Terms of Service

These terms are a contract between you and the operator of Tutor Island (referred to as “we”, “us”, or “the platform”). By creating an account or using Tutor Island you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, please do not use the platform. Tutor Island is operated by Sarah Sattar, a sole trader based in the United Kingdom; a geographical address is available on written request via support@tutorisland.co.uk.

A few words we use throughout. A “tutor” is a user with a tutor profile. A “connection request” is the message a student or parent sends a tutor to start a conversation. A “connection” is formed when, after the tutor accepts, the student or parent pays the one-off fee and the tutor’s contact details are revealed.

We may update these terms. The version on this page is the version in force, and we will update the date at the top when it changes. If a change is material, for example to fees or safeguarding rules, we will tell signed-in users before it takes effect.

Tutor Island is a UK introduction service. We provide a searchable directory of tutors who have passed our background check review, on-platform messaging between students, parents, and tutors, and a paid connection step that reveals a tutor’s contact details once the tutor has accepted a request.

We do not provide tutoring, lessons, scheduling, lesson payments, or supervised lesson environments, and we take no commission on lessons. Once a connection is made, the tutoring relationship, including where lessons happen, what they cost, and how they are paid for, is between the tutor and the student or parent. We are not a party to it.

Tutor Island serves learners of any age, from school pupils to university applicants to adult learners, but who holds the account depends on age:

Adults (18 and over) hold their own accounts as students, parents, or tutors.

Students aged 16 or 17 may hold their own account, but it stays locked until a parent or guardian acknowledges it by email. Section 7 explains what their parent can see.

Children under 16 never hold accounts. A parent or guardian creates a parent account and uses the platform entirely on the child’s behalf. This rule is enforced by our systems at signup, not just stated here.

You agree to give accurate information, keep it up to date, and keep your login details secure. You are responsible for activity under your account.

The steps to form a connection, and a contract with us, are:

1. You browse tutor profiles free of charge and send a tutor a connection request with a first message. Contact details are automatically hidden from messages at this stage.

2. The tutor decides whether to accept. Tutors always choose who they work with; a request creates no obligation on either side, and messaging costs nothing.

3. If the tutor accepts, you may pay the one-off connection fee. The fee is shown clearly before you pay, and payment is taken securely through our payment provider’s hosted checkout, where you can review your details before confirming.

4. When your payment is confirmed, the contract for that connection is formed, the tutor’s contact details are revealed to you, and you receive a receipt by email. Your conversation stays available on the platform.

We do not store a separate signed copy of each contract. The contract consists of these terms as published at the time you pay, together with your receipt. You can save or print this page at any time. All contracts are offered and concluded in English.

The connection fee is £9.99, paid once per tutor by the student or parent. It pays for the introduction: the reveal of that tutor’s contact details and the open messaging that follows. It is not a payment for lessons, and we never take a share of what you and the tutor arrange afterwards.

The fee pays for immediate performance. When you pay, the tutor’s details are revealed to you straight away. By paying, you expressly request immediate performance and acknowledge that once the details are revealed you lose the statutory 14-day cancellation period, and the fee is not refundable.

Nothing in this section affects your statutory rights, including where the service was not provided with reasonable care and skill or was not as described. If you believe something went wrong with a connection, contact support@tutorisland.co.uk and we will look at it.

For a child under 16, you use the platform on their behalf: you browse, message, connect, and manage everything from your own account. We hold only minimal information about your child, their first name and school year, and a tutor only ever sees those two details, and only within a conversation you started.

If your child is 16 or 17 and holds their own account, you will be asked to acknowledge the account before they can use it, and we keep you informed of the key moments: when they start a conversation with a tutor, when a tutor accepts, and when they connect. The connection notification includes the tutor’s contact details, so you always know exactly who your child can now reach off the platform.

The decision to engage any tutor, and responsibility for your child’s safety in lessons, rests with you. Our background check review is a strong starting point, not a substitute for your own judgement: meet the tutor first, sit in on early lessons where you can, and trust your instincts.

Your account belongs to you, and tutors deal with you directly. Two things work differently because of your age: your account activates only once a parent or guardian acknowledges it, and your parent is notified when you start a tutor conversation, when a tutor accepts, and when you pay to connect, including the tutor’s contact details on connection. Your messages themselves are not shared with your parent.

Tutors are independent. You are not our employee, agent, or partner, and you are responsible for your own tax affairs, any insurance appropriate to your work, the accuracy of your profile, and the quality of your teaching. You must comply with UK consumer law in the arrangements you make with students and parents off-platform.

Listing on Tutor Island is free. We charge tutors nothing: no listing fee, no verification fee, and no commission on lessons, ever. The platform is paid for by the student-side connection fee alone.

Before your profile appears anywhere, you must submit a current criminal record check covering where you live and work, and you must keep that status truthful for as long as you are listed. If you live in the United Kingdom, that is an Enhanced DBS certificate in England and Wales, confirmation of Protecting Vulnerable Groups scheme membership for the children’s group in Scotland, or an AccessNI Enhanced Disclosure Certificate in Northern Ireland. If you live outside the United Kingdom, it is the criminal record certificate issued by your country’s national police service or equivalent authority, together with photo identification so that we can confirm the certificate is yours. If your circumstances change in a way that affects it, you must tell us and stop taking new connections. Misrepresenting your check status, qualifications, or identity is grounds for immediate removal and, where appropriate, a report to the relevant authorities.

