Safeguarding

Our approach

The child’s best interests come first when Pathway Eleven is designed and operated. The service is intended for learning within a family account managed by a parent or carer.

• Children do not need an email address or public profile.
• There is no child-to-child messaging, public posting or contact with unknown adults.
• Scores, trends and family settings are kept in a PIN-protected parent area.
• Learning sessions use calm language and avoid public rankings or social pressure.
• Parents control the weekly schedule, study goal and notifications.

Who the service is for

Pathway Eleven is used by children from Year 3 to Year 5 who are working towards a grammar school entrance test, and the account belongs to the parent or carer throughout. An adult creates it, an adult holds the sign-in details, and an adult decides when and where a child uses it. A child is never asked to register, to give an email address, to upload a photograph or to write anything that is published to anyone.

The design follows from that. There is nowhere in the service for a child to be contacted by a stranger, because there is no profile to find, no message to send and no shared space to post into. The only people who can see a child's work are the adults holding the family account.

Parents and carers

A parent or carer should create the account, decide when and where it is used, keep account credentials private and check that study remains appropriate for the child’s age and wellbeing.

Preparation should include rest, sleep, physical activity and time away from screens. Pause a session if a child becomes distressed, overtired or excessively worried about performance. Pathway Eleven is not a substitute for a teacher, medical professional, counsellor or safeguarding service.

What a child can and cannot do inside the app

• Can: work through a daily plan, read teaching explanations, answer questions, sit a timed practice or a full paper rehearsal, and see how they did.
• Can: flag a question that looks wrong or unclear, which takes it out of their own progress immediately.
• Cannot: message another child or an adult, post publicly, upload files or images, or follow a link out of the learning flow to somewhere unmoderated.
• Cannot: see another family's results, a leaderboard, or any ranking against other children.
• Cannot: be shown advertising. The app a child signs into carries no advertising and no analytics trackers of any kind.

Parent-facing figures live behind a PIN in the parent area. That is deliberate: a score is easier to talk about once an adult has seen it first and had a moment to decide what to say.

The material a child is shown

Everything a child reads here is written for this age group. Reading passages are chosen and written to be age appropriate, and questions are written against the skills an entrance paper actually samples rather than pulled from anywhere else.

Before anything reaches a child it goes through two stages. An automated screen catches the mechanical faults an author cannot see in their own work, such as two answers that mean the same thing or a passage that does not support the question asked of it. What clears that screen goes to a qualified teacher, who reviews it and either approves it, sends it back for repair, or rejects it. Only approved questions are released, which is what the site means when it says every question is reviewed and approved by a qualified teacher.

If something still gets through, the reporting control inside the app is the fastest way to tell us. A reported question is set aside at once, left out of the child's progress, and looked at again by the reviewer.

Wellbeing while preparing

Preparation for a selective test can weigh on a child, and a service that ignores that is not a safe one. Several choices here exist for that reason alone. Sessions use calm, plain language and never compare one child with another. Difficulty rises with what a child can already do, so the work stays inside reach rather than being set at the level of the test from day one. The parent chooses the days and the daily time, and can change both at any point.

Signs worth acting on include a child who dreads the session, who is tearful about a score, who is sleeping badly, or who has stopped doing things they used to enjoy. Stop, and come back to it later or on a lighter setting. Preparation that costs a child their sleep, their weekends or their confidence is not preparation that will pay off on the day, and there is no result worth that.

Pathway Eleven is a preparation service. It is not a teacher, a medical professional, a counsellor or a safeguarding service, and nothing here should be treated as advice from one.

Raising a concern about Pathway Eleven

Email info@pathwayeleven.co.uk with the subject “Safeguarding concern”. Include only the information needed to explain the concern. Do not send photographs or sensitive evidence unless requested through a secure method.

We will acknowledge the concern, restrict access to information on a need-to-know basis, preserve relevant records and take proportionate action. Where a child may be at risk, information may be shared with the appropriate safeguarding or law-enforcement authority.

Independent help

• NSPCC Helpline: adults worried about a child can call 0808 800 5000 or visit the NSPCC reporting guidance.
• Childline: children and young people can call 0800 1111 free or use Childline online support.
• CEOP: concerns about online sexual abuse or grooming can be reported through the CEOP Safety Centre.

How a concern is handled

A concern raised with us is acknowledged, and the information in it is kept to the people who need it to act. Relevant records are preserved rather than deleted while a concern is open, and the action taken is proportionate to what has been reported. Where there is reason to believe a child may be at risk, information is shared with the appropriate safeguarding or law-enforcement authority, and that is done whether or not the person who reported it asks for it.

What is kept, and for how long, is governed by the same rules as everything else on this site: only what is needed, only for as long as it is needed for safety, legal and accountability purposes. The Privacy Notice sets out the rest, including how to have a family record deleted.

Learning-content concerns

If a question appears incorrect, unclear or unsuitable, use the in-app question-reporting control. It will be set aside and left out of the child’s progress calculations while reviewed. A content mistake is not automatically a safeguarding concern, but concerns about harmful or age-inappropriate material should also be emailed to the safeguarding contact.

When this information is reviewed

This page is reviewed whenever the service adds a new kind of interaction, communication or content, and at least once a year otherwise. If a change affects what a child can do or what is stored about them, it is reflected here and in the Privacy Notice before it reaches a family.

If anything on this page is unclear, or if you think a decision made here is the wrong one, write to info@pathwayeleven.co.uk and say so. The message reaches the person who runs the service.

Privacy and review

Safeguarding records are handled carefully and retained only as long as needed for safety, legal and accountability purposes. This information is reviewed when the service adds a new type of interaction, communication or content.