What are cookies?
A cookie is a piece of information that a website stores on the website browser on your computer. The browser sends the information back to the website to enable the website to recognise the user.
Cookies include information such as the lifetime and expiry date of the cookie, the domain the cookie has come from and an identifier – for example, a random unique number. This is standard for all websites.
How is a cookie used?
Cookies are used to store data. Without cookies shopping baskets would not store the products within them and remember what’s in your shopping basket while you browse or if you are logged in or not. Our cookies will never store your payment information. Cookies can’t harm your computer, and are active for differing lengths of time, some are stored until you close your browser, while others may last for several weeks or more.
Example of cookies used on this site.
Here are a few examples of the cookies we use and what they do.
| Cookie Name | Expires After | Description of Cookie |
| _utma | 2 years | This keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to the site, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred |
| _utmb | 30 minutes | A timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters the site |
| _utmc | End of session | A timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves the site – having waited 30 minutes for another pageview to happen, and if it doesn’t, it expires. |
| _utmz | 6 months | This keeps track of where the visitor came from, what search engine was used, what link was clicked on, what keywords used, and where in the world the site was accessed from. |
| jsshash | 1 hour | This is your unique session ID when you visit the site |
| PHPSESSID | Not Set | This is a temporary session ID which is only valid for the time that you are on the site. When you close your browser, this cookie is expunged |
www.hallmarkeducation.org.uk uses cookies in a number of ways:
Category 1. Strictly necessary cookies:
These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website. Without these cookies, services you have asked for, like shopping baskets, cannot be provided. These cookies do not gather any information about you that could be used for marketing or remembering where you’ve been on the internet. We are not required to get your consent to the use of Strictly Necessary Cookies. They last for one “session” and expire when you leave our website or close the browser. Cookies that fall into this category are:
Shopping cart cookies
Access to protected areas of a website
Remembering previously entered text so it’s not lost if the page refreshes
Category 2. Performance cookies:
These cookies collect and store anonymous information only about how visitors use our website and cannot be used to identify you. It is only used to improve how our website works. We are required to get your consent to the use of Performance Cookies. By using our website, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device. Performance Cookies can be deleted from your browser history at any point before their expiry time. Cookies that fall into this category are:
Analytics
Advertising
Pay Per Click
Category 3. Functionality cookies:
These cookies remember your preferences to personalise your experience on our website and provide enhanced, more personal features, for instance, they may be used to provide services such as watching a video, commenting on a blog or adding product reviews. We are required to get your consent to the use of Functionality Cookies. By using our website, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device. Functionality Cookies can be deleted from your browser history at any point before their expiry time. Cookies that fall into this category are:
Detecting if you have already seen a pop-up to ensure it doesn’t get shown to you again
Submitting comments
Remembering colours, font sizes and page backgrounds
Category 4: Targeted Advertising Cookies
Targeted Advertising Cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. The information they store is not anonymous. We are required to get your consent to Target Advertising Cookies. We will ask for clear, explicit consent from you to store these cookies on your device using a pop-up, overlay, splash page or header/footer bar. Cookies that fall into this category are:
Collecting information about browser habits to target advertising
Collecting information about browser habits to target website content
Managing cookies using your browser.
Internet browsers will usually provide an option to disallow the setting of all or some cookies. You can find more about using your browser’s cookie settings either via the help menu for your browser or on the browser’s own website. Cookies can also be deleted by using your internet browser, but you must disallow them otherwise they will be reapplied the next time you visit a website. If you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our website.
How to disable cookies?
Whilst there are ways to disable cookies we must advise against it. Disabling cookies may prevent the site from functioning properly. If you do wish to disable the cookies here is a guide on how to do it.
For Microsoft Internet Explorer:
1. Choose the menu “tools” then “Internet Options”
2 Click on the “privacy” tab
3 Select the setting the appropriate setting
For Mozilla firefox:
1. Choose the menu “tools” then “Options”
2 Click on the icon “privacy”
3 Find the menu “cookie” and select the relevant options
For Opera 6.0 and further:
1. Choose the menu Files”> “Preferences”
2 Privacy
For Chrome
1. Choose “tools” (the spanner icon) then “Options”
2 Click “Under the Bonnet” tab, and then click on “Content settings”
3 Click ‘Block sites from setting any data’
For safari
1. choose “Preferences” then “Security”
2. In “Accept Cookies:”, select Never.
You can learn more about cookies and how to manage them at AboutCookies.org