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Online tutoring can be as safe as a tutor at the kitchen table, and in some ways easier to keep an eye on, but only if the service does the checking and keeps everything where a parent can see it. On Cookie Tutoring a tutor has to have a criminal record check on file before their profile can be seen, lessons and messages stay on the platform, and a parent who looks after a child’s lessons can read their messages with the tutor at any time.
Before a tutor’s profile exists we have interviewed them ourselves on this platform, read their grades and CV, and seen a criminal record check: an Enhanced DBS for a tutor in the UK, and their own country’s equivalent for a tutor elsewhere, which a person reads and decides on. The software will not publish a profile until that check is recorded as verified.
A check is a snapshot of the day it was issued, so we ask every tutor for a fresh one every 12 months rather than treating one certificate as permanent. The full list of checks, with what each one does not tell you, is on the page about DBS-checked tutors.
Messages here are kept and cannot be edited or deleted afterwards, so if a concern is ever raised there is a record of what was said. Once a conversation moves to WhatsApp or a personal email address none of that is true, and neither is the refund policy or the record that a lesson happened. So swapping phone numbers or arranging lessons privately is against the rules for tutors and students alike, and a tutor who suggests either is worth reporting.
Software also checks every message for phone numbers, email addresses and the names of other messaging apps, and shows a match to a person. It blocks nothing and accuses nobody; a person decides what it means.
Under 16, a parent, guardian or sponsor books and pays for lessons from an account of their own that is linked to the child’s. From it you can see their lessons and read their messages with their tutor whenever you like, without asking us, and the conversation tells both your child and the tutor that you can. You cannot post in that conversation or join the lesson from your account, though nothing stops you sitting in the room.
From 16 a student can arrange and pay for their own lessons, and then no parent reads their conversations unless the family chooses to set it up the other way. Everyone under 18 gets the same safeguards either way.
A criminal record check shows what was on record on the day it was issued, and nothing after. The UK has an Update Service that can keep a DBS check live between certificates; we are not registered to use it, which is why we ask for a new check every 12 months instead. A check also says nothing about how somebody will treat a child in future, which is why so much of this page is about what happens during lessons rather than before them.
If lessons are ever recorded, it will be off unless everyone in that lesson agrees, with a parent or guardian agreeing as well for anyone under 18, and having lessons will never depend on agreeing.
Every tutor profile, message and review has a Report control, and the Report a problem page linked in the footer works without signing in. Anything reported as a safeguarding concern goes straight to our Designated Safeguarding Lead rather than into a queue, and we aim to respond to anything about a child’s safety the same day. If a child is in immediate danger, call 999 first.
It depends on the service, since no law makes every private tutor get one, so it is worth asking. Here a tutor based in the UK needs an Enhanced DBS check on file before their profile can be seen, and a tutor based elsewhere gives us their own country’s equivalent, which we do not call a DBS because it is not one.
Yes, in the same room. Your own account does not join the lesson as a second person, but nothing stops you sitting beside your child, and with a younger child it is a sensible thing to do for the first few lessons.
They should not, and the rules everyone agrees to say so. Exchanging phone numbers, email addresses or social media is against the rules for tutors and students, software flags messages that contain them for a person to look at, and a tutor who suggests moving off the platform can be reported from the conversation itself.
A person reads it. A safeguarding report is escalated straight away, the tutor is not told who reported them, and we may take their profile down while we look into it. An allegation that a tutor has harmed a child, or may, goes to the local authority designated officer, and to the police where a crime may have been committed, without waiting to decide whether it is founded.
We ask for an age range rather than a date of birth, and the privacy page says what we collect about a child, why, who it goes to and how long each record is kept. A parent or guardian can ask for a copy of their child’s data, or ask us to delete it.
Every tutor offers a free 15-minute introduction with no card needed, so you and your child can meet one before paying for anything.
How we keep students safe, written for parents
cookie, which we also build, has free guides and tools for parents, including past papers, grade boundaries, exam timetables, a revision plan that fits around lessons and guides to applying to university. Free tools for parents on cookie