Ginnel - Tutoring Marketplace with Vetting and Safeguarding Built In
Tutoring Marketplace for a Manchester Tutoring Company
Designed and built a clickable operator console for a Manchester tutoring marketplace where families find, book and pay vetted tutors, online or at home: a vetting pipeline that keeps tutors unbookable until every check is cleared, a lesson list with a safety mode on every under-18 lesson, and a safeguarding case list for the designated safeguarding lead.
Most of our work is under NDA. Per agreement, we can share the work but not the company details - all names and identifying information shown here have been changed.
Impact
Dashboard, vetting pipeline as a board and a table, tutor application, bookings and lessons, and the safeguarding case list. Each of the 17 demo applications opens its own vetting page.
Identity, right to work, qualifications, enhanced DBS with the children's barred list, DBS Update Service, 2 references, safeguarding training and signed terms, across 7 pipeline stages.
Parent present, recorded, parent at home or adult learner. An upcoming under-18 lesson with none set is flagged on the dashboard and in the lesson list.
14 tutors, 17 tutor applications, 12 safeguarding concerns and 8 staff users across admin, DSL, deputy DSL, vetting, support and finance roles.
The Problem
Medlock Lane grew from a spreadsheet of 40 tutors to more than 600 across Greater Manchester and online. Families were matched by phone, lessons were paid by bank transfer straight to tutors and DBS certificates lived in an email inbox. The team could not say which tutors had an up-to-date check, parents and tutors moved lessons off the books, and when a parent raised a worry about a tutor's messages, nobody could see what had been said.
Our Solution
Ginnel keeps booking, payment, lessons and every message on one platform. Medlock Lane's team runs vetting, lessons and safeguarding from one operator console: a tutor cannot be booked until every required check is cleared, each under-18 lesson carries a safety mode, and safeguarding concerns reach the designated safeguarding lead with a priority, an owner and a decision log.
The Challenge: A Marketplace Where Children Come First
Ginnel connects adults with children, so every booking, message and lesson sits under UK safeguarding practice, children's data protection and consumer law, on top of Medlock Lane's own policies on fees, cancellations and vetting.
Vetting Nobody Could Prove
Tutoring children can be regulated activity, where an enhanced DBS check with the children's barred list applies. DBS certificates have no legal expiry, so Medlock Lane sets its own rule: join the Update Service or renew every 3 years. With certificates in an inbox, no one could say who was due.
Contact That Left the Platform
Parents and tutors swapped phone numbers and moved lessons off the books. Ginnel has to keep every message on the platform, include the parent in any thread about an under-18 learner and mask contact details, without getting in the way of ordinary lesson planning.
Concerns With No Record
When a parent raised a worry, there was no thread, recording or history to look at. The DSL needs the evidence in one place, response targets by priority, and a record of every referral to children's social care, the police or the LADO.
Children's Data and Consumer Rules
UK GDPR and the Children's code expect high-privacy defaults for under-18s, and only a parent can create an account. Lessons bought online are distance contracts with a 14-day cancellation period, and tutor income has to be reported to HMRC under the digital platform rules.
Our Approach: From Safeguarding Rules to a Clickable Console
Spec and Rules Research
Mapped 9 roles, from parents, learners aged 13 to 17 and tutors to vetting officers, the DSL, support and finance, and 50 screens across the family, learner, tutor and operator apps. Defined the data model for families, learners, consents, tutors, vetting checks, bookings, bundles, lessons, recordings, message flags, concerns, disputes and payouts, and wrote down the rules the design follows: UK GDPR, the Children's code, DBS and regulated activity, KCSIE as a benchmark, the Online Safety Act, the Consumer Contracts Regulations and HMRC platform reporting.
Clickable Demo on a Production UI Kit
Built the operator console's 5 key screens on a production dashboard kit: the dashboard with KPIs, needs attention, unmet demand and lessons by day, the vetting pipeline with a drag and drop board and a table, the tutor application with its checklist, DBS result, references, interview scorecard and approve or decline, bookings and lessons with a quick view and cancel with a policy override, and the safeguarding case list with a triage drawer. All actions run on local state.
What a Production Build Adds
Integration with Stripe Connect or Adyen for Platforms for split payments and payouts, a certified identity provider for ID and right to work, a DBS umbrella body and the Update Service, a video API and a shared whiteboard for the lesson room, message safety scanning, and email, SMS and push. Staff sign-in with 2-step verification and role-based access, an audit log of every view of a recording, message or concern, and the family, learner and tutor apps.
Why It Works: Safety Checked Before Anyone Is Booked
No Booking Before Every Check Clears
Each application shows its 8 checks with the provider result, the blocking item and who it is waiting on: the tutor, a provider or staff. The board shows days in stage, and the dashboard lists anything waiting on staff for more than 3 days.
Disclosed DBS Information Goes to the DSL
When a certificate discloses information, only the DSL or a deputy can record the risk assessment, and Approve stays disabled until a second officer is named (client policy). Decline asks for a reason the applicant is told.
Every Lesson Carries Its Safety Mode
Each lesson in the list shows whether a parent is present, the lesson is recorded or a parent is at home. Cancelling with a policy override needs a written reason that goes to the audit log.
Safeguarding Has an Owner and a Clock
Concerns are sorted by urgent, high and standard priority with their age and owner, and the DSL on duty shows in the top bar. The case list is restricted to the DSL, deputies and admins, and triage sets the priority, status and an owner from the DSL or a deputy, with a decision log entry for who, what and why.
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Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
Contact Us
Locations
Global Headquarters
21 Merchant Road, 3rd Floor, Singapore 058267
Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
India Office
402 Shivalik Shilp II, SG Highway, Ahmedabad 380015
Engineering and delivery center
© 2026 - Copyright. All Rights reserved Oceanlab