Introduction​
‍1.1 As an organisation, Mission Maths recognises its responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of all its students and tutors. This includes:
- Protecting students and tutors from risks to their welfare
- Having a clear mechanism for safeguarding issues to be identified and reported
- Keeping a record of any significant event or complaint and reporting matters of concern as necessary and appropriate.
‍1.2 This document outlines how Mission Maths seeks to protect its users from harm and abuse, as well as how any issues should be reported.​ Everyone at Mission Maths should always maintain an attitude of ‘it could happen here’ where safeguarding is concerned. When dealing with a safeguarding concern, you must always act in the best interests of the student. Tutors must understand their responsibility to maintain full professionalism throughout a lesson.

‍Policy Aims
‍2.1 The content of this policy is designed to ensure tutees and tutors feel comfortable during an online lesson and to prevent either party from harm from the other party.
‍2.2 All children without exception have the right to protection from threats to their welfare. No child or group of children should be treated any less favourably than others.

‍Reporting and dealing with a complaint
‍3.1 Mission Maths is committed to treating all complaints seriously.
‍3.2 Students, tutors, parents or guardians should feel comfortable making a complaint and any concerns should be reported immediately.
‍3.3 Concerns must be addressed to info@missionmaths.org with the subject of the email ‘reporting safeguarding concern’. If concerns are not reported to this email in this way, Mission Maths takes no responsibility for any subsequent failure for the issue to be dealt with.
‍3.4 Where a complaint is raised, whether by the student, tutor, parent or guardian, lessons between the aforementioned student and tutor will cease immediately, while the complaint is being dealt with.
‍3.5 Mission Maths takes no responsibility for the individual actions of tutors and students, although it will seek to minimise the risk of any safeguarding concerns arising.
‍3.6 Where a complaint is reported as indicated above, Mission Maths will seek to deal with the problem swiftly and effectively, involving external authorities where appropriate.
‍3.7 Mission Maths recognises the right to anonymity of complainants and will not share details of a case unless necessary.

‍Management of safeguarding
‍4.1 Mission Maths recognises its responsibility to minimise the risk of harm and abuse to students, tutors, parents and guardians during online lessons.
‍4.2 Mission Maths also recognises its responsibility to minimise the risk of inappropriate communication between student and tutors outside online lessons, although it does not take any responsibility for the actions of tutors and students.
‍4.3 Mission Maths has taken a variety of steps to fulfil these goals. These include, but are not limited to:
- Careful recruitment processes of tutors to ensure they meet our high standards (Appendix A)
- Recommendations to tutors for how online lessons should be carried out safely and securely (Appendix B)
- Ensuring that parents/guardians are aware of, and consent to, their child(ren) taking part in online lessons by requiring that sign up and consent forms are correctly filled out before any lessons may take place, and by recommending to tutors that parents must be cc in any communication with students
- Tutors should record all online lessons which Mission Maths will store for 28-90 days, before deleting the recording
‍4.4 Mission Maths also recognises the importance of the individual actions of students, tutors, parents and guardians in ensuring that appropriate steps are taken to safeguard the welfare of all involved and these parties’ responsibilities are detailed in Appendix C.​

‍Data protection and privacy
‍5.1 Mission Maths is committed to maintaining the privacy of its users.      
‍5.2 No contact information and details will be shared unnecessarily to anyone outside the organisation.
‍5.3 Mission Maths records all sessions to ensure the highest safeguarding and quality standards are being met. Once the recordings have been handed over to Mission Maths by the tutor, the tutor should delete the recording from his/ her computer. The recordings are not generally accessible to other tutors.
‍5.4 Recordings of lessons may be accessed, if necessary or upon the request of the student or parent/ guardian, up to 28-90 days after the lesson, after which point the recordings will be deleted.
‍5.5 Only the necessary contact details of students will be shared with the tutors (student name, parent name, student age and school, parent email and, if applicable, student email). Tutors will only receive the contact information of their student and will not have access to the contact information of other students. Tutors will not be able to view consent forms.

