Early draft for feedback. Links are not live yet.
We'd love your thoughts on:
A community safety app for your school. RouteGuard understands your child's routine and keeps you informed. You only ever see your own children. The community simply means buddy links are limited to families in the same school.
Community-only. No ads. No data selling. Designed to the ICO Children's Code.
Every parent knows the feeling. They've left for school and you haven't heard anything. Are they on the bus? Did they arrive? Are they with their friend?
Most family safety apps are open to anyone. Strangers can download the same app and access the same features. RouteGuard is different. It's built around your school community. Only families with a school join code can create an account.
Your school. Your community. That's it.
Your dashboard shows every child's status in plain language. At home. At school. On the way home. No maps to interpret. Just a clear answer to the question you're actually asking.
You only see your own children. No other family can see yours. If there's something to check, a small icon tells you. An alert, a message, a buddy update. Otherwise, the screen is calm.
Live dashboard. Updates every minute without touching a thing.
Most apps make you draw geofences on a map and set up rules manually. Smart Monitor does it automatically. It picks up on your child's daily pattern over a few days and builds a picture of what normal looks like.
Once it knows the routine, it tells you when something's different. Running late to school. In a vehicle. Not reporting. You're not getting constant updates. You only hear from us when there's something worth knowing.
And it keeps adapting. If your child starts a new after-school club or changes their route, Smart Monitor picks up on it. It grows with them, so you're always seeing what's current, not what was true three months ago.
Location sharing works fully from day one. Smart Monitor adds intelligence over the following days.
You choose what you want to know about. Vehicle detected? Bus journey? Missed check-in? Arrived at school? Each alert type can be toggled on or off per child.
Alerts are plain language, not technical jargon. Emily is on a bus not Geofence exit event at coordinates 51.39, -1.32.
Send a quick message straight to their device. Don't forget your PE kit. I'll pick you up at 3:30. They can read and reply from their app.
Everything stays within RouteGuard's secure environment. No SMS, no WhatsApp, no third-party platform needed.
An interactive map with daily history and a heat map that builds over time. Slide through previous days to review a journey, or zoom in to see where they spend the most time.
Regular spots naturally emerge without any configuration. A friend's house, a park, an after-school club.
Daily history slider. Zoom into patterns as they build over time.
RouteGuard is built with your child in mind, not just you. There are no visible maps following them. No your parent is watching banners. The app runs quietly in the background, checking in and saving battery.
What they see is a friendly companion that greets them, celebrates their discoveries, and delivers your messages. It feels like something on their side, not something reporting on them.
Meet the companion
As your child goes about their day, Buddy celebrates milestones. Visited a new place. Completed a week of check-ins. Tried a different route. These are exploration achievements, not compliance rewards.
There are no streaks, no pressure, no you missed a day guilt. Everything is designed so children engage because they want to, not because they're manipulated into it.
Exploration milestones that unlock naturally. No manipulation, no reward loops.
Know they're with their friend. Nothing more.
Within your school community, parents can link their children as buddies. When the two kids are near each other, both families see a simple Nearby indicator. When they're not, it disappears. No location data is ever shared between families.
The server checks proximity and returns a simple answer. No maps, no coordinates, no movement history.
One parent generates an invite code, the other confirms. Either parent can unlink instantly, at any time.
Either child can pause their visibility whenever they want. The system respects their autonomy.
This kind of proximity-only buddy system is unique in the family safety space. Other apps that offer friend features share full location data with anyone. RouteGuard's buddy links only work within your school community, and no child's location is ever shared with another family.
Your family's location data is never sold, shared with advertisers, or handed to data brokers. Our business model is simple. You pay for the service, and that's how we fund it.
The child's experience matters as much as yours. RouteGuard is built to meet the UK's standards for children's digital services. Engaging without being manipulative.
Your family's data is protected with the same security standards used by banking apps. We only keep what's needed, and we don't hold onto anything longer than necessary.
Any school or local authority can register as a RouteGuard community. Free, in minutes. They get a unique join code to share with families. No cost, no data access, no admin burden.
When families sign up with their school's code, the buddy system is automatically scoped to that community. Children can only buddy-link with others in the same school. Each family's data stays completely private. The community only determines who can be a buddy, nothing more.
Schools and local authorities can sponsor Family plans for families on low income. Pupil premium, free school meals, or any criteria they choose. The family gets full features at no cost.
Schools don't see any individual location data. They see anonymised community statistics: how families travel, how many buddy links are active, and sponsored place take-up. No individual child or family can be identified.
Full Family plan funded by the school for eligible families
Takes 2 minutes. No cost, no commitment.
Join with your school code. Start free, upgrade when you're ready. No hidden costs.
Sponsored by your school? If your school is a RouteGuard community, they may fund your Family plan. Check eligibility
Cancel anytime. No contracts. 14-day free trial on Family plan.
RouteGuard is a community app. It only works within a school community. Your school registers for free and shares a join code with families. Every family on the app is part of the same community, and buddy links can only happen between children who actually know each other. No strangers, no open access.
No. You only ever see your own children. No other family in the community can see your child's location, alerts, messages, or any other data. The community simply determines who can be linked as a buddy. Everything else is completely private to your family.
RouteGuardian goes on your phone. It's where you see your child's status, alerts, and messages. RouteGuard goes on your child's phone. It shares their location and delivers your messages. You link them together with a simple pairing code.
Yes. From the moment you link the two apps, live location and map history are fully available. Smart Monitor's features develop over the following few days as it gets to know the routine.
The RouteGuard app needs to remain installed for location sharing to work. However, children can pause their buddy visibility at any time. We believe children deserve control over their social features.
The app will show Not reporting on your dashboard. When the phone comes back online, it resumes automatically. Smart Monitor is designed to minimise battery usage by adjusting how often it checks in.
The buddy system only shares whether two children are near each other. Yes or no. No location data, coordinates, or maps are shared between families. Either parent can unlink at any time. Either child can pause at any time.
RouteGuard focuses on understanding your child's routine rather than showing you every movement on a map. Smart Monitor picks up on patterns and lets you know when something's different. We never sell location data, and our buddy system is a privacy-first way to know they're with their friend.
RouteGuard is designed for children aged 7 and up. The child's app uses age-appropriate language and design throughout.
RouteGuard and RouteGuardian are available on both Android and iOS. You'll find them on Google Play and the App Store.
You'll see their status change to Not reporting on your dashboard. The app needs to remain installed for location sharing to work. You'll know straight away if it's been removed.
Get RouteGuardian on your phone and RouteGuard on theirs. You'll need your school's join code to get started.
For you (parent)
For them (child)