Tutors Code of Conduct

1. About this code

This Tutors Code of Conduct (the "Code") sets out the operational rules that govern how a tutor presents themselves on Tutorperch, how on-platform reviews are written and submitted, and how messages are exchanged before a finder's-fee unlock has been paid. It complements, and does not replace, the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy.

1.1 The Code applies to every tutor who maintains a profile on Tutorperch. Sections 8, 9, 11, and 12 also apply to students and parents, in respect of their use of the corresponding features.

1.2 Tutorperch operates on a finder's-fee model: the platform earns a single fee from a student when contact details are unlocked, and earns nothing from any lesson, booking, or course of tuition that follows. The Code exists to keep that model fair to everyone using it, students get an honest directory of real tutors, and tutors get a level playing field where no one is permitted to short-cut the system through off-platform branding, contact-detail bypasses, or false claims.

1.3 Acceptance of the Code is required at the points listed in section 14 below. Material changes to the Code re-prompt for acceptance the next time you take an action that would otherwise have been gated by it.

2. Definitions

In this Code:

• Tutor, a user who has set up a tutor profile on the platform.
• Student, any user looking for or messaging a tutor. In practice this is often a parent or guardian acting on behalf of a child.
• Profile, the public listing for a tutor on Tutorperch, comprising the tutor's display name, headline, bio, photo, qualifications, subjects, levels, and any block-discount details.
• Verified Name, the full legal name returned by our identity-verification provider (Stripe Identity or Didit) at the point of identity verification.
• Display Name, the public-facing name shown on the Tutor's Profile, derived from the Verified Name as set out in section 3.
• Disclosure, a safeguarding disclosure (DBS Enhanced certificate, PVG scheme record, or AccessNI Enhanced Disclosure) submitted under section 10 of the Terms of Service.
• Credential review mark, a Certificate checked or Qualified Teacher trust mark granted after admin review of optional certificate evidence, as described in section 11 of the Terms of Service.
• Forum, the gated discussion space accessible to verified, published Tutors and to Tutorperch admins.
• Unlock, the moment a Student pays the finder's fee to access a Tutor's contact details.

3. Identity and display name

3.1 Tutors must complete identity verification via our identity-verification provider (Stripe Identity or Didit) before publishing a Profile. The name returned by that verification is the Verified Name and is the only basis on which a Display Name may be constructed.

3.2 The Display Name shown on a Tutor's public Profile must be one of:

• (a) the Tutor's first name as recorded in the Verified Name; or
• (b) the Tutor's first name plus the initial letter of their surname, followed by a full stop (e.g. "Sarah H.").

3.3 Tutors may not display their full name on their public Profile. The platform's finder's-fee model relies on the on-platform introduction being the valuable thing the Student is paying for; full names render that easy to skip with a Google search and undercut the model for everyone. This is a deliberate platform-economics measure rather than a tutor-privacy measure.

3.4 Tutors may include an optional title prefix (Dr, Prof, Mr, Mrs, Ms, Mx, or Miss) on their Display Name, for example, "Dr Sarah H." or "Mrs Jane B.". The title selector at the picker writes the chosen title directly into the Display Name string; there is no separate stored "title" field. The Display Name must still comply with the form rules in clauses 3.2 and 3.3, title plus first name, or title plus first name and surname initial.

3.5 The Display Name is locked at first publication. A Tutor cannot change their Display Name directly through the profile editor. Genuine changes, for example, following a deed poll, marriage, divorce, or gender transition, are made through the dispute process described in section 12.

3.6 The Display Name must not contain: business or trading names; promotional language; references to other platforms or services; rating, ranking, or award claims; emoji, decorative characters, or non-alphabetic punctuation outside the formats permitted in clause 3.2.

4. Headline (tagline)

4.1 A Profile Headline is a short, plain-text summary of what the Tutor offers (for example, the subjects taught, the level focus, or a defining qualification). The Headline is one of the first elements a Student reads on a Profile and is expected to be informative rather than promotional.

4.2 Headlines must not contain:

• emoji or pictograph characters;
• URLs, web addresses, or social-media handles;
• business or trading names, off-platform brand references, or claims about presence on or transition from another tutoring platform;
• ranking claims that position the Tutor as the best or top choice, for example "top tutor", "best tutor", "#1", "number one", or "highest-rated", and star ratings, those belong in reviews. Descriptive words about the teaching or results, for example "outstanding" or "excellent", and genuine, checkable awards, are permitted;
• contact details;
• zero-width or non-printing characters of any kind.

