Safe, and you can
check that.
We teach other people’s children in their homes. Every rule below exists because of that sentence. Our child safe environments compliance statement is lodged with the South Australian Department of Human Services, and the full policy is here to read.
1. Our commitment
We are committed to the safety and wellbeing of every child and young person we teach. That comes before a booking, a fee or a convenient timetable, and where anything conflicts with it, the child’s safety wins. Every adult who teaches for us is screened before they meet a student and stays screened. Every session runs by rules a parent can see. Every concern is taken seriously and acted on. And when we suspect a child may be at risk of harm, we report it.
2. Working with Children Checks
Nobody has any contact with a student, in person or online, until we have confirmed they hold a current Working with Children Check issued by the Department of Human Services Screening Unit. Both founders hold one and will for as long as we teach. A check is renewed every five years and is monitored continuously by the Screening Unit, and if a tutor’s check is cancelled or expires they stop teaching for us that day.
You may ask for the full name and Working with Children Check unique identifier of any tutor who teaches your child, and we will give it to you. You can confirm it yourself through the Screening Unit’s public verification service. A check is a screening tool, not proof of character, and we do not describe it as more than that.
3. Sessions in your home
A parent or another responsible adult you nominate is at home for the whole session. If nobody is home when the tutor arrives, the tutor does not come in and the session does not run. The session runs in an open, shared part of the home, a kitchen table, a dining room or a living area, with the door open. Never a bedroom, and never behind a closed door.
The tutor carries a phone and photo identification, does not transport your child anywhere, does not take them outside during a session, and does not supervise siblings. If a session cannot continue safely for anyone, the tutor ends it and tells you the same day.
4. Sessions at libraries and online
At a public library, sessions run in the open study areas, never in a closed room the public cannot see into. You are told where, and you can stay for any part of it. Online, you know when the session is and on what platform, and you hold the joining details. Your child joins from an open part of the house, the tutor’s camera is on the whole time, and we do not record sessions unless you ask us to in writing and your child knows.
5. What we never do
We are never alone with a student in a closed or private space. We never contact a student privately by phone, text, email, social media, a gaming platform or any other channel, and every message about a student goes through, or is visible to, a parent. We never photograph, film or record a student without your written consent. We never have physical contact with a student beyond what is unavoidable in passing. We never give gifts or favours, never discuss our own personal lives, and never ask a student to keep anything secret. Every tutor agrees to the full code of conduct in writing before their first session, and breaching it ends the engagement.
6. If your child tells us something
A tutor who sees the same student every week is well placed to notice when something is wrong. If a student tells us something that suggests they may be at risk of harm, we listen, we stay calm, we do not promise to keep it secret, we tell them they were right to speak, and we act on it under our policy. We do not investigate and we do not confront anyone.
7. Mandatory reporting
We operate as mandated notifiers. Where we suspect on reasonable grounds that a child or young person is, or may be, at risk of harm, we report it to the Child Abuse Report Line on 13 14 78, or to 000 if a child is in immediate danger. We do not need permission from anyone to do that and nobody at StudyNote may tell a tutor not to. Both founders hold a current Responding to Risks of Harm, Abuse and Neglect certificate, and every tutor who joins us completes that training or an approved equivalent before their first session.
8. Raising a concern about us
Anything about how a session ran, how a tutor behaved, or anything else, can be raised at any time by emailing hello@studynote.com.au. Your child can tell their tutor, tell you, or write to us directly. Raising a concern never affects your child’s place with us. We acknowledge it within two business days and give you a written outcome within ten. If it suggests a child may be at risk of harm, we report first and pause the tutor’s sessions before anything else.
If the concern is about a teacher here, or you would rather not raise it with us, go straight to the Department of Human Services Screening Unit on 1300 321 592, which issues and monitors the Working with Children Check. If the concern is about how StudyNote itself is run, the Child Safe Environments team at dhs.childsafe@sa.gov.au is the right place. You can also contact Consumer and Business Services SA on 131 882, or South Australia Police. Where a child may be at risk of harm, call the Child Abuse Report Line on 13 14 78.
9. Tutors who join us
Nobody teaches for us until five things are done, and the founder does them personally. Identity confirmed against photo identification. A current Working with Children Check verified through the Screening Unit, not from a screenshot. Qualifications checked against the original documents. A referee who has seen the person work with children spoken to directly. Child safe training completed and our code of conduct signed. First sessions are with a family who has been told the tutor is new to us, and the founder checks in after each one.
10. The policy, and the statement
Our child safe environments policy was adopted on 17 August 2026 and our compliance statement was lodged with the Department of Human Services the same day, receipt CSEC-0000122. The policy is reviewed at least every three years, and sooner whenever the law changes, a concern shows a gap in it, or a tutor is first engaged. Whenever it changes materially, a new statement is lodged and every current family is told.
The full policy is here to read: Child Safe Environments Policy, version 1.0 (PDF, ten pages). Every family we teach receives a copy before or at the first booking, and anyone considering us can ask for one and have it sent the same day. Our privacy policy covers what we hold about your child and how to have it deleted, and if you would like to teach with us, the join page sets out the same bar from the other side.