​Appendix A​
‍1.1 Mission Maths takes great pride in the quality and commitment of its tutors.
‍1.2 At the moment, Mission Maths only recruits tutors from its trusted partner schools, or on the personal recommendation of current tutors.
‍1.3 Mission Maths is committed to ensuring that only high calibre tutors are recruited, and that its tutors will pose no significant safeguarding risk.
‍1.4 In order to be eligible to be a tutor, you must be a sixth form student studying Single Maths as one of your A-Levels (or IB equivalent). You must also have achieved at least an 8 in i/GCSE Maths. Tutors with a 7 in i/GCSE Maths may be considered if they are predicted at least an A in Single Maths A-Level and/ or have significant past experience in maths tutoring.
‍1.5 All tutors are personally checked by a senior member of the Mission Maths team before they can begin lessons. This is to ensure that all the tutors are empathetic and sensitive, will not pose a safeguarding risk and understand their responsibilities (see Appendix C). This may take the form of an interview or practice lesson.

‍Appendix B
‍1.1 Mission Maths recognises the risks associated with carrying out online lessons.
‍1.2 Mission Maths takes no responsibility for the behaviour and actions of tutors, students, parents or guardians, but it will seek to ensure that every party knows their responsibilities.
‍1.3 All lessons are carried out via Zoom. The tutor will set up the meeting link, which will be sent to the parent and, where applicable, the student. The link must not be shared with anyone else.
‍1.4 Tutors must enable the most secure settings on Zoom, namely ensuring that the meeting has a password and waiting room enabled. The meeting ID and password should change from week to week.
‍1.5 If a person enters the waiting room whose name the tutor does not recognise (i.e. it is neither the student nor parent/ guardian), the tutor must not let them into the lesson.
‍1.6 Tutors should record all lessons, as set out above.
‍1.7 Students and tutors must ensure that they are dressed appropriately and that the lesson takes place in a neutral setting. Students and tutors must conduct themselves appropriately, as set out in Appendix C.
‍1.8 The tutor should ensure that nothing inappropriate is written in the chat. If either the tutor or student behaves inappropriately, or if either party feels uncomfortable, the lesson must be terminated immediately.​

‍Appendix C
‍Tutor responsibilities
1.1 Tutors do not initiate first email contact with students or parents.
‍1.2 Tutors must only use language which is appropriate, and neither offensive nor discriminatory.
‍1.3 Tutors must not make any inappropriate actions or gestures during the lesson.
‍1.4 Tutors must ensure that no inappropriate, offensive or discriminatory imagery is visible to the student via webcam or screen sharing.
‍1.5 Tutors must value the student’s comments and opinions, and tailor the lesson to the student’s pace of learning.
‍1.6 Tutors should ensure that the student is comfortable with the online lesson and, if the parent/ guardian is not present at the lesson, that the student is comfortable without the parent/ guardian present.
‍1.7 Tutors have the responsibility to report any inappropriate behaviour or illegal activity by a student within a session in the manner outlined at the bottom of this document.
‍1.8 Tutors must not engage in any inappropriate communication with the student outside the lesson.
‍1.9 Tutors must immediately upload recordings to Mission Maths following the completion of the lesson. Any tutors found to be storing session recordings will be terminated from the platform.
‍1.10 Tutors should follow the advice on setting up a Zoom lesson as laid out in Appendix B.

‍Student and Parent responsibilities
2.1 Where a student has signed himself/ herself up for lessons, the student is responsible for ensuring that their parent/ guardian knows that they have signed up for lessons with Mission Maths and the student is responsible for ensuring that the various sign up and consent forms have been filled out by the parent/guardian where required and that they have been returned correctly to Mission Maths.
‍2.2 In completing the consent forms upon sign up, the parent consents to the student being recorded during the tutoring session.
‍2.3 Students must only use language which is appropriate, and neither offensive nor discriminatory.
‍2.4 Students must not make any inappropriate actions or gestures during the lesson.
‍2.5 Students must ensure that no inappropriate, offensive or discriminatory imagery is visible to the tutor via webcam or screen sharing.
‍2.6 Students have the responsibility to report any inappropriate behaviour or illegal activity by a tutor within a session in the manner outlined at the bottom of this document.
‍2.7 Parents must always be responsible for the welfare of the student during a lesson.
‍2.8 Parents are responsible for ensuring that the student has no inappropriate communication with the tutor outside the lesson.
‍2.9 Parents are responsible for ensuring that students have read and understood the Mission Maths safeguarding policy before the first tutoring session.