5. Bio and block-discount details

5.1 The Bio is the Tutor's main written introduction. The block-discount details field, where used, sets out the terms on which the Tutor offers a discount for a block-booking of lessons. The content rules in 5.2 are the baseline for every free-text Profile field: they apply to both of these fields, to the Headline (in addition to the headline-specific rules in section 4), and to any other free-text Profile field, including qualification entries and the town field.

5.2 The following are prohibited in either field:

• contact details of any kind, phone numbers, email addresses, postal addresses, web addresses, or social-media handles;
• ranking claims that position the Tutor as the best or top choice, for example "top tutor", "best tutor", "#1", or "highest-rated", and star symbols (★ ⭐) or star ratings, since the platform's review system is where ratings live. Descriptive words about the teaching or results, for example "outstanding" or "excellent", and genuine, checkable awards, are permitted;
• false or misleading claims about qualifications, experience, exam-board familiarity, school or institutional affiliations, awards, or rankings;
• content copied from another tutor's Profile or from a Profile maintained on another platform without independent authorship;
• content unrelated to the provision of tuition (for example, unrelated commercial advertising, political solicitation, or links to causes or campaigns);
• off-platform-redirect framing or business / trading-name framing;
• abusive, discriminatory, or hateful language, including slurs aimed at protected characteristics.

5.2a For the avoidance of doubt, naming a tool you teach with (including video or messaging apps), and factually referring to a platform you previously tutored on and the reputation you built there, are permitted. What is prohibited is sharing a contact handle or number, routing a Student off-platform to make first contact or to book, or presenting another platform's scores as if they were a Tutorperch rating (see 7.3).

5.3 AI-generated content. Tutors may use AI tools to help draft Profile content. The words posted must reflect the Tutor's own claims and stand as their own considered description. Bulk raw-AI output passed off as first-hand description of the Tutor's experience or qualifications is a breach of this section.

6. Images

6.1 Where this section applies. Any image you upload to or submit to Tutorperch, your Profile photo, your set-up, and any image submitted on request for use on other Tutorperch surfaces.

6.2 The Profile photo. The Profile photo must be a recent photograph (taken within the previous two years) of the Tutor as they currently appear. It must be recognisably of the Tutor and must depict the Tutor's face clearly.

6.3 The Profile photo must not contain:

• overlaid text, captions, watermarks, or contact details;
• logos, brand marks, or trading-name references;
• any other person (the Profile photo is for tutor identification and must show only the Tutor);
• inappropriate content of any kind, including nudity, content suggesting romantic or sexual availability, or content that would not be appropriate in a professional or educational context.

6.4 People in any image you submit. Where an image you submit to Tutorperch (other than your Profile photo) shows any identifiable person other than yourself, that person must have given consent to appear and to Tutorperch's intended use. For any person under 18, written consent from a parent or guardian is required as a matter of Tutorperch policy.

6.5 Safeguarding criteria for images containing students or children. Where a student or child appears in an image, even with consent under 6.4, all of the following must hold:

• no student's face is visible, including partial faces, side profiles, or reflections;
• no identifying details are visible, this includes name, school uniform, badges, certificates, personalised stationery, or recognisable home or school surroundings;
• the image does not reveal or imply the student's specific learning needs, disability, or other sensitive context (where it does, UK GDPR Article 9 special-category protections engage and explicit consent becomes mandatory);
• the student, or their parent or guardian if under 18, has consented to appearing in this specific image and use;
• you are confident the student could not be identified by anyone who knows them.

If you have any doubt about whether your image meets these criteria, submit a photo of yourself or your set-up only.

6.6 Image submissions for use beyond your Profile. From time to time we may invite tutors to submit photographs for use on other Tutorperch surfaces, for example the home page, blog posts, guides, or marketing materials. These submissions are voluntary. The terms on which we may use a submitted image, including any licence we ask for and the withdrawal-of-consent process, are set out in the submission request we send at the time. You do not agree to those terms by accepting this Code; you agree to them only if and when you choose to submit a photo in response to a specific request. The behavioural rules in 6.4 and 6.5 above continue to apply to any such submission.

7. Qualifications and claims

7.1 Qualifications listed on a Profile must be true, current, and held by the Tutor personally. A Tutor may not list a qualification that was held by a relative, colleague, or business associate.

7.2 Institution names listed against a qualification must be the actual issuing institution.

7.3 Claims about external recognition, for example, prizes, fellowships, or academic awards, must be substantiated and must refer to the recognition itself. A Tutor may factually refer to a platform they previously tutored on, including the reputation they built there (for example, "I tutored on First Tutors for ten years with strong reviews"). What a Tutor may not do is present another platform's scores as if they were a Tutorperch rating: reviews shown on Tutorperch come through our own review system and review-import process.

