For procurement officers

Procurement evidence pack

Everything a school / MAT / trust procurement team needs to evaluate SoloCogs for rollout - in one place. Accessibility isn't a mode we toggle on: it's designed into every tier from the ground up. Updated 8 July 2026.

DBS-checked educators ICO reg ZB916444 UK-only data, KCSiE-aligned
Email for signed DPA + counter-sign

When the print dialogue opens, choose "Save as PDF" as your destination. You will get a single comprehensive PDF covering every section below.

Reference customers: we're in closed beta; pilots in mainstream secondary, SEND, and home-ed settings are under way. See the Stories page for the pilot shape and outcomes-as-they-land - we don't print invented quotes.

1Legal entity

SoloCogs is the brand name for the online learning platform operated by Portsdown Tuition, a sole-trader business based in Portsmouth, England. The operator and contracting entity for any procurement is Portsdown Tuition; SoloCogs is the service / product brand. The data controller for personal data processed through SoloCogs is Portsdown Tuition.

Trading name
SoloCogs
Operator (legal entity)
Portsdown Tuition (sole trader)
Founder / Operator
Jazz McCullough
Registered address
Portsmouth, England, UK
HMRC registration
Sole-trader self-assessment, current

If a procurement form requires a Ltd company, please flag this at the conversation stage - incorporation is on the roadmap.

2Insurance

Insured through PolicyBee

SoloCogs is insured for SaaS delivery and school procurement use. Cover is active through Hiscox (arranged via PolicyBee) and includes professional indemnity, cyber liability, and public liability protection.

Policy number: 15673436
Start date: 06/08/2026
Renewal due: 06/08/2027
Professional Indemnity
£2,000,000 Active
Cyber Liability
£500,000 Active
Covers breach response, ICO investigations, ransomware, and customer notification.
Public Liability
£1,000,000 (current + renewing) Active
Employers' Liability
Not required (sole trader, no employees). Will be added the day any employee or contractor starts.
Retroactive date
1 September 2025 (date trading commenced).
Insurer
Hiscox UK (via PolicyBee broker).

3Data controller + Designated Safeguarding Lead

Data Controller
Portsdown Tuition (Jazz McCullough). A Data Protection Officer (DPO) is not legally required for an organisation of this size; responsibility rests with the data controller directly.
Designated Safeguarding Lead
For school-tier tenants, the school's own DSL owns disclosures - SoloCogs does not substitute for a statutory DSL. For direct family / home-education tenants, Jazz McCullough acts as DSL (qualified teacher, current DBS, NSPCC Level 3 Safeguarding refresh 2026), with a named Deputy DSL providing cover. Full flow in Section 7.
Statutory contact
hello@solocogs.co.uk
ICO registration
Registered as a data controller with the UK Information Commissioner's Office. Registration number ZB916444 - searchable on the ICO public register.

4Data residency

All student, parent and staff personal data is stored within the United Kingdom or European Economic Area. No data is processed in or transferred to a third country without an adequacy decision or Standard Contractual Clauses in place.

Primary database region
Supabase EU West (London, United Kingdom)
Object storage region
Supabase EU West (London, United Kingdom)
Backups
Same region. Point-in-time recovery active.
Edge Function execution
EU West region only.

5Sub-processors

The third parties listed below either process personal data on behalf of Portsdown Tuition under written data-processing agreements, or are named as planned sub-processors pending contract completion. All entries are GDPR-compliant and located within or providing services to the UK / EEA.

Supabase Inc.
Database, authentication, object storage, Edge Functions. UK / EU region. DPA
Resend
Transactional email (weekly digest, password resets, account notifications). EU region. DPA
Google Analytics 4
Opt-in only via the cookie banner. No PII transmitted. IP anonymisation enabled. Privacy
Google Tag Manager
Tag delivery for the analytics opt-in only. No data processed without explicit consent.
Wonde Planned
MIS integration broker for school-tier customers. Software-partner application in progress; no data flow until partner status is granted, the DPA is signed, and each school independently authorises access. Scopes requested at minimum for enrolment: students, teachers, classes, class memberships. Full MIS data-usage reference · Wonde security
jsDelivr CDN
Static asset delivery (CSS / JS libraries only - no personal data transits).

No advertising, marketing, or analytics sub-processor receives any personal data without explicit opt-in consent.

6DPIA + GDPR documentation

Full GDPR and data-protection documentation is published. Procurement officers needing additional supporting evidence (sub-processor agreements, processor due-diligence, breach playbook) can request via the contact email.

Children's Code (AADC): internal self-audit against all 15 ICO Age Appropriate Design Code standards is on file (13 Strong / 1 Not Applicable / 1 minor enhancement remaining). Available on request.

7Safeguarding disclosure flow

SoloCogs runs an automated detection layer on every free-text answer, Cogs query, and Zone-of-Regulation reflection. Matched concerning content writes a row to the safeguarding_concerns table for human review. SoloCogs does not replace the school's Designated Safeguarding Lead: for school-tier customers, the school's own DSL owns the disclosure and SoloCogs routes concerns to them. This mirrors how any other classroom software supports (rather than substitutes) statutory safeguarding duties under Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024.

