1. Purpose and status of this document

This document explains how [ESTABLISHMENT NAME] expects staff to handle safeguarding when using Phil, the behaviour-mentoring platform, to deliver mentoring courses to pupils. It sits alongside, and does not replace, the school's main safeguarding and child protection policy. Where anything here appears to conflict with that policy, the main policy always takes precedence.

This template exists because Phil is a session-recording and course-delivery tool, not a safeguarding reporting system. Adopting it clarifies, for every mentor using Phil, exactly where the platform's role ends and the school's normal safeguarding procedure begins.

2. Scope

This policy applies to all staff at [ESTABLISHMENT NAME] who use Phil to deliver mentoring sessions to pupils, and to the Designated Safeguarding Lead(s) and admin who oversee that use.

3. What Phil is, and isn't

Phil is a tool for planning and recording one-to-one behaviour-mentoring sessions: it holds course content, session notes, ratings, and a pupil's progress through a course.

Phil is not a safeguarding reporting system. It does not send alerts, does not notify a DSL, and does not review, monitor or act on anything a mentor records, including the safeguarding_flag and safeguarding_note fields described in section 5.

Using Phil does not change any part of [ESTABLISHMENT NAME]'s existing child protection procedures. Every existing reporting route, [e.g. CPOMS / MyConcern / paper referral form / direct conversation with the DSL], remains exactly as it was.

4. Roles and responsibilities

4.1 Mentors

Are responsible for recognising and responding to a safeguarding concern raised during a mentoring session, in line with this school's main safeguarding policy, Phil plays no part in this.

Must report any concern to the DSL through the school's normal reporting route, the same day, regardless of whether they have also recorded anything in Phil.

May use the safeguarding_flag and safeguarding_note fields in Phil as their own factual record of what happened in a session, in addition to, never instead of, reporting the concern through the school's normal route.

4.2 Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)

Remains the school's central point of contact for every safeguarding concern, exactly as under normal procedure. Phil does not inform the DSL of anything automatically, so mentors must continue to report to them directly and immediately, using the school's usual method, regardless of what's recorded in Phil or who can see it.

If the DSL also holds [ESTABLISHMENT NAME]'s Phil admin account (see 4.3), they can look up any pupil's session records directly, including safeguarding notes. This is a convenience the school may choose to use, not a substitute for the mentor's direct report, a record sitting in Phil, unseen, is not the same as the DSL having been told.

4.3 Establishment (Phil) admin

Manages Phil user accounts and mentor seats. Unlike a mentor, who only sees their own pupils, the Phil admin account can view session records, including safeguarding notes, for every pupil at [ESTABLISHMENT NAME], by looking a record up directly. Nothing is sent or flagged to the admin automatically; this is access the admin has to actively use.

Holding the Phil admin account does not, by itself, make someone this school's Designated Safeguarding Lead under Keeping Children Safe in Education, that remains a separate, formal appointment. Because of the level of access involved, [ESTABLISHMENT NAME] should make sure whoever holds the Phil admin account is an appropriate person to have it, in many schools, that will be the DSL or a senior pastoral lead, but it's the school's own decision to make and review.

5. What actually happens when a mentor flags a session in Phil

This matters because it would be easy for a mentor, under pressure, to assume that flagging a session in the app is itself a form of reporting, or that the admin will simply notice. Neither is true unless the admin happens to go looking. Section 6 sets out the process a mentor should actually follow.

6. Step-by-step: during and after a session

1. Keep the pupil safe and calm. Do not promise absolute confidentiality, pupils should already have been told, before the course started, that anything raising a safety concern will be shared with [name/role, e.g. the DSL].

2. Do not attempt to investigate or resolve the concern yourself, and do not use restorative or mediation techniques from the course material on a safeguarding matter.

3. Report the concern to [DSL NAME / ROLE] the same day, using [the school's normal method, e.g. CPOMS entry, in person, phone call], following the process set out in the main safeguarding policy.

4. Separately, and in addition, record the session in Phil as normal: tick the safeguarding-flag field and add a brief, factual note. This is your own mentoring record, not a substitute for step 3.

5. Follow any instructions from the DSL about next steps, further monitoring, or additional support for the pupil.

7. Confidentiality

Before a course begins, mentors should tell each pupil clearly what is confidential and what isn't, for example: “What you tell me stays between us, unless I'm worried about your safety or someone else's. If that happens, I have to tell [DSL name/role] myself.” Because Phil does not share flagged sessions with anyone automatically, this promise can only be kept if the mentor follows through on it personally, every time, through the school's normal reporting route.

8. Record-keeping

A Phil session record, including any safeguarding-flag and note, is a mentoring log, not this school's official safeguarding record. [ESTABLISHMENT NAME]'s official safeguarding record remains [CPOMS / MyConcern / the school's designated system], and any concern must be recorded there by the DSL (or the mentor, per your existing procedure) in addition to anything noted in Phil. Phil session records are retained in line with the school's own data retention schedule for pastoral records, see Phil's privacy policy for how Phil itself handles storage and deletion.

9. Training

Any member of staff delivering mentoring sessions through Phil must hold current safeguarding training in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education, and should be familiar with this document and the school's main safeguarding policy before running their first session.

10. Review

This document should be reviewed at the same interval as [ESTABLISHMENT NAME]'s main safeguarding policy, or sooner if Phil's own safeguarding-related functionality changes.

Phil · structured support, real growth. This template must be adapted to your establishment's own policy and approved by your DSL and governing body before use. Phil accepts no responsibility for safeguarding outcomes; safeguarding action is, and remains, the establishment's own responsibility.

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