7.4 Where a qualification is in progress rather than complete, the Tutor must indicate that clearly (for example, "MSc Mathematics, in progress") rather than listing an unawarded qualification as held.

7.5 Where a Tutor submits certificate evidence for a Credential review mark, the mark reflects our review at that point in time. Editing the qualification details after approval may invalidate the mark until fresh evidence is submitted and re-approved. Submitting altered, forged, or third-party documents to obtain a mark is a breach of this Code and of section 12 of the Terms of Service.

8. Reviews (for students and parents)

8.1 A review is a public statement about a Tutor's service, written by a Student who has paid the finder's fee for that Tutor and engaged with them. The review window opens seven days after the unlock, see section 6 of the Terms of Service.

8.2 Reviews must:

• be honest and based on actual engagement with the Tutor;
• be written by the Student themselves, not by the Tutor, by a relative or friend acting on behalf of either party, or by anyone other than the Student whose unlock the review concerns;
• avoid contact details and off-platform handles; including them in a draft is itself a breach of this Code.

8.3 Asking a Student you have genuinely worked with for an honest review is fine, including through on-platform messaging. What is not permitted is paying for a review or trying to influence what it says. Reviews must not be:

• solicited with any inducement attached (a payment, a discount, a free lesson, or anything else of value), whether on or off the platform;
• traded between Tutors or between Tutor and Student in coordinated fashion;
• used to retaliate against a Tutor for an unrelated dispute or to manipulate rankings.

8.4 Tutorperch reserves the right to remove reviews that breach this section, to suspend reviewers who breach it repeatedly, and to take action against Tutors who solicit prohibited reviews, see section 12 of the Terms of Service.

8.5 Where a Student edits a review after submission, the edited version remains subject to this section. A Tutor must not pressure a Student to amend or remove a review, whether through on-platform messages, off-platform contact, inducement, or threat.

9. Messaging conduct

9.1 On-platform messages between users have phone numbers, email addresses, web addresses, and common chat handles automatically removed until the finder's fee has been paid. This protects the introduction model the platform depends on and keeps users from being solicited off-platform before they have decided to engage.

9.2 Users may not attempt to bypass the contact-detail filter, for example, by spelling out a number in words, splitting an email address across lines, or asking the other party to search for them outside the platform. Repeated bypass attempts may result in suspension under section 12 of the Terms of Service.

9.3 Messages must not contain abuse, harassment, threats, or solicitation of illegal services. Neither party may pressure the other to move the conversation off-platform, to cancel an unlock, or to leave or alter a review in exchange for anything of value.

10. Forum conduct

10.1 The Tutor forum is a private, gated space for verified, published Tutors and platform admins. Posts and replies are visible to other Tutors and to Tutorperch staff; they are not indexed by search engines and are not visible to Students or to the public web. Anything written there is nevertheless a published statement to a professional audience and is subject to this Code.

10.2 Contact details and off-platform solicitation. The forum is a tutor-only space, so the automatic contact-detail filter that applies to tutor-student messaging (section 9) does not run on forum posts; posts are subject to admin moderation and the reporting process in 10.7 instead. The conduct rules still apply in full: using the forum to solicit Tutorperch Students off-platform, to share or collect contact routes for that purpose, or to coordinate any bypass of the section 9 filter or the finder's-fee model, is a breach and may result in suspension under section 12 of the Terms of Service.

10.3 Discussion of Students. Tutors must not identify, doxx, or disparage individual Students in the forum, including by quoting message threads, attaching screenshots, naming schools attached to Students, or describing Students in a way that could reasonably identify them. General teaching anecdotes that do not identify a specific Student are permitted.

10.4 Discussion of other platforms. Discussing tutoring methods, policies, regulation, or industry news in general terms is encouraged. Tutors must not, however, post content whose primary purpose is to direct other Tutors to solicit Tutorperch Students through other channels, to encourage off-platform engagement of currently-unlocked Students (see section 11 below for the off-platform conduct rules), or to promote a competing platform the Tutor stands to benefit from commercially without disclosing that interest.

10.5 AI-generated content. Tutors may use AI tools to help compose posts. The content posted must, however, be reviewed by the Tutor and stand as their own considered contribution, bulk-posting raw AI output, copy-pasting AI answers as if first-hand expertise, or generating filler to inflate the appearance of activity are all breaches of this section.

10.6 Reactions, polls, and accepted answers. Tutors must not coordinate to manipulate the "Helpful" reaction, vote falsely in polls, or arrange mutual accepted-answer flagging for credibility. These signals exist for the community to find good answers and to surface useful contributors; manipulating them undermines the value of the forum for everyone.

10.7 Reporting. Any Tutor or admin can report a post or thread they believe breaches this Code. Outcomes follow the timeline set out in section 12 below. False or abusive reporting can itself be a breach.

