Protection the children can live with.
A family’s week is easy to read from outside: the same school gate at the same times, a crest on a uniform, a nanny’s routine, a teenager’s shared location. Much of that the family can change itself. Where there is a specific reason for more, cover is fitted round the children’s week.
The school run
The school run is the most predictable journey in the week: the same door, the same gate, the same two times, most of the year. For most families a little variation in times and routes is enough. Where it is not, a security driver changes the parts that matter. The route has alternates. The car does not wait outside the gate before the bell. The minutes at the kerb are worked out before the first morning: where the car stops, how long a child stands on the pavement, what happens when the usual space is taken.
Schools have their own arrangements for who may collect a child, and the work fits inside them. In England, nurseries and reception classes may release a young child only to someone the parent has explicitly named to them. Name the driver or officer to the school in writing, introduce them at the office, and keep to the same faces so staff know them by sight. Agree with the school what happens when someone unfamiliar has to come instead.
Nannies, housekeepers and drivers
Household staff know the codes, the routine and which child is where on a Thursday afternoon, and they are often the first to notice the same car parked twice. Brief them: who is expected at the door, what to say to a caller asking about the family, what stays off their own social media, and whom to ring if something feels wrong.
Nannies in England do not have to register with Ofsted; one who joins the voluntary part of the Childcare Register needs an enhanced DBS check with barred lists and first aid training. Ask whether yours is registered. The officers and drivers we supply hold a current SIA Close Protection licence and are vetted to BS 7858, the British Standard for screening people who work in a secure environment. Rules for the household’s own staff — vetting, keys, the day someone leaves — belong in a programme for the family office.
What children post
A crest on a blazer names the school. A house number sits behind a birthday photograph. A geotag puts the house on a map, and a live location shared with a whole friends list reaches further than the three friends it was meant for. On Snap Map, location sharing is off until someone turns it on, and it can be set to carry on after the app is closed; check together whether it has been, and with whom.
Talk it through rather than issue a ban: which accounts are public, what stays out of the frame, why holiday photographs wait until the family is home. The wider steps are in how to keep your home address private. If an address has already surfaced online, the first 48 hours after a doxxing sets out the order to work in.
Away from the school gate
Cover works for children when it stays the same: one or two people, week after week, whom the children know by name. It fits round the family’s timetable — swimming on Tuesdays, the sleepover, the late pick-up after a match. An officer at the school play looks like a parent. Younger children need to know only that this is the person who takes them to school; with teenagers, agree the ground rules — how close, how visible, what is passed on to parents — before the first week. Where it suits the family, a female close protection officer takes the role.
For families visiting the UK in the school holidays, the children’s days — a museum, a theme park, an afternoon of shopping — are planned alongside the parents’ diary, with a security driver and, where the risk warrants it, an officer who stays with the children while the adults are elsewhere. Families based in the Gulf can see how visits are arranged on the page for GCC clients. Officers who speak Arabic can be arranged on request.
When cover is proportionate
Most families need a survey of the home and a few changed habits, not a detail. The survey covers the approach, the doors and glazing, the alarm, the household’s routines and what the family’s social media gives away — with each finding graded in a written report. Protection for the children is proportionate when there is something specific: a threat that has been reported to the police, a public profile that draws attention to the family, or a period of attention — a court case, the sale of a business, a divorce in the papers — that will pass. The same test applies to officers at the house.
If none of those applies, you may not need anyone at the school gate; the self-assessment is a sensