Safeguarding

Draft for review. This summary of WASL’s safeguarding approach has not yet been reviewed by a lawyer or a safeguarding professional and will be updated before Find a Teacher opens widely.

Our commitments

• Children are never public. No child profiles, photos or names appear on any public page. A child’s first name is shared only with the teacher a parent contacts, and only after the teacher accepts the inquiry.
• Parents are in control. Children are added and managed by a parent or guardian. Children do not need their own account: the parent contacts teachers and decides whether to go ahead.
• Teachers are reviewed before appearing. WASL reviews every Find a Teacher profile and course. Badges such as “Identity verified” are shown only when WASL staff have recorded a real check. Qualifications are labelled “self-declared” until verified. WASL does not certify anyone as a Qari, Scholar, Mufti or Hafiz.
• Parents first. First contact is between a parent and a teacher through a WASL inquiry. Teachers never see or search children in the directory.
• Lessons happen in WASL. Classes, attendance, corrections and homework are recorded, so there is always a record of what happened.
• Teachers only see the children they teach. When a family moves to another teacher, the previous teacher’s access to the child ends.

Reporting a concern

Parents can report a teacher from any course or teacher page, or from their inquiries page. Teachers can report a parent from their inquiry list. Reports about safety or inappropriate behaviour are marked urgent and handled first by WASL staff, who can suspend a teacher immediately. A suspended teacher disappears from Find a Teacher and cannot receive new inquiries.

If a child is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first.

What WASL keeps

Class metadata (times, attendance), moderation decisions and reports are kept as described in our data retention policy so that concerns can be investigated. We never delete a learning history because of a report; access is restricted instead.

Legal review required: reporting obligations to authorities in each country, safer-recruitment / background-check requirements, record-keeping periods and the designated safeguarding lead must be confirmed.