Safeguarding our students is a very important aspect of what we do and we work closely with the designated safeguarding lead Dr Sian Tedaldi at the University of Oxford physics department, and with our funder MESME and their safeguarding lead, to identify and minimise risk to students and tutors. The COMPOS programme is thoroughly risk assessed and we comply with the University of Oxford safeguarding policy.
Checks and Training
All our tutors undergo enhanced DBS checks and are given mandatory safeguarding training. The programme is led by two qualified teachers with extensive experience in teaching in UK schools. We observe tutors at random during the year (spot checks) as well as scheduling quality assurance observations with all of them throughout the year. Our students and tutors abide by a Code of Conduct which includes details on acceptable online behaviour. All students and tutors are given information about how to contact staff should they have any concerns around someone's behaviour towards them or another student.
Keeping tutorials safe
No tutorials take place unless at least three people are present and tutors use waiting rooms to ensure students cannot join online meetings without supervision. Tutors and students are prohibited from direct communication and all messages through our online learning platform are moderated by staff. Students can only communicate via our monitored platform and tutors only have access to the groups they specifically work with. As tutorials take place out of office hours, our staff have apps on their phones to ensure they can be contacted at anytime for advice or to drop into a tutorial. The discussion board feature on our online platform is disabled between the hours of 10pm and 8am to ensure no messages are posted which cannot be moderated in real time.
The COMPOS risk assessment is available to schools upon request. Please email our main contact address compos [at] physics.ox.ac.uk.
