Cookie Policy

In short

The public website sets no analytics cookie until you accept it in the banner. If you accept, Google Analytics sets one so we can see which pages are read; if you reject, or simply leave the banner alone, nothing is loaded and nothing is set. Signing in to Little Bees sets a session cookie so you stay signed in. Nothing here tracks you across other sites, and nothing is sold.

Your choice, and how to change it

The first time you visit littlebees.io you are asked whether analytics may run. Accepting and rejecting are offered the same way, side by side; neither is chosen for you, and the site works exactly the same whichever you pick. Until you accept, no Google Analytics script is loaded, no request is made to Google and no analytics cookie is set.

Your answer is kept in a cookie called lb_consent, set by us on littlebees.io, for six months. It records one thing: whether you said yes to analytics, and when. After six months we ask again.

Select Cookie settings in the footer of any page to see the choice you made and change it at any time. Changing it to reject stops analytics immediately and removes the Google Analytics cookies (_ga and _ga_*) from your browser.

Cookies on the public website (littlebees.io)

Cookie	Set by	What it does	Kept for
lb_consent	Little Bees	Remembers whether you accepted or rejected analytics, so you are not asked again on every page. Strictly necessary — it is the record of your choice — so it is set without asking.	182 days (six months)
_ga, _ga_*	Google Analytics 4	Only if you accept. Tells apart one visitor from another so page views are not double-counted. The IP address is not stored.	Up to 2 years

We use analytics to understand which public pages — the Nursery Intelligence pages in particular — are read, and by roughly how many people. It does not reach inside the app: nothing a nursery enters, and nothing about any child, is ever sent to Google. We do not use Google's advertising features: advertising storage, advertising signals and personalisation are switched off in the tag itself, not merely left unused.

Beyond the banner, most browsers let you block third-party cookies or cookies from a named domain, and Google publishes a browser add-on that opts out of Analytics everywhere.

Cookies in the app (app.littlebees.io and a nursery's own address)

Cookie	Set by	What it does	Kept for
A session cookie	Little Bees	Keeps you signed in after you enter your password, and tells the software which nursery you belong to.	Until you sign out, or the session expires
A portal session cookie	Little Bees	The same, for parents using the parent portal.	Until you sign out, or the session expires
A preference cookie	Little Bees	Remembers choices such as a collapsed sidebar or a chosen view.	Up to a year

These are strictly necessary: the app cannot keep you signed in without them, so they are set without asking. There is no analytics in the app, which is why there is no banner there. They are marked secure and are not readable by scripts on the page.

What we do not do

We do not use advertising cookies, and we do not use cookies to follow you to other websites. There is no marketing category in the banner because there is nothing to put in it. We do not withhold the site, or any part of it, from anyone who rejects analytics. Embedding a setting's Ofsted badge on another website places no cookie there: the badge is a plain image.

Managing cookies

Deleting cookies in your browser signs you out of the app, resets the analytics count for you, and clears your lb_consent choice — so the banner asks again on your next visit. Instructions for the common browsers are at allaboutcookies.org.

Contact

Questions about cookies or anything in the privacy notice: [email protected].