Safeguarding

How the platform protects children

• Adults only. Accounts are for school staff and the EarthLearn team. Pupils do not have logins and must not use a teacher's account.
• Invitation only. There is no public sign-up. Every account is created by an EarthLearn Super Admin or a School Group Admin, and access can be withdrawn at any time.
• Nothing is public. Project content is visible only to signed-in members of the contributing School Group. There are no public pages, share links or search engine listings for project content.
• Private media. Photos, audio, film and PDFs are held in private storage and opened only through short-lived signed links for signed-in members.
• Consent confirmation. Every media upload requires the contributor to confirm that the school holds the permissions it needs for that material.
• Session hygiene. Sign-in is required each session and inactive sessions are ended automatically, so classroom devices are not left open.
• Accountability. Invitations, role changes and deletions are recorded in an activity log visible to admins.

What we ask of teachers

• Check your school's photography and media consents before uploading anything showing children, and follow your school's own safeguarding and data protection policies — they take precedence.
• Only upload material your school has permission to share. This includes your own media consents for images and recordings of children, and permission for any third-party images, audio, film or documents. EarthLearn does not check copyright or consent for you.
• Do not include pupil names, initials alongside images, ages, contact details, home locations or anything else that could identify an individual child or adult. Write about the class, year group or school.
• Take care with location data: map coordinates should point to the school grounds or a study site, not to a pupil's home.
• Review pupils' words before publishing them to a story blog.
• Pupils must never add content unsupervised. They do not have accounts and must not use a teacher's account. All contributions must be uploaded by a signed-in adult member of staff.
• Keep your password private, do not share your account with anyone else, sign out at the end of each session, and never leave the platform open on a device pupils are using.
• Carry out your own risk assessments for any outdoor or practical activity used to generate project data, and follow your school's supervision and health and safety procedures. EarthLearn provides the template and a place to record results; it does not supervise the activity itself.

Reporting a concern

If content appears on EarthTogether that should not be there — a photograph without consent, identifying information about a child, or anything that worries you — remove it if you have permission to do so, and tell your School Group Admin and the EarthLearn team straight away at enquiries@theearthmuseum.co.uk. Admins can edit or delete any content within their scope, and EarthLearn Super Admins can remove content and accounts permanently.

If a concern relates to a child's immediate welfare, follow your school's safeguarding procedures and contact your Designated Safeguarding Lead first. EarthTogether is not a route for reporting safeguarding incidents about individual children.

Review

These safeguarding arrangements are reviewed by EarthLearn as the platform develops, and whenever a new project template changes the kind of content schools contribute.