Age, guardians and consent

Age is what you tell us, and we cannot check it

When you sign up, you tell us your age. We have no reliable way of verifying it, and we would rather say so than imply a control we do not have.

The age you give does exactly one job: it decides which way your signup goes. If you say you are under 18, we ask for a parent or guardian and we ask them to confirm. That confirmation — not the age you typed — is the real control.

Three ways in, one set of rules

• A parent or guardian signs up first, consents, and creates the student’s account under theirs. The student gets their own login.
• The student signs up first, says they are under 18, and nominates a parent or guardian, who confirms with a code we send to their email address.
• A student who is 18 or over signs up and consents for themselves. This covers students who have had a birthday mid-course, repeaters and droppers.

The first two produce exactly the same result: a student account with a confirmed parent or guardian attached. Only the direction of travel differs.

What an account can do at each stage

Searching, filtering and reading profiles are open at every stage, including with no account at all. Nothing on this site is put behind a signup in order to collect an account.

Browsing without an account

You have not signed up. We hold no account for you, and nothing on this site is hidden behind a signup.

• Browse and search everything on the site
• Open a tutor profile and read it in full

Signup started, not finished

You began signing up and stopped. We hold the little you gave us and nothing more, and it does not last — see below.

• Browse and search everything on the site
• Open a tutor profile and read it in full

Waiting for a parent or guardian to confirm

You told us you are under 18 and gave us a parent or guardian to ask. Until they confirm, the account can read but not act.

• Browse and search everything on the site
• Open a tutor profile and read it in full

Under 18, with a parent or guardian who has confirmed

Your parent or guardian confirmed by entering a code we sent them. The student features are open; the parent or guardian is copied in, and can withdraw at any time.

• Browse and search everything on the site
• Open a tutor profile and read it in full
• Save a tutor to come back to
• Send an enquiry
• See a tutor's contact details
• Enrol in a programme

18 or over, consenting for yourself

You told us you are 18 or over, so nobody else confirms on your behalf and nobody else is copied on your enquiries.

• Browse and search everything on the site
• Open a tutor profile and read it in full
• Save a tutor to come back to
• Send an enquiry
• See a tutor's contact details
• Be contacted directly, rather than through a parent or guardian
• Enrol in a programme
• Have your activity used to build a picture of how you behave

Consent withdrawn

A parent or guardian has withdrawn their confirmation. The account still works for reading. It is not deleted, and nobody is locked out without being told why.

• Browse and search everything on the site
• Open a tutor profile and read it in full

Confirming, and changing your mind

A parent or guardian confirms by entering a one-time code we send to their email address. The code expires after ten minutes, and five wrong entries end that attempt. We keep only a scrambled form of the code, so somebody holding a copy of our database still could not complete a consent in a parent’s name.

Consent can be withdrawn at any time. The account then becomes read-only: searching and reading still work, sending enquiries stops. It is not deleted, and the student is not silently shut out. Restoring it takes a fresh confirmation from the person entitled to give it.

Every one of these changes is written to a record that is added to and never edited — including who made the change: the student, a parent or guardian, one of our staff, or an automatic process.

If nobody confirms

An account that is still unfinished, or still waiting on a parent or guardian, is deleted after 7 days.

Data held without consent is a liability, not an asset. Keeping half-finished signups indefinitely in the hope that somebody comes back is how a database of children accumulates.