---
title: "The Den: private updates for families"
description: "A private place for Footprints families: your own child's photographs the same evening, the week ahead and what to bring. Opening with the first sessions."
url: https://www.forestschool.wales/den
updated: 2026-10-09
---

# For Footprints families: The Den

A private place for the families of children at Footprints: the day's photographs, the week ahead, what to bring, and the small things that make the days go well.

Each family sees only its own child: your child's photographs, your child's notes, your child's details, and nothing of anyone else's. Two parents can each have their own sign-in to the same child.

Opening with the first sessions

![A woodland den: a tarpaulin stretched between three trees over a ring of log seats, a lantern, a line of photographs pegged on a string, a notebook on a log and a kit bag.](https://www.forestschool.wales/art/den.2a2eccfb-800.jpg)

## What will be inside

### Today's photographs

A few pictures from the day, the same evening: your child, and only ever your child, where you have said yes to photographs. A photograph with other children in it is shown only to the families of the children in it, and only if every one of them has said yes.

### The week ahead

What we are doing each day, what we will cook, and the weather call the evening before.

### What to bring

The full kit list, and this week's additions to it: a change of socks, a torch in December, a sun hat in June, and the library book.

### Lunch and snack ideas

Food that survives a kit bag and a fire: what works, what does not, and what the children ate every scrap of.

### Notes from Elle

Session status, a thank-you for the conkers, the song we are learning. Short, and only when there is something to say.

### Your details

Your child's profile, consents, emergency contacts and who may collect them, kept up to date by you, and seen by nobody but you and Elle.

## Private by design

The Den holds photographs of small children and the details of their families, so it is built to the highest standard we know, not the usual one.

### Only your child

Every parent signs in to their own account and sees only their own child. The rule is enforced in the database itself, on every request, not just hidden on the screen.

### Two steps to get in

A code sent to your email, then your face or fingerprint on your own phone (a passkey), or an authenticator app. There is no password to be guessed, phished or leaked.

### No links that can wander

Nothing in the Den can be opened from a link, shared or searched. Photographs are only ever shown to a signed-in parent, and never leave the Den's own storage.

### Kept in the UK, encrypted

Everything is stored in the United Kingdom, encrypted at rest and in transit, with health details encrypted again on top. Every sign-in and every view is logged, and you can see your own log.

### Nobody else

Elle is the only member of staff with access, and only to the families she teaches. No advertising, no trackers, nothing sold, shared or used to train anything.

### Yours to delete

Ask, and your family's photographs and account are deleted. Records we must keep by law, such as attendance and accident records, are kept only for as long as the law says, and nothing else is.

[Join the founding families](https://www.forestschool.wales/join)

Founding families get the first keys to the Den.

The Den