The purpose of this policy statement is:

To protect children and young people who receive Tutorless Ltd’s services from harm. This includes the children of adults who use our services to provide staff and volunteers, as well as children and young people and their families, with the overarching principles that guide our approach to child protection. This policy applies to anyone working on behalf of Tutorless Ltd, including senior managers, paid staff, volunteers, sessional workers, agency staff, and students.

Legal framework

This policy has been drawn up on the basis of legislation, policy, and guidance that seeks to protect children in the United Kingdom. A summary of the key legislation is available from nspcc.org.uk/learning.

Policy

We believe that:

Children and young people should never experience abuse of any kind. We have a responsibility to promote the welfare of all children and young people, to keep them safe, and to practice in a way that protects them.

We recognise that:

The welfare of children is paramount in all the work we do and in all the decisions we make.
All children, regardless of: age, disability, race, religion/belief, sex, or sexual orientation, have an equal right to protection from all types of harm or abuse.
Some children are additionally vulnerable because of the impact of previous experiences, their level of dependency, communication needs, or other issues.
Working in partnership with children, young people, their parents, carers, and other agencies is essential in promoting young people’s welfare.

We will seek to keep children and young people safe by:

On the Tutorless Platform:

Providing a safe and confidential method for children to report problems, which is constantly monitored via our Q&A box in lessons and Problem Reports on the Tutorless platform.
Making sure that children, young people, and their families know where to go for help if they have a concern.
Ensuring that any concerns are escalated to the appropriate authorities.
Valuing, listening to, and respecting children.
Appointing a nominated child protection lead for children and young people, a deputy, and a lead trustee/board member for safeguarding.
Adopting child protection and safeguarding best practice through our policies, procedures, and code of conduct for staff and volunteers.
Developing and implementing an effective online safety policy and related procedures.
Providing effective management for staff and volunteers through supervision, support, training, and quality assurance measures so that all staff and volunteers know about and follow our policies, procedures, and behaviour codes confidently and competently.
Recruiting and selecting staff and volunteers safely, ensuring all necessary checks are made.
Recording, storing, and using information professionally and securely, in line with data protection legislation and guidance.
Using our safeguarding and child protection procedures to share concerns and relevant information with agencies who need to know, and involving children, young people, parents, families, and carers appropriately.
Using our procedures to manage any allegations against staff and volunteers appropriately.
Creating and maintaining an anti-bullying environment and ensuring that we have a policy and procedure to help us deal effectively with any bullying that does arise.
Ensuring that we have effective complaints and whistleblowing measures in place.
Ensuring that we provide a safe physical environment for our children, young people, staff, and volunteers, by applying health and safety measures in accordance with the law and regulatory guidance.
Building a safeguarding culture where staff and volunteers, children, young people, and their families treat each other with respect and are comfortable about sharing concerns.
Requiring all student accounts to be linked to a supervisor account. Students using Tutorless Prime will only be able to access Tutorless outside of school hours (registered as 8:30 am-4 pm on the platform) with a fully activated Parent Portal.

During our online group lessons:

Constant supervision during online lessons by a member of the Tutorless team (the ‘Co-Trainer’) as well as the teacher leading the session.
Preventing the sharing with attending children of any private details beyond the first name of any Tutorless employee or associate.
Always gaining parental consent if a child’s camera will be on for interactivity purposes during an online lesson.
Collecting physical addresses of all live lesson attendees.
Preventing the interaction between children in an unsupervised environment.
Monitoring all interactions through the teacher and co-trainer.
Recording all interactive lessons for safeguarding purposes, before permanently deleting any recordings within two weeks.
Children are expected to maintain classroom-level behaviour during online lessons and we recommend supervision by parents to ensure behaviour.
Conducting CRB checks of all Educators who participate in Direct Support.

During any Direct Support communications:

Providing guidance and assistance to all our tutors involved in 1:1 sessions with children on safeguarding best practice.
Having a reporting system in place for our tutors to raise any concerns.
Providing this document and other resources to parents.
Children are expected to maintain classroom-level behaviour during tutoring sessions and we recommend supervision by parents to ensure behaviour.
Conducting CRB checks of all Educators hired to represent Tutorless Ltd.

Before our Direct Support option begins:

Ask parents to provide our team with two contact telephone numbers, child’s DOB, child’s school and current address.

Staff safeguarding

We take the safeguarding of our staff incredibly seriously.
Any kind of harassment, abuse, bullying, or discrimination directed towards a member of the Tutorless team is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
Reports of any and all instances of harassment will be investigated and may result in the termination of the service contract.

Contact details

Nominated child protection lead

Danielle Wood-Wallace - headoffice@tutorless.co.uk

Deputy child protection lead

Javan Green - headoffice@tutorless.co,uk

Senior Trustee for safeguarding and child protection

Name: TBC

Email: TBC

NSPCC Helpline 0808 800 5000

This policy statement came into force on 01/01/2024. We are committed to reviewing our policy and good practice annually. This policy statement and accompanying procedures were last reviewed on 01/05/2024.