Reporting a safeguarding concern

How to tell us that a child or young person may be at risk, and what we do about it.

When to use this

Report it here if you have seen or been told about any of the following, whether it happened in a lesson, in messages on MusicStudio, or elsewhere:

• anything that suggests a child is being harmed, or is at risk of being harmed;
• a teacher asking a student to move to a personal phone number, email address or social-media account — this is never allowed, for any student, and cannot be waived by a student or a parent;
• sexual, violent or otherwise inappropriate content or conversation;
• a teacher teaching a child when they have not declared that they hold the child-protection clearance their jurisdiction requires;
• anything about a teacher's conduct towards a child that worried you, even if you are not sure it is serious. You do not have to be certain, and you will not be treated as a nuisance for raising something that turns out to be nothing.

How to report it

Use the contact form with "Safeguarding or child-protection concern" selected. Choosing that option is what matters: it marks the report so that it is read and acted on ahead of everything else, rather than joining the ordinary support queue.

Tell us as much as you can, but send it even if you cannot answer everything:

• who is involved — the teacher, the student, and who you are;
• when it happened, and in which lesson if you know;
• what was said or done, in the plainest words you can;
• whether you have already reported it to the Gardaí, Tusla or another authority.

What happens next

• We acknowledge it within 24 hours.
• We look at the account and, where it is relevant to the concern, at the records we keep of what happened — the lesson recording where one exists, and the record of the in-lesson whiteboard and chat. Our Privacy Policy describes both and why we keep them; investigating a safeguarding concern is one of the stated reasons.
• We can restrict or suspend a teacher's account immediately while we look into it, and we do not have to tell them first where doing so would prejudice the investigation (Teacher Agreement, clause 14).
• Where the law requires it, we report to the relevant authority. Reporting to us does not replace your own duty to report, and nothing in our terms — including confidentiality — prevents or delays you doing so.
• We tell you what we have done, so far as we can without breaching someone else's privacy or prejudicing an investigation.

If you are a teacher

Reporting a concern to us is not optional. Under clause 18.8 of the Teacher Agreement, if you become concerned during or after a lesson that a student is at risk of harm you must tell us immediately, and tell the relevant authority where the law of your jurisdiction requires it.

What we do not do

We do not obtain, inspect or verify anyone's child-protection clearance. We ask teachers to declare what they hold and we keep a record of that declaration; we do not see the certificate behind it. If you want evidence that a particular teacher holds a current clearance — Garda vetting in Ireland, a DBS check in the UK, or the local equivalent — ask them directly and ask to see it before the first lesson. A teacher who will not show you is telling you something. This is set out in full in our Terms of Service.

We also require a parent or guardian to be present in the room for a child's first lesson with any new teacher, and to remain nearby and within earshot afterwards.