Safeguarding & private tutoring companies

[veg2grow]

Hi All

Today I found out that the tutor that I had been using for my teen daughter which I had found via a large reputable online tutoring company had been prohibited from teaching. He had admitted to swapping indecent photos with a student from his school, having conversations of sexual nature and planning to have sex with the child.

My DD had her first lesson with him just over a week after he was banned.

The agency referred me to their T&C’s when I had complained and essentially it’s the students/parents/guardians responsibility for checking out the tutor be it insurance, expertise, credibilit etc.

How do I look into the backgrounds of private tutors to prevent something like this happening again? I feel that we are all out at risk when there are no governing bodies or legislation to safeguard children when using private tutors.

it's unusual that the agency expect you to source that information. You can ask the tutor to supply you with a copy of their current DBS check.

I used to work for a tutoring company for a while. We were told that they had to check if we had any unspent convictions that essentially barred us from working with children alone.

Private tutoring companies are different however to ones that are automatically regulated by the government. Personally I think that you should be looking at a different tutoring company pronto. I recommend not using them in the future.

This is why I don’t use a private company. There is no way to find out if they are allowed to work with children or not?