Safeguarding

School Atlas is not a school and is not a safeguarding authority. We are an information service. However, we take any safeguarding concern raised through our platform seriously and will route it to the right place.

1. Who handles safeguarding concerns on School Atlas

Stephen Spence (sole trader, trading as School Atlas) is the designated safeguarding contact. Reports are received at safeguarding@schoolatlas.co.uk and are triaged personally. We aim to acknowledge every report within 24 hours.

We do not provide counselling, direct support to children, or investigation of safeguarding matters. Our role is to:

• remove or restrict content on School Atlas that presents a safeguarding risk (for example, a review that discloses identifiable information about a child);
• refer the reporter to the right body (Local Authority, NSPCC, police, Ofsted, ISI, or the school's own designated safeguarding lead); and
• where appropriate, make our own referral to a statutory body under the duty to report in Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024.

2. How to raise a concern

2.1 A concern about our platform

If you are worried that content on School Atlas (a review, a school profile, a guide) presents a safeguarding risk or identifies a child, email safeguarding@schoolatlas.co.uk with the URL and a brief description. We will act within 24 hours and take the content down if appropriate while we investigate.

2.2 A concern about a child at a school

We are not the right first port of call for a concern about a child at a specific school. Please instead contact:

• the school's Designated Safeguarding Lead (every school in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland has one); or
• the Local Authority children's services for the area the school is in (the GOV.UK service routes by postcode); or
• the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000 for advice; or
• the police on 999 (emergency) or 101 (non-emergency).

2.3 A complaint about a school's safeguarding arrangements

Complaints about a school's safeguarding arrangements should be raised with the inspectorate that oversees the school:

• England (state): Ofsted.
• England (independent): Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI).
• Wales: Estyn.
• Scotland: Education Scotland.
• Northern Ireland: Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI).

3. Safeguarding-by-design on School Atlas

We apply a small number of design choices that reduce safeguarding risk:

• No messaging. There is no private or direct messaging between users, no group chat, and no friend/follow graph.
• No image upload by end users. Reviews are text-only. Only verified schools can upload gallery images, and they warrant consent.
• No child accounts. Minimum account age 16, with email verification.
• Pre-publication moderation. Every review is read by a human moderator against our Moderation Policy. Reviews naming individuals (staff, parents, pupils) are rejected.
• No profiling of children.Child profiles created by parents are used only to personalise the parent's own shortlist. See our Children's Access Assessment.

4. Children disclosing to our platform

We do not provide a route for children to disclose safeguarding concerns to us directly, because we are not equipped to respond. Children with a concern should call Childline on 0800 1111. If a child writes to us anyway, we will safeguard the message, offer Childline and NSPCC contact details, and — where the child is identifiable and appears at risk — pass the information to the relevant statutory body under our duty to report.

5. Confidentiality

We will not share the identity of someone raising a safeguarding concern beyond what is strictly necessary to act on it. Where we are legally required to disclose (for example to the police or a Local Authority), we will tell you unless doing so would itself create risk.

6. Review

This statement is reviewed at least annually and whenever we change a feature that could affect safeguarding.

7. Contact

• Safeguarding: safeguarding@schoolatlas.co.uk
• Moderation / content takedown: moderation@schoolatlas.co.uk
• Legal: legal@schoolatlas.co.uk