School-tier tenants

DSL of record
The school's own DSL, named and email-captured at tenant onboarding. SoloCogs supports; it does not act as your DSL.
Routing
Matched content lands in the school's staff-dashboard safeguarding queue only. RLS-isolated by tenant - one school never sees another school's queue.
Escalation
Follows the school's own KCSIE flow. The DSL decides on MASH / LADO / other statutory referral per their local safeguarding partnership.

Direct family / home-education tenants

DSL of record
Jazz McCullough (qualified teacher, DSL-trained, DBS-current, NSPCC Level 3 refresh 2026). A named Deputy DSL provides cover for holidays and absence.
Routing
Matched content lands in the operator queue for DSL review.
Escalation
Portsmouth MASH (Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub) for pupil disclosures. LADO for allegations against adults working with children. NSPCC / 999 for immediate risk.

Both tenant types

Detection
Built-in trigger list (self-harm, abuse, distress, substance, other categories) plus tenant-specific custom triggers (schools can add their own slang / local terms). Phonetic + fuzzy matching catches deliberate misspellings and TikTok-style euphemisms.
Triage SLA
High-severity: same calendar day. Medium: within 48 hours. Low: weekly review.
Human review
No automated safeguarding action is ever taken. Every matched item is reviewed by a human DSL.
Tenant isolation
RLS policies on safeguarding_concerns ensure cross-tenant invisibility. Audit-grade.
Audit trail
Status transitions logged (open / in-review / resolved / escalated / false-positive) with reviewer + resolution note.

Full Safeguarding Policy → · Safeguarding flow diagram →

8Data retention + Data Subject Rights

Active account retention
Personal data retained for the life of the subscription / school contract.
Soft-delete window
30 days. A deleted account is recoverable for 30 days then purged.
Backup retention
Point-in-time recovery: 7 days. Snapshot retention: 30 days. All purged on schedule.
Data Subject Access Request (DSAR)
Response within 30 days per UK GDPR. Submit via hello@solocogs.co.uk.
Right to erasure
Self-serve account deletion from Family settings + Account settings. Cascades to all linked data including child accounts.
Right to portability
CSV export of every quiz attempt, RP submission, Knowledge Check and accessibility-usage record via the parent / staff dashboard.

9Pricing

Per-seat bands are published openly on the pricing page. Quotes for non-standard cohort sizes (e.g. above 500 seats), AP / EOTAS providers, or PRU settings are available on request.

10Curriculum coverage

SoloCogs covers AQA GCSE across Biology (8461), Chemistry (8462), Physics (8463) and Combined Science: Trilogy (8464), at both Foundation and Higher tier, plus Key Stage 3. Required Practicals are delivered as virtual labs across every unit. Triple / Separate Science content is built across all three sciences; a small number of sub-units remain under depth verification against the Triple spec ahead of full public launch.

Full AQA Spec Coverage Matrix →

11Technical security & resilience

The platform is built on industry-standard managed infrastructure. The summary below maps to the most common procurement questions; we will provide additional evidence (architecture diagram, BCP, penetration-test scope) on request.

Encryption in transit
TLS 1.3 enforced across all surfaces. HSTS preload. CSP headers active (see /_headers for full policy).
Encryption at rest
AES-256 server-side encryption for both database and object storage (Supabase-managed).
Authentication
Supabase Auth with bcrypt password hashing. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) available on parent / tutor / admin accounts via the account-settings page (TOTP / authenticator app).
Access control
Row-Level Security (RLS) policies on every table containing personal data. Tenant isolation enforced at the database layer for school-tier customers.
Audit logging
All sign-ins, password changes, role changes, deletions, and safeguarding triage actions are logged with timestamp + actor for at least 1 year.
Backups
Point-in-time recovery (7 days) plus 30-day snapshot retention. Backups encrypted at rest in the same UK / EU region.
Vulnerability management
GitHub Dependabot alerts + security updates enabled on the source repository (private). Critical vulnerabilities triaged within 24 hours.
Cyber Essentials
On the roadmap (target Q3 2026). Self-assessment evidence available now; certified status will be promoted to procurement teams on issue.
Penetration testing
OWASP ZAP scans run against staging. External CHECK-listed pen test scheduled prior to first paid school deployment.
Service availability
Hosted on managed regional infrastructure with 99.9% target uptime. Status page on the roadmap; incidents reported within the breach-playbook timeline.
Incident response
Documented runbook with 72-hour ICO notification flow + affected-data-subject communication template. See full runbook.

12Contact

Procurement enquiries
hello@solocogs.co.uk
Response SLA
Within 2 working days. School / MAT enquiries get a 30-minute scoping call within 1 working week.
Technical / DPO queries
Same address. Routed to the data controller directly.
Safeguarding queries
Same address. Routed to the DSL.

Need something not in this pack?

Sub-processor agreements, breach playbook, business continuity plan, supplier code of conduct, equality impact assessment - all available on request.

Email hello@solocogs.co.uk