1. Our commitment
Avero Learning connects children with adult tutors over live video. We take the safety of every child who uses our Service seriously, and this policy sets out how we work to protect them, in line with the spirit of UK statutory safeguarding guidance such as Working Together to Safeguard Children, even though Avero Learning is a private tutoring platform rather than a school.
2. Designated Safeguarding Lead
Safeguarding concerns are handled by the Avero Learning safeguarding team. Report a concern via our Contact page — see section 8 for how to do this, including what to do if a child is in immediate danger.
3. Vetting tutors
Before a tutor can be booked by a student, we require:
- Photo identification (passport or driving licence), checked by an administrator against the name on their DBS certificate. A DBS certificate carries a name and date of birth but no photograph, so this check is what ties the certificate to the actual person — without it, a clean certificate proves only that someone of that name has no record. We record that the check took place, and by whom, but never store a copy of the document itself;
- An enhanced DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) certificate reference, which an administrator manually verifies before approving the tutor's profile;
- A personal interview with a member of our team to assess their subject knowledge, teaching approach, and suitability to work with children, before their profile is approved;
- Agreement to this Safeguarding Policy and our tutor code of conduct (section 4).
A tutor's DBS-verified status is shown on their public profile. This is a point-in-time check carried out before their profile is approved, not an ongoing re-verification — DBS certificates do not expire or renew automatically, so a tutor who has any change to their DBS status after approval is required to inform us. We reserve the right to remove any tutor from the platform immediately if a safeguarding concern is raised about them, pending investigation.
4. Code of conduct for tutors
Tutors using Avero Learning agree to:
- Conduct all sessions through the platform's video and whiteboard tools only — never move a session to a personal messaging app, phone number, or other platform;
- Only use Avero Learning's own messaging feature to contact a student outside of a live session, never a personal phone number, email, or third-party app — messages sent through the platform are visible to administrators for safety review;
- Maintain a professional relationship with students at all times;
- Never request personal contact details from a student, or share their own outside of what the platform provides;
- Dress, speak, and behave appropriately for a session with a child, and ensure their session background/environment is appropriate;
- End a session immediately and report to our safeguarding team if anything makes them concerned for a child's welfare; and
- Never contact or meet a child outside the platform — all teaching happens inside an Avero Learning session (see section 5).
5. Session monitoring
Live sessions are not currently recorded. Every session runs through the platform's own video and whiteboard classroom, and an administrator can join any live session directly if a concern is raised. Outside of that, monitoring relies on the reporting process in section 8 below — anyone who has a concern about a session, during or after it, should report it to our safeguarding team immediately. We are reviewing whether session recording should be introduced, and will update this policy if that changes.
6. Parental involvement
We encourage a parent or guardian to be nearby during a child's first few sessions with a new tutor, and to review AI tutor chat history and session activity from their dashboard. Parents/guardians create or approve their child's account and can contact us to review, pause, or close it at any time.
7. Recognising a concern
A safeguarding concern might include (but isn't limited to): a tutor asking a child for personal contact details or to move communication off-platform, inappropriate language or behaviour during a session, a child disclosing something concerning during a session, or a tutor repeatedly behaving unprofessionally.
8. Reporting a concern
Anyone — a student, parent, tutor, or member of the public — can report a safeguarding concern to our safeguarding team via our Contact page. If a child is in immediate danger, contact the emergency services (999 in the UK) first. You can also contact the NSPCC (0808 800 5000) for advice on reporting a concern about a child.
9. How we respond
Every report is reviewed by our safeguarding team. Depending on severity, this may include suspending a tutor's account pending investigation, contacting the family involved, and — where a child may be at risk of harm — contacting the relevant local authority children's services or the police. We keep a confidential record of concerns raised and how they were handled.
10. Data handling for safeguarding records
Safeguarding records are kept confidential, accessible only to our safeguarding team and relevant administrators, and retained for 6 years from the date of the record, in line with our Privacy Policy. This reflects standard UK limitation-period practice for education and safeguarding records, and may be extended where a specific case requires it.
11. Complaints that are not safeguarding concerns
Not every problem is a safeguarding matter. If your concern is about the quality of a session, a tutor's reliability, a payment, or how we've handled something, use our Complaints Procedure instead — it has its own timescales and route. Anything involving a child's wellbeing is handled under this policy and is not subject to those timescales.
12. Reviewing this policy
This policy is reviewed at least annually, and after any safeguarding incident, by our safeguarding team.