Safety and safeguarding

GCSE-ready is used by children, so we design it to be safe by default. This page explains how, and what to do if you are worried about something.

If you are worried about something right now

• If someone is in immediate danger, call 999.
• Students: talk to a parent, carer, teacher or another adult you trust. You can also contact Childline free, at any time of day or night, on 0800 1111 or at childline.org.uk. It is private and confidential.
• If someone online has made you feel unsafe or asked you to do something sexual, you or an adult can report it to CEOP (part of the National Crime Agency): ceop.police.uk/Safety-Centre.
• Adults worried about a child can contact the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 800 5000 or help@nspcc.org.uk.

These are UK services. Outside the UK, contact your local emergency number or your school.

How GCSE-ready keeps students safe

• No contact between users. There is no chat, messaging, comments, profiles or friend lists. Nothing a student writes is shown to anyone else.
• No adverts and no tracking. We show no adverts, use no tracking cookies and sell no data. We keep only anonymous totals of how the site is used, and students can switch even those off in Settings. See our privacy notice.
• No account needed. Students can use every lesson without giving a name or email address.
• AI help is limited to school work. Ask AI and Correct my answer only answer questions about school subjects. Questions are screened by a safety model before they are answered. Personal questions (such as feelings, family or bullying) get a reply that suggests talking to a trusted adult and gives Childline's number. Health questions are pointed to a parent, school nurse, doctor or NHS 111. Unsafe requests are refused. There is a daily limit per device, and every AI answer is labelled as AI that can make mistakes.
• Questions are not linked to students. AI questions are sent without the student's account, email addresses and phone numbers are removed, and only anonymous curriculum questions are kept, for up to 6 months.
• Parent emails only with consent. A weekly progress email reaches a parent only after the parent confirms it, and every email has a one-click stop link.
• Videos play in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode and only load when pressed. Comments are not shown on GCSE-ready.

What we do if we see a concern

Because questions are anonymous, we cannot identify who asked them. If something sent to us by email suggests a child may be at risk, we will respond promptly and, where we believe a child is in danger, pass the information to the police or the relevant children's services.

Safeguarding contact

For any safeguarding question or concern about GCSE-ready, email hello@gcse-ready.org with "Safeguarding" in the subject line. We are an online resource and are not able to provide counselling or emergency help, so please use the services above if someone needs support now.

For schools

Teachers can share any lesson link with a class. Students do not need accounts, so no pupil data has to be shared with us. More on the page for teachers.

Sources, checked 21 October 2026: Childline number and hours, and the NSPCC Helpline number and email, as listed by the Football Association's safeguarding pages (Childline, NSPCC); reporting to CEOP and calling 999 in an emergency from CEOP Education.