Safeguarding Policy
Bluebell is a revision tool, not a safeguarding service. This policy sets out what happens when a student writes something that suggests they may be at risk.
If a child is in immediate danger, call 999. Bluebell is not monitored in real time and must never be relied on to raise an alarm.
What the tutor does
The tutor carries a safeguarding instruction that overrides every other instruction it has, and it is always on — there is no setting for it. If a student says something suggesting they are at risk or not coping — about their own safety, about how someone is treating them, or about what is happening at home — the tutor is instructed to:
- stop teaching, rather than answer the question and move on;
- acknowledge what was said, briefly and warmly;
- say plainly that it is a revision tool and not a person, and never promise to keep a secret;
- encourage the student to tell an adult they trust — a parent, a teacher, their head of year, or the school's designated safeguarding lead;
- give the helplines below;
- keep listening if the student wants to keep talking.
The instruction itself is far more specific than that paragraph. It names the situations plainly, one by one, because a model cannot act on a euphemism. We have not reproduced the wording here for the same reason it is worded that way — students read this page, and a list of the things we are watching for is not something a struggling teenager should have to read to find out we will help. If you are a safeguarding lead and you need to see the exact instruction to sign this off, ask and we will send it to you.
It is instructed never to ask probing questions for detail, never to diagnose, never to describe methods of self-harm even if asked academically, and never to carry on the lesson as though nothing was said.
Who a student is pointed to
- Childline — 0800 1111. Free, 24 hours, for anyone under 19, and it does not appear on a phone bill.
- Samaritans — 116 123. Free, 24 hours, any age.
- Shout — text SHOUT to 85258. Free, 24 hours, for when talking is too hard.
- 999 if anyone is in immediate danger.
What we flag, and what we do not
A small list of unambiguous phrases raises a flag for review. A flag is a pointer to a conversation, not a copy of it, and it puts that conversation in a queue that our designated safeguarding lead, Raunaq Rai, reads within 24 hours, weekends included. Each one is closed with a written note recording what was decided. A real concern is referred to the student's school safeguarding lead where we know the school, or otherwise to the local authority's children's services, and to 999 if a child is in immediate danger. Replies to our direct messages are checked the same way.
We are honest about the limits of this, because a school needs to know them rather than assume otherwise:
- It is not real-time monitoring. Nobody is watching as a student types, and nothing alerts out of hours.
- It will miss things. The phrase list is deliberately narrow, because a wider one flags a hundred biology questions a week and a queue that is mostly noise is a queue nobody opens. The part that protects a student is the tutor's response, which needs no detection to work.
- It does not replace your process. We can refer a concern, but we cannot investigate or act on it, and a 24-hour review is no substitute for a school's own safeguarding.
- It is not told to the student, and it never restricts their account or changes what the tutor says to them.
Contacting us
If you are a parent, a teacher or a safeguarding lead and you need to raise something about a child using Bluebell — or to ask what a conversation contained — write to raunaq@bluebellai.org. Messages about a child's safety are read the same day.
Students cannot contact each other through Bluebell. There is no messaging, no profile visible to anyone else, and nothing a student writes is shown to another user.
See also how we use AI and the privacy notice.