For safeguarding reasons, the platform does not show you a student’s or parent’s contact details at any stage. Once a connection is made, they receive your details and contact you.

Every listed tutor has had a background check personally reviewed by us before their profile went live: an Enhanced DBS certificate in England and Wales, confirmation of Protecting Vulnerable Groups scheme membership in Scotland, an AccessNI Enhanced Disclosure Certificate in Northern Ireland, or, for a tutor living outside the United Kingdom, the criminal record certificate issued by their own country together with photo identification. This is a condition of listing, not an optional badge. Each tutor’s profile names the check they hold and, where it was issued outside the United Kingdom, the country that issued it.

Be equally clear about what this is not. Each of these is a snapshot at the date it was issued or confirmed, and our review confirms the document, not the person’s future conduct. Where a scheme provides ongoing monitoring, that monitoring is carried out by the issuing body and not by us, and we receive no alerts from it. Verification is not a guarantee of suitability, and it does not replace the precautions any parent or student should take with someone new. We describe our review process honestly throughout the platform and will not overstate it here.

A check issued outside the United Kingdom carries further limits, and we state them plainly rather than leaving them to be inferred. It is not equivalent to a DBS check. We have no means of confirming a foreign certificate with the authority that issued it, so what we confirm is that the documents presented to us are what they appear to be and that they belong to the account holder. There is no equivalent of the United Kingdom’s barred lists in most other countries, and we do not have access to any such list abroad. We encourage families connecting with a tutor based outside the United Kingdom to ask to see both documents themselves.

Two kinds of feedback can appear on a tutor’s profile: reviews, written by students and parents who have paid to connect with that tutor on Tutor Island, and recommendations, invited by the tutor from people they taught before joining.

Once you have connected with a tutor, you may write one review of that tutor from your conversation. Reviews pass the same automated screening as messages and are read by a member of our team before they appear. You may write one review per connection; if your review is rejected, you may write a new one in its place. An approved review is shown on the tutor’s profile with your first name and last initial, and only while your connection with that tutor remains active; if the conversation is blocked or ends, the review is hidden.

A tutor may invite people they have taught before, on another platform or privately, to share a short recommendation. Each one is submitted through a single-use link the tutor sends, passes the same automated screening as messages, and is then read by a member of our team before it can appear. We reject anything abusive, promotional, personally identifying, or plainly not genuine.

Be clear about the limit of this: we review recommendations, but we cannot independently verify that the tutoring relationship they describe took place, and they are labelled accordingly wherever they appear. Treat them as one signal among several, alongside the tutor’s background check verification and your own conversation with them.

Fabricating reviews or recommendations, writing them for yourself, or arranging them in exchange for payment or favours is a serious breach of these terms. We may remove any review or recommendation at any time, and tutors who manufacture them can expect removal from the platform.

All messages travel through the platform until you connect. Two automatic systems apply to them. First, before a connection is paid for, contact details, such as phone numbers, email addresses, and social handles, are hidden from messages in both directions. Do not try to get around this, for example by spelling numbers out; repeated attempts can lead to suspension. Second, every message is screened automatically for harmful content before delivery. Messages that fail screening are not delivered, and screening records may be reviewed by our team for safeguarding purposes.

Either participant can report a conversation to us or block it, which stops all further activity in that conversation for both sides. Where we believe someone may be at risk, particularly a child, we may suspend accounts and share information with the police or other relevant authorities.

You keep the rights in what you write. You give us the licence we need to store, screen, and display your content for the purpose of running the service.

You must not use Tutor Island to:

Harass, abuse, threaten, exploit, or endanger anyone, or attempt to move a child off the platform to avoid our safeguards. Misrepresent who you are, your qualifications, or your check status. Bypass or attempt to bypass the connection fee or the contact-detail filter. Create accounts to evade enforcement or manipulate the platform. Scrape or harvest platform content or user information by automated means. Interfere with the security or integrity of the service.

We may suspend, restrict, or terminate accounts that break these rules, with or without notice depending on severity, and safeguarding breaches are treated as the most serious category.

We run the platform with reasonable care and skill but cannot guarantee uninterrupted availability, that any tutor is suitable for any particular learner, or any outcome from an introduction. We are not liable for the conduct of users or for anything that happens in the tutoring relationship itself, including lessons and lesson payments.

Subject to the paragraph below, our total liability to you in any 12-month period is limited to the amounts you paid us in that period.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for breach of your statutory consumer rights.

You can stop using Tutor Island at any time and ask us to close your account via support@tutorisland.co.uk. Because minors use the platform, some records, such as conversation histories, moderation logs, and connection receipts, may be retained after closure where we reasonably need them for safeguarding, legal, or accounting purposes, and disclosed only as required by law.

If we ever decide to close the platform down, we will give you at least 30 days’ notice by email before the service stops operating. Throughout that notice period, and for at least 30 days afterwards, you will be able to download an export of your account data, including your profile, your reviews, your message history, and the contact details of any tutor you have paid to connect with. If closure is forced on us and 30 days’ notice is not possible, we will give as much notice as we reasonably can and keep the export available for at least 30 days from the date the service stops. Some records may still be retained after closure where the safeguarding, legal, or accounting purposes described above require it.

How we collect and use personal data, including children’s data, background check information, and message content, is set out in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms.

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction, except that consumers may have additional rights to bring claims locally under applicable consumer protection law.

If something has gone wrong, email support@tutorisland.co.uk before raising a formal claim; most problems are fastest fixed that way. We aim to respond within 10 working days.