Safeguarding Policy

Last updated: 13 August 2026

Wharf Driving School teaches people to drive one to one, in a car, away from any office or premises. Many of our pupils are 17 or 18, and a 17-year-old is legally a child. This policy explains how we keep pupils safe, what you can expect from an instructor, and what to do if something does not feel right.

Why This Policy Exists

Driving tuition is unusual. Lessons are one to one, inside a vehicle, often for one or two hours at a time, sometimes in the dark during winter months, and they usually begin and end at a pupil’s home, workplace or college. There is no reception desk and no other member of staff in the room, because there is no room. That makes clear boundaries more important, not less.

This policy applies to every instructor who teaches under the Wharf Driving School name, and it covers every pupil we teach, with particular attention to pupils under 18 and to adults at risk.

Our Instructors

All of our instructors are DVSA-approved driving instructors (ADIs), registered with the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. That registration is not a formality: an enhanced criminal record check through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is required in order to be granted an ADI licence and to keep it. An instructor who cannot satisfy that requirement cannot lawfully charge for driving tuition, and would not teach for us.

Instructors are also expected to declare to the DVSA anything that affects their fitness to hold the licence. If we became aware that an instructor no longer met the standard required, they would not teach our pupils.

Conduct During Lessons

Every lesson is a professional appointment. In practice, that means:

• the lesson is about driving; instructors do not use lesson time to pursue personal friendships, relationships or anything of a sexual nature;
• instructors explain at the start of a lesson what you will be working on and roughly where you will be going;
• unnecessary physical contact is not acceptable. Where an instructor genuinely needs to touch a control, for example to take the wheel or apply the dual brake in the interests of safety, they will do so and explain why afterwards;
• conversation stays appropriate. Comments about a pupil’s appearance, body, religion, sexuality or personal life are not acceptable;
• instructors do not smoke or vape in the car, and never teach under the influence of alcohol or drugs;
• you can ask to end a lesson at any point and be returned to your pick-up address. You do not have to give a reason.

Pupils Under 18

You can start practical lessons from your 17th birthday, once you hold a provisional licence (which can be applied for from 15 years and 9 months). That means a meaningful proportion of our pupils are under 18, and we treat those bookings with extra care.

Where a pupil is under 18, we ask that a parent or guardian knows about the booking and agrees to it. We are happy to speak to a parent or guardian about lesson times, pick-up and drop-off points, payment and general progress, and we will confirm arrangements with them where a pupil would rather we did. A parent or guardian is welcome to sit in on a lesson if it is arranged in advance, so that we can make sure it is safe and practical to do so.

If you would prefer a male or female instructor, or you would like a parent or another adult to sit in on lessons, ask us when you book. We will do it where we can and tell you honestly when we cannot; our Equality & Diversity Policy explains how those requests are handled. What we hold about a pupil and about a parent or guardian, and how long we keep it, is set out in our Privacy Policy.

Pick-Up and Drop-Off

We are a service-area business: we have no public premises, so your instructor comes to you and lessons start from home, work or college, at any address inside the 51 areas we cover. The pick-up and drop-off points are agreed in advance and recorded with the booking.

• Your instructor will not change an agreed pick-up or drop-off point without your agreement.
• Instructors wait outside at the agreed address. They do not expect to be invited into a pupil’s home.
• Pupils are returned to the agreed address at the end of the lesson. If a pupil under 18 asks to be dropped somewhere different, we will want a parent or guardian to be comfortable with that first.
• If a lesson finishes after dark, your instructor will wait until you are safely inside or safely on your way.
• Instructors do not give pupils lifts outside of paid, booked lessons.

Communication Outside Lesson Time

Contact between lessons should be about lessons: times, locations, cancellations, test dates and progress. Calls, texts and emails to and from the school number and email address are the appropriate channels, and they are the ones we can look back over if a question is ever raised.

Instructors do not add pupils under 18 as personal contacts on social media, do not message pupils late at night for reasons unconnected to a lesson, and do not give or accept gifts of any real value. If you are under 18 and an instructor contacts you in a way that does not feel like it is about your driving, tell us.

If You Are Uncomfortable

You never have to justify feeling uneasy. If something in a lesson has made you uncomfortable, you have three straightforward options, and you can use any of them:

• End the lesson. Ask to be taken back. That request will be respected immediately.
• Ask for a different instructor. You can request a change of instructor at any time, for any reason, without explaining yourself. Any hours you have already paid for move across with you.
• Tell us. Phone 07706 876263 or email info@wharfdrivingschool.co.uk. A parent, guardian, partner or friend can contact us on your behalf.

How We Handle Concerns

Safeguarding concerns are dealt with by the safeguarding lead for the school, who is the person responsible for deciding what happens next. We will listen properly, write down what you have told us, and keep the information to the people who genuinely need it. We will not tell an instructor who reported a concern where doing so would put a pupil at risk.

Where a concern is about how a pupil has been treated, we will not simply carry on as before while we look into it. Depending on what has been raised, that can mean moving a pupil to another instructor, pausing an instructor’s work with pupils under 18, or stopping tuition altogether. A concern about service quality rather than safety is handled through our Complaints & Refund Policy.

We will not talk you out of reporting something elsewhere. If a concern relates to the conduct or professional standards of an approved driving instructor, it can be raised directly with the DVSA, which regulates ADIs, whether or not you have raised it with us first. Serious concerns about the welfare of a child or an adult at risk can also be reported to the police or to the children’s social care or adult social care team at the relevant London borough council, and we will report them ourselves where that is the right thing to do.

Immediate Risk

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, do not wait for us to respond. Call the police on 999. Nothing in this policy asks you to go through us first, and nothing in it prevents you from contacting the police at any time.

Reviewing This Policy

We keep this policy under review and will update it if the law changes, if DVSA guidance changes, or if something we learn from handling a concern tells us it should be clearer. Changes are published on this page with a revised "last updated" date.