6 min read · Updated 2026-10-18
In short
A safe home visit needs a clear routine on the day: the tutor tells the family they are on the way, checks in on arrival, checks out on leaving, and someone follows up when a check-out is missing. The family's address and access notes should reach only the tutor teaching that lesson, and only around the visit. And no tutor should walk into a family's home without a current, verified Working with Children Check.
General information, not legal advice. Laws and the regulators' rules change: check the sources below, and talk to your own adviser about your centre.
Ask a home tutor what worries them and you rarely hear about the maths. You hear about the house at the end of a dark driveway where nobody answered the door, the night their phone died after a lesson ran long, and the group chat where the coordinator posted every family's address and gate code for the week. Ask an owner and you hear the other side: "How would I even know if something went wrong?" This article is about the day itself, and about who should know where a family lives.
It sits beside our home tutoring safety checklist, which covers the lone worker duties and what to agree with families before the first visit. Here the focus is the routine on the day, and keeping addresses close. It is written for NSW; other states have their own regulators.
Why a routine on the day matters
SafeWork NSW treats working in other people's homes as remote or isolated work. The business must eliminate the risks or minimise them so far as is reasonably practicable, consult the workers involved, and provide a system of work with effective communication and an emergency plan. Among its examples of controls are a check-in at the start of the work and a sign-off at the end, regular contact and alarms. A routine only protects anyone if someone is watching it, so the real question is who notices a missing check-out, and how fast.
The day, step by step
- On my way
In the hours before, the tutor taps once and the family gets one message, with an arrival time where it can be worked out.
- Check in
On arrival the tutor checks in, ticking the centre's own statements, such as an adult being home.
- The lesson
A help button sits on the screen the whole time and is never refused.
- Check out
On leaving the tutor checks out, or records that the lesson ended early and why.
- The follow-up
No check-in or no check-out, and the tutor is asked, then the safety contacts are told.
- Messages to the family go through centre channels, never from a tutor's personal number, so families do not end up with private contact details.
- The check-in statements should be short and true: an adult is home and staying, and the lesson is in a shared, open area.
- A tutor must be able to say "I can't start" without argument, whether nobody answered, no adult was home or something felt wrong. Decide in advance what that lesson costs the family, so the tutor never has to.
- The help button only works if the people it reaches are named, reachable during teaching hours and know what to do.
The legal floor, on the day as well as at booking
A home lesson is child-related work with no other staff member present, so a current, verified Working with Children Check is the one thing that is never optional. Check it when the lesson is booked, and again on the day: a check can lapse between the two. Our article on Working with Children Checks covers verifying and recording them.
Who should see a family's address, and when
A family's street, gate code and notes about who will be home are among the most sensitive things a centre holds, and a tutor needs them for a few hours a week. A good rule has three parts: the people who arrange home lessons can see the address book; a tutor sees an address only for a lesson they are teaching, from shortly before it until it ends; and outside that window the tutor sees the suburb, which is enough to plan a week.
The tutor teaching that lesson
- Before the window opens: the suburb
- From the window to the end: street, access notes and directions
- After the lesson: the suburb again
- A cancelled lesson: nothing more
Everyone else
- Staff who arrange home lessons: the address book
- Another tutor: nothing about that family's home
- Calendar invitations: At home, and nothing else
- AI tools, emails and texts: never the access notes
How XTutio runs the day
In XTutio's home tutoring, the tutor's card holds the day. On my way is open in the three hours before the lesson and sends the family one message, with an arrival time where the maps connection can work one out. Check in opens an hour before the start, and the tutor ticks your centre's statements, kept against the version of your rules they agreed to. If the tutor's check is not current on the day, check-in is refused with a plain sentence and the help button still works. Ended early asks for a reason and tells the centre. Can't start records why and charges the family the way your centre chose: free with a makeup owed, as if the family cancelled, or as a no-show.
With the check-in and check-out rule on, as it is in the starting templates, a timer follows up. A tutor not checked in 15 minutes after the start is asked; 15 minutes later your safety contacts are told. A tutor not checked out within your grace period after the end (15 minutes unless you change it) is asked if they are all right, and if the grace passes again with no answer, your safety contacts are alerted once. The help button emails and texts every safety contact with the address and the tutor's last location, and says "Sent." only when someone was reached. A location is read only at the tutor's own tap, never in the background, and a family can never see it.
Addresses follow the three-part rule. Staff who look after families or book lessons see the address book; a campus-restricted admin sees only families at their campuses. The tutor delivering the lesson, or the covering tutor, sees the street and access notes from your window before it until it ends: two days unless you choose between 2 hours and 14 days. A tutor cannot change a lesson's time, tutor or address to open a window for themselves, and access notes are never sent to an AI model, put in an email or a text, or written to a log. Once a day your admins are told about any home lesson in the next fortnight whose tutor's check will have lapsed by then. The setup is in the guide to the online classroom and home tutoring, and the wider rules in privacy for tutoring centres.
Questions centres ask
- How long after a home lesson should a centre follow up a missing check-out?
- Pick a short, fixed grace period and stick to it; 15 minutes is a common starting point. Someone named must be watching, ask the tutor first, and escalate to a safety contact if there is no answer.
- Should every tutor be able to see every family's address?
- No. A tutor needs a family's address only for a lesson they are teaching, from shortly before it until it ends. Outside that, the suburb is enough to plan travel.
- Can a tutor refuse to start a home lesson?
- They should be able to, for example if no adult is home or something feels wrong. Decide in advance how such a lesson is charged so the tutor never has to argue it at the door.
Sources
- Remote or isolated work, SafeWork NSW. Read 2026-10-18.
- Who needs a Check, NSW Office of the Children's Guardian. Read 2026-10-18.
