The NSW Child Safe Standards: a centre checklist

6 min read · Updated 2026-10-18

General information, not legal advice. Laws and the regulators' rules change: check the sources below, and talk to your own adviser about your centre.

A parent rings and asks a fair question: "What does your centre actually do to keep children safe?" You know the answer is a lot, but it lives in a few people's heads, a folder of old policies and some good habits. The NSW Child Safe Standards are the clearest way to turn that into something you can show a parent, a new tutor or a regulator.

The Child Safe Standards came out of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. In NSW they sit in the Child Safe Scheme, created by laws introduced in February 2022 and run by the Office of the Children's Guardian (OCG) under the Children's Guardian Act 2019. Other states have their own versions with different rules; this article is about NSW.

Do the standards apply to a tutoring centre?

Be careful here. The OCG publishes a list of organisations that must implement the standards. It includes schools, approved education and care services, councils, religious bodies, health services, out-of-home care agencies, and clubs or bodies providing sport and recreation programs whose workers must hold a Working with Children Check. A private tutoring or coaching business is not named on that list, and the full definitions sit in Schedule 6 of the Children's Guardian Act.

So we will not tell you that every tutoring centre is bound by the Scheme. If your centre also runs holiday programs, sport or recreation activities, or delivers services for a school, your position may differ. Ask the OCG directly, or your adviser, and keep their answer on file. The OCG does say every organisation working with children will benefit from the standards.

The ten standards, as a tutoring centre would apply them

• ✓1. Leadership and culture: publish a short statement that the centre is committed to child safety, name a safety lead, have every staff member sign a code of conduct, and keep a risk register for your rooms, online lessons and home visits.
• ✓2. Children are heard: give students a simple way to raise a worry that does not go through their own tutor, and tell them who the safety lead is in words that suit their age.
• ✓3. Families are involved: tell families what your child safety approach is at enrolment, how to raise a concern, and who reads it. Invite feedback on your policies.
• ✓4. Equity and diversity: think about students with disability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students learning English and LGBTQIA+ students, and make sure each can reach your complaints process.
• ✓5. Suitable, supported staff: put child safety in job ads and interviews, check references, verify every Working with Children Check, and induct each new tutor on their reporting duties before their first lesson.
• ✓6. Child-focused complaints: write down who receives a complaint, how fast it is answered, when it is reported outside the centre, and how records are kept private.
• ✓7. Training: train staff on the signs of harm, on your own policies, and on how to respond when a child discloses something. Refresh it regularly.
• ✓8. Physical and online spaces: use rooms with glass panels or open doors, keep online lessons in your own platform rather than private messaging, and set rules for photos and contact outside lessons.
• ✓9. Review and improve: look at every complaint and near miss for patterns, and review your policies on a set date each year.
• ✓10. Written policies: keep one set of plain-English policies covering all ten standards, make them easy to find, and make sure staff can explain them.

What a regulator may ask to see

For organisations it does regulate, the OCG says it may request documents and look at how they are used in practice. That list is a useful benchmark for any centre, captured or not:

• A statement of commitment to child safety.
• A child safe policy and a child safe code of conduct, plus copies signed by staff.
• A child safe reporting policy.
• A recruitment, induction and training policy.
• A child safe risk management plan.
• Evidence that workers, families and children were told about these policies.

The OCG can issue compliance notices, accept enforceable undertakings and fine organisations that ignore them. Its free Child Safe Self-Assessment tool is a practical way to see where your gaps are before anyone asks.

Where tutoring centres usually have gaps

• Messaging: tutors texting or messaging students directly on personal phones. Keep contact on centre channels that families can see.
• Online lessons: one-to-one video on a tutor's personal account, with no one else able to see. Let parents join, and keep the classroom inside your own system. See running online tutoring lessons.
• Home visits: no check-in, no written rules, and addresses shared widely. Check-ins and tight address sharing fix most of it.

Where the software helps, and where it cannot

Leadership, training and a culture where people speak up make a centre child safe. What software can do is make the safe way the easy way, so a busy tutor at 6 pm does not have to remember a rule. That is how XTutio is built, and the details are on our safety page.

• Standard 8, online spaces: a shared document or message thread with a child and a staff member on it also goes to the child's parents, added automatically, so there is no private written channel between staff and a child.
• Standards 3 and 8, families: a parent can join their child's online classroom, and everyone in the room sees that a parent is there.
• Standards 2, 3 and 6, complaints: a parent reports a concern from their Safety centre. It lands on your centre's safety queue with a deadline, and a concern about staff or a child's safety alerts your safety contact at once.
• Standard 6, staff reporting: Report incident sits in the header of every staff screen, for every staff member.
• Standard 5, suitable staff: a tutor's Working with Children Check is looked at when a lesson is booked, and a home lesson always needs a current, verified one.
• Standard 9, review: sensitive actions, such as reading a family's correspondence with staff, are written to the audit log first, so you can see what happened and when.

For how reports, queues and incidents work day to day, read the child safety guide. Home lessons have their own risks, covered in home visit check-ins and address privacy.

Questions centres ask

Are private tutoring centres covered by the NSW Child Safe Scheme?

The OCG's published list of organisations that must implement the Child Safe Standards does not name private tutoring businesses. Whether your centre is captured can depend on what else it runs, so confirm with the Office of the Children's Guardian or your adviser.

How many Child Safe Standards are there in NSW?

There are ten. They cover leadership, children's participation, families, equity, staff suitability, complaints, training, physical and online environments, continuous improvement and written policies.

Is following the Child Safe Standards worth it if they are not compulsory for us?

Yes. The OCG says every organisation that works with children can benefit from them, and they give a small centre a clear structure for policies, recruitment and complaints that families recognise.

Sources

• What are the Child Safe Standards, NSW Office of the Children's Guardian. Read 2026-10-17.
• Who the Child Safe Standards apply to, NSW Office of the Children's Guardian. Read 2026-10-18.
• Child Safe Standards monitoring and enforcement, NSW Office of the Children's Guardian. Read 2026-10-17.
• Who needs a Check, NSW Office of the Children's Guardian. Read 2026-10-18.