POLICY OWNER
Director
APPLIES TO
Employed and self-employed specialists, office staff, volunteers and contractors
THE ONE RULE TO REMEMBER
If a situation could be misread, change it — and tell the DSL rather than hoping it passes.
1. Who this applies to and why
This code applies to everyone who works with or around our students, however they are engaged. It sets the professional boundaries that keep children safe and protect you from misunderstanding or false allegation.
Accepting work with us means accepting this code; it sits alongside Policy 1 and your contract or terms of engagement.
2. Professional boundaries
✅ Always Keep all contact with students and families on centre channels — centre email, the centre phone, centre-managed Zoom.
Stay visible: door ajar or window uncovered when alone with a student, and a logged session online.
Use the student's name, speak respectfully, and keep conversation on the lesson.
Report any concern about a child to the DSL the same day (Policy 1).
Tell the Director about anything in your own life that may affect your suitability to work with children.
🚫 Never Share personal phone numbers, social media or home addresses with students or families.
Meet, message or tutor a student privately outside centre arrangements.
Give lifts, gifts or money, or accept anything beyond a small token of thanks.
Photograph or record a student on a personal device.
Use physical contact beyond what is necessary for safety, or any form of physical punishment.
Discuss a student or family on social media, or in any public place.
3. Teaching standards
Arrive prepared, start on time, and teach the planned content to the standard in our schemes of work.
Take the register within the first 10 minutes of every session, in person and online (Policy 11).
Set, collect and mark homework, and use it to plan the next steps (Policy 7).
Apply the Classroom Code and the behaviour ladder consistently (Policies 7 and 5).
Check every AI-assisted resource before a student sees it (Policy 14).
Keep student information confidential and handle it under Policy 12.
STAFF AND SPECIALISTS
Staff and Specialist Code of Conduct The professional standards every adult working with our students is held to.
Pass 11 Plus Grammar · Policy 20 JMS Publishers and Providers Ltd · Edgbaston, Birmingham Version 1.1 · October 2026 · Page 1 of 2
4. Conduct outside work
What you do in your own time is your own business, unless it calls into question your suitability to work with children or brings the centre into disrepute. Tell the Director promptly about any police caution, charge, conviction or investigation, or any concern raised about you by another setting.
5. Low-level concerns
Not every worry about an adult is an allegation. A low-level concern is any behaviour by an adult that sits uneasily with this code but does not meet the threshold for referral to the LADO — a joke that went too far, favouritism towards one student, a rule bent for convenience, a message sent from a personal phone.
Something an adult did sits uneasily with you YES This is an allegation — follow Policy 1, section 5 NO Tell the DSL, even if it feels small DSL records it and speaks to the person Kept on file; patterns reviewed by the Director Figure 22 — Low-level concerns about an adult. Sharing early prevents harm later.
Low-level concerns are recorded, kept confidentially, and reviewed together. A single record may look minor; several about the same person rarely are. No one is penalised for raising one in good faith (Policy 2).
6. If this code is not followed
Breaches are dealt with by the Director, proportionately — a conversation and a note on file for a first, minor lapse; withdrawal of work or termination of engagement for anything serious. Where a breach may amount to harm to a child, Policy 1 takes over and the LADO is contacted within one working day.
?
Could a child have been harmed, or might a criminal offence have occurred?
Pass 11 Plus Grammar · Policy 20 JMS Publishers and Providers Ltd · Edgbaston, Birmingham Version 1.1 · October 2026 · Page 2 of 2