Child Safeguarding Measures

Protecting children is the reason SchoolVillage exists. This document sets out the specific design and operational measures we take to keep children's information safe and to support the safeguarding of children across every community we serve — school classrooms and activity groups including clubs, Scouts, sports teams, dance and drama schools.

1. Our commitment

We treat the safeguarding of children as paramount. Every product decision is weighed against the question: does this reduce risk to a child? Where a feature could expose a child, we remove or redesign it.

2. Design principle: aliases only

Children are represented on SchoolVillage by an alias — a first name and last initial only — in classrooms and activity groups alike. We do not collect, display, or store children's full names, dates of birth, photographs, home addresses, or exact locations. Aliases allow guardians and leaders to coordinate without building a profile that could identify a child.

3. No children's accounts

SchoolVillage is for adults — guardians, carers, verified school staff and activity organisation leaders. Children must not create accounts or use the platform directly. There is no functionality for children to post, message, or be contacted.

4. Data minimisation

We collect the minimum needed to run the service. For children, that means an alias and the classroom or group it belongs to. We do not track a child's behaviour, location, or device, and we do not build profiles of children.

5. No photos or identifying media

The platform does not support uploading photographs of children. Posts, party notices and messages are text-based. This removes a common route by which children are identified online.

6. No location tracking

We do not track or store the location of children or guardians. Party and event locations, and group meeting details, are entered by the host as plain text for a specific occasion and are visible only within that community.

7. Private, scoped communities

Classrooms and groups are private and joined by invite code. A child's alias is visible only within their classroom or group, never across the whole platform. Communication within a community is visible to its members; the platform does not provide private or direct messaging, so nothing is hidden from the community.

When a new guardian joins, their details are hidden from the directory and they cannot post or reply until an existing member welcomes them. This "welcome" step means that even if an invite code leaks, a newcomer cannot see other children's aliases or take part before the community has had a chance to notice and acknowledge them.

8. Verification & moderation by schools and organisations

Verified school staff must confirm a work email on their school's domain before they can post official announcements or remove posts; each school must also first be verified by SchoolVillage before any staff claim is approved. Activity organisation leaders must have their organisation verified by SchoolVillage before they can lead a group, post official messages or moderate their groups. Leaders are expected to follow their organisation's own safeguarding policy and the requirements of any relevant national body. This helps ensure that official communications genuinely come from the school or organisation and that communities have trusted oversight.

9. Community moderation

Any guardian can flag a post that concerns them. If a second guardian confirms the concern, the post is removed and replaced with a notice that it was removed through moderation; the original is retained in a moderation log. Verified school staff can remove posts in classrooms linked to their school; organisation leaders can remove posts in their groups. Users can delete their own posts at any time. We may suspend accounts for serious or repeated breaches.

10. Retention & deletion

A child's alias can be removed at any time by the parent who created it, or by us. When a guardian deletes their account, we remove their profile, child aliases, co-guardian links and party RSVP details, and anonymise their posts and party notices (replacing their name with "A guardian") so that community conversations remain intact. Attendance records are removed when a child leaves a group. We do not retain children's information beyond what is necessary.

11. Responding to safeguarding concerns

If we become aware of a risk to a child — through reports, content, or otherwise — we will act quickly to reduce that risk within the platform. This may include removing content, suspending access, and, where appropriate and lawful, escalating to the relevant authorities. We cooperate with statutory safeguarding partners.

Guardians can raise a safeguarding concern directly from any post or reply using the shield icon. Every concern is sent to the SchoolVillage safeguarding lead, who aims to acknowledge it within one working day. Routing depends on the community: for a school that has joined SchoolVillage, the school's designated safeguarding lead (DSL) is alerted automatically; for a verified activity organisation, the organisation's leader (as the group's safeguarding contact) is alerted so they can action it under their own safeguarding policy; where a community belongs to a school or organisation that has not joined, we do not auto-alert them — the concern is triaged by our safeguarding lead, who decides whether and how to involve the school, organisation or local authority and records that decision. This ensures parent-created communities are never silently dropped and that unadopted schools or organisations are not contacted without careful consideration.

12. If you are worried about a child

If a child is in immediate danger, call 999. For non-emergency concerns you can also contact:

• NSPCC — 0808 800 5000 or nspcc.org.uk
• Childline — 0800 1111 or childline.org.uk
• CEOP (online child protection) — report at ceop.police.uk
• Your local authority children's social care team.

These organisations can give expert advice and, where needed, take action.

13. Keeping this policy current

We review these measures regularly and update them as the service and safeguarding best practice evolve. We welcome feedback from guardians, schools, organisation leaders and safeguarding professionals.