Without doubt, our children are our most prize possession. There is nothing we wouldn’t do to protect and keep them safe. As parents, we expect anyone who works with our children to also be proven to be suitable and safe to do so.
As the time of writing this blog (November 2024), the tuition sector in this country remains unregulated and what this means is, there is no obligation for a tutor to have a DBS to work with young people. Nor a requirement for any type of qualification to teach or work with young people.
Therefore, in theory, anyone can do it.
With private tuition, you are welcoming a person into your home to work with your children whether in person or virtually. You want to therefore ensure that that person has been cleared and is monitored regularly to work with your young person.
In place of this lack of legislation, organisations like the Tutors Association, of which Learn and Bloom are a proud member, are creating their own safeguarding measures. To be a member of the TTA or work with any company as part of the TTA you must have a DBS of under one year or be on the update service, the second of there being the preference.
Alongside this, as of writing this blog, a live feature for us as a company is we will be able to track daily, any changes to our tutors DBS services. As soon as we are aware of a change, we will stop that person tutoring until we have investigated what that could be.
A reliable tuition company will put safeguarding as it’s number one priority. You should at any time be able to ask to see their safeguarding policy, safer recruitment policy and their safeguarding promise. You should be aware of who the safeguarding lead is for the company.
If you are using a sole tutor, again you would expect to be shown a safeguarding policy as well as evidence they are on the update service or have a DBS.
As parents, you need to take this lack of legislation into your own hands.
Don’t be afraid to ask companies or tutors you work with those challenging questions before you allow them to work with your young people.
As a company, alongside the TTA and other companies, we will fight for all the above to be legislation, but in the meantime, we need to work together, ask those questions to ensure that the people who we trust our children with are the right people.
If you have any questions relating to this, please feel free to get in touch.
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