11. Off-platform conduct

11.1 Tutors must not represent themselves as Tutorperch or as employees, agents, or partners of Tutorperch. The relationship between Tutor and platform is set out in section 7 of the Terms of Service.

11.2 Tutors may not direct Tutorperch Students to other tutoring platforms, for example, by suggesting a Student "find me on [platform]" or "we can do this cheaper through [platform]", within on-platform messaging or on the Profile itself. After unlock, what the Tutor and Student agree off-platform is between them; before unlock, the platform's introduction model must be respected.

11.3 The finder's fee covers a single Student-to-Tutor introduction. Neither party may encourage a third party to take up an introduction by bypassing Tutorperch, for example, a Tutor inviting an unlocked Student's friends to message directly, or a Student passing a Tutor's contact details on to another parent without that parent paying the fee.

12. Reporting and disputes

12.1 Reporting another user. Any user can report a Profile, a review, or a message thread that they believe breaches this Code. Reports are reviewed by an admin promptly; outcomes are communicated to the reporter where appropriate.

12.1a Reporter protection. The identity of the reporter is held internally as part of the incident record and is not surfaced to the subject of the report. Retaliation against a user for making a good-faith report, through abusive messages, retaliatory reports, or attempts to leave malicious reviews, is itself a breach of this Code and is treated under section 13.

12.1b Blocking another user does not discharge any obligation under this Code, including a pending compliance incident or appeal.

12.2 Disputing a default name selection. Where a Tutor disputes the name returned by the identity check, because the verification scanned the name incorrectly, because the Tutor's legal name has since changed (for example, following a deed poll, marriage, divorce, or gender transition), or because the naming format does not fit the way the Tutor goes by their name (for example, a name in family-name-first order that the verification has parsed wrongly), the Tutor may submit a name-dispute request. The request is reviewed by an admin within three days. Outcomes include: approval of a different derived name, a request to redo identity verification, or rejection where the request is not supported by evidence.

12.3 Appealing a takedown or compliance action. Where Tutorperch takes a moderation action that affects a Profile, the affected Tutor receives an outcome email setting out which clause was breached and what is required to resolve it. The Tutor may reply to that email to appeal; appeals are reviewed by an admin not involved in the original decision.

12.4 Supporting documentation. Documents submitted with a name dispute (for example, a deed poll, marriage certificate, or updated identity document) are stored only until the admin decision is recorded, and are then purged. The same retention discipline applies to documents submitted in support of any other appeal.

13. Consequences and enforcement

13.1 Compliance incident (seven-day grace). Where an admin identifies a breach, an internal compliance incident is opened and the Tutor receives an outcome email quoting the offending field and citing the specific clause of this Code. The Tutor has seven days to bring the Profile into compliance. Where the breach is corrected within that window, the incident is closed without further action.

13.2 Takedown. Where a breach is not corrected within the grace window, the Profile is unpublished pending the Tutor's response. Unpublication does not delete the Profile; it removes it from search and the public directory. The Tutor can republish once the breach is resolved.

13.3 Suspension and ban. Severe breaches, including fraud, false credentials, repeated bypass of contact-detail redaction, harassment, or breach of safeguarding requirements, may result in immediate suspension and, at the platform's discretion, a permanent ban. The procedure is set out in section 11 of the Terms of Service.

13.4 Refunds and continuing obligations. Where a Tutor is suspended or banned, in-flight unlocks remain valid and Students who have paid the finder's fee retain their access to the Tutor's contact details. Where the Tutor is unable or unwilling to fulfil the introduction following suspension, affected Students may apply for a refund under section 5 of the Terms of Service.

13.5 Appeal turnaround. Appeals against a takedown, suspension, or ban (per clause 12.3) are reviewed promptly. We aim to resolve appeals within a few working days. A Tutor whose appeal is upheld is restored to their previous state with no further action.

14. Versioning and updates

14.1 The version of this Code in force is the date shown at the top of this page. Tutorperch may update this Code from time to time; the version posted here is the version that applies.

14.2 Acceptance of the Code is required at the following points:

• at first publication of a Profile;
• at each republication after the version shown above has been updated;
• at submission of a review by a Student;
• on the first message a user sends in any on-platform conversation;
• on the first post a Tutor makes in the forum.

14.3 Where the version is updated, the next time you take a gated action, publishing or republishing your profile, sending the first message in a new thread, submitting a review, or posting in the forum, you will be shown the change in-app and asked to re-accept before the action proceeds. The prompt names the previously-accepted version and the new one so the update is unambiguous.

14.4 Questions about this Code can be sent to hello@tutorperch.com.