For principals and privacy officers: what a teacher sees when students join their class on Method, how students agree, where the data is kept, for how long, and who processes it.

Students join themselvesWith the teacher's code, after a screen that lists what the teacher will see.

Teachers see the work they setOther practice only if the student turns on sharing. It starts off.

Stored in the United StatesNeon (AWS us-east-1) and Vercel (iad1).

Photos deleted within 30 daysA daily clean-up removes them. Typed working and marks stay with the student.

What the teacher sees.

Set work: The name each student uses in the class, and the work the teacher sets: the student's working, page photos, marks and grade, when it was handed in, and any mark the student changed on it.
Practice: Only while the student has Also share my practice on, and it starts off. Then the teacher also sees the student's other work in the class's course since the class started: their working, page photos while they're kept (7 days), marks and any mark the student changed.
Weak areas: Weak areas and common mistakes, worked out from the work the teacher can see.
Never sees: Students' emails or passwords, their other courses, work still in progress (it stays on the device until the student taps Mark), practice that isn't shared, device or sign-in details, or feedback students send us. No student sees another student's name or work.
Marks and notes: The teacher can change marks on work they set and write a note. Nothing reaches the student until the teacher returns the work; the student then sees the changes and the note with their results. A return is never edited afterwards: a correction is sent as a new return. The student's own marks are not overwritten, a student can report a note to us, and teachers' decisions are never used to train or tune Method's marking.
Downloads: The teacher can download a file of names, marks and hand-in dates for school use. It has no emails, and Method never collects NSNs. Downloaded files are the school's to look after.

Consent and leaving.

The school first: Classes stay switched off for a teacher until the principal or privacy officer has agreed in writing and the teacher has accepted the terms for teachers.
Students choose: Only a student can join, by entering the class code in the app. First they see the teacher's name, the school, the course and exactly what the teacher will see, then they tap Join class. A teacher can't add anyone. We record which version of that screen each student agreed to.
Age: Students must be 13 or older. To sign up, Method asks for a name, an email, a password and the course they study. It never asks for an NSN, date of birth, address or phone number.
Leaving: A student can leave at any time in the app. A teacher can remove a student, who can't rejoin until the teacher lets them back in. Either way the teacher's access stops at once, the teacher's unreturned marks and notes on that student's work are deleted, and the student keeps their own work and any notes already returned.

Where it's kept, and for how long.

Location: The United States. Database: Neon Postgres in AWS us-east-1 (Northern Virginia). App server and teacher dashboard: Vercel, region iad1 (Washington, D.C.).
Page photos: Deleted 7 days after marking. Photos of set work are kept while the student is in the class, until 7 days after the teacher first returns the work, and never more than 30 days after it was handed in. A daily clean-up deletes them on time, even for students who stop using the app. After that the teacher sees the typed working.
Working and marks: The typed working read from the pages, and the marks, stay in the student's account until the student deletes it. Returned marks and notes stay with that work, even after the class is deleted. Marks and notes the teacher never returned are deleted with the class or the set work.

Who processes it.

Neon: Hosts the database.
Vercel: Runs the app's server and the teacher dashboard.
Mathpix: Reads the handwriting on page photos, and deletes them within 24 hours.
OpenAI: Marks students' working. It also writes question drafts for a teacher who asks, from the teacher's own text, never from student work.
Google (Gemini API): Double-checks the marking.
Resend: Sends sign-in codes and account emails.

OpenAI, Google and Mathpix work under API terms that don't use student work to train their models. Marking runs only when a student taps Mark. Nothing a teacher does in a class sends student work to an AI service.

Ending, security and contact.

Ending a trial: Email us at any time. We delete the teacher's classes, set work and unreturned marks and notes, and close the teacher's access. Students keep their own accounts, work and returned notes; only a student, or a parent or caregiver through us, can delete those. Files the teacher downloaded stay with the school.
Security: Passwords are stored hashed (scrypt), never as text. A teacher signs in again every 14 days. The server checks every teacher request against the class and the student's choices before it returns any student data.
Breaches: If a breach could cause serious harm, we tell the school, the students affected and the Privacy Commissioner as soon as we can.
Privacy officer: Jackson Wang, jackson@method.study.

The full privacy policy is written for students. Questions about any of this: jackson@method.study. Last updated 13 October 2026; the current version is always at www.method.study/schools.