Safeguarding and consent

Draft for legal review. [LEGAL REVIEW]

The safety and wellbeing of every student comes first. This page explains how the challenge protects students and what parents and guardians are agreeing to.

How students are protected

• No student accounts. Students never sign in. Their teacher-mentor manages the team.
• Minimal information. We record a student's first name, form and sex only.
• No contact. Judges, voters and the public cannot contact students through the platform. There are no comments on projects.
• Consent before anything is public. The organisers check every image and video against each student's media consent before a project appears in the gallery.
• Designated safeguarding leads. Trained staff from the organising partners handle any concern about a student's safety. They can hide a project from judges and the public at once.

Consent forms

Every team member needs three forms, and the teacher-mentor uploads a copy of each:

1. Parent or guardian consent, for the student to take part.
2. Student assent, the student's own agreement.
3. Media consent: Yes, Partial or No. With Partial, the parent or guardian chooses which uses are allowed: photos; video; first name shown; the website and gallery; social media; reports and news media.

Without media consent, a student must not appear in photos or videos, and their name is not shown publicly. They can still take part fully.

Consent copies are stored separately and privately, and can be seen only by screeners and safeguarding leads.

Videos on YouTube or Instagram

Teams share their demo video as a link. On YouTube, set the video to Unlisted. Only students with video consent may appear. If a concern is raised, the organisers hide the link at once and ask the teacher to remove or make the video private.

Report a concern

If you are worried about a student's safety, or about anything on this website, please report a concern. Reports go straight to the safeguarding leads. Our target is to act on a report about public content within 24 hours.

If a child is in immediate danger, contact the police or local child protection services first.