Safeguarding Policy

Any tutor who teaches a student under 16, teaches in person or works through a school partnership has a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check, or an overseas police certificate, on our records before those lessons start.

Families can ask for a tutor with a DBS check, and we will only offer tutors who have one on record.

All tutoring sessions take place via secure, established video-call platforms. Sessions are conducted in a professional, structured format with clear learning objectives.

We encourage parents and guardians to be present in the room during sessions, particularly for younger students. Parents always have the right to observe any session.

Tutors must keep appropriate professional boundaries at all times. Sessions focus exclusively on academic content and admissions preparation.

Private one-to-one messaging between a tutor and a student on personal accounts is not permitted. All written contact takes place in supervised channels that include Oxbridge Mentors Ltd.

For school-linked work, messaging takes place through Microsoft Teams. For private tutoring, a supervised group chat that includes Oxbridge Mentors Ltd may be used, and where the student is under 18 a parent or guardian is included in the conversation.

Tutors must not contact students through personal social media accounts, personal phone numbers, or private messaging apps.

Session scheduling, rescheduling, and all administrative communication is managed through our team, ensuring a clear record of all interactions.

Parents and guardians are our partners in every student's journey. We provide regular progress updates and are always available to discuss your child's development.

After each session, tutors provide written session notes summarising what was covered, progress made, and recommended next steps. These are shared with the parent or guardian on record.

Parents can request a progress review call with the tutor or our team at any time. We believe transparency and open communication are essential to effective tutoring.

Occasionally we introduce students to a partner organisation that delivers something we do not deliver ourselves, such as a specialist research or enrichment programme. Where that happens the partner is a separate company, and it is responsible for safeguarding on its own programme, with its own staff and its own sessions. The sections above govern Oxbridge Mentors tutors and staff, and continue to apply in full to everything we deliver.

We do not treat that as a reason to lower the standard. Before we introduce a student to a partner, we ask that partner to confirm in writing that it has a safeguarding policy and a named safeguarding contact, that adults working directly with under-18s are background checked to a level appropriate to their role, that a parent or guardian registers and gives consent where the participant is under 18, and that contact with students runs through the organisation's own accounts and channels rather than a member of staff's personal phone number or personal social media.

An introduction is an introduction, not a subcontract. You contract directly with the partner, pay the partner directly, and the partner's own terms, privacy policy and complaints process apply to that programme. We will always say plainly when a service is delivered by a partner rather than by us, and we will tell you if we receive a fee for the introduction.

If you have a concern about a partner programme, you can raise it with the partner and with us. Email info@oxbridgementors.co.uk and we will take it seriously, including reviewing whether we continue to work with that partner at all. If a child is at immediate risk of harm, call the police on 999.

If you have any concern about the safety or wellbeing of a student, or about the conduct of any member of our team, please contact us immediately.

Our Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is Jason Pahatouridis. You can report a concern by emailing info@oxbridgementors.co.uk with the subject line "Safeguarding Concern", and it will be directed to the DSL. All reports are treated confidentially and investigated promptly.

We aim to acknowledge every safeguarding report within 2 working days. If you have not had a reply in that time, or the matter cannot wait, please do not hold off: use one of the external routes below.

If your concern is about the DSL, please do not route it through us alone. Contact the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) for the area where the concern arose, through that local authority's children's services team. Every local authority in England publishes LADO contact details.

If a child is at immediate risk of harm, call the police on 999. You can also contact the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000 at any time.

We take every concern seriously. Where appropriate, we will involve relevant external authorities in line with statutory guidance.

We record low-level concerns as well as formal allegations. A low-level concern is any behaviour by an adult working with us that falls below the standard we expect but does not meet the threshold for a referral, including anything that simply leaves a student, parent, or colleague uneasy. Tutors and staff are expected to share these with the DSL however minor they seem, so that patterns become visible early.

Anyone who raises a concern in good faith is protected. Tutors, staff, and contractors can report a safeguarding concern without fear of reprisal, and may take it to an external body, such as the relevant local authority or the police, if they believe it is not being acted on.

Safeguarding records are written up at the time, kept secure, and stored separately from ordinary tutoring notes, with access limited to the DSL. We retain them in line with our retention schedule and statutory guidance, and we do not delete a record simply because a student has stopped working with us. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data more generally.

If you are unhappy with any aspect of our service, we want to hear about it so we can put it right. Please contact us at info@oxbridgementors.co.uk outlining your concern.

We aim to acknowledge all complaints within 2 working days and provide a full response within 10 working days. If the issue requires further investigation, we will keep you informed of progress.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can ask for the complaint to be reviewed by a director. Where the complaint is about the director, or concerns safeguarding, use the external routes set out under Reporting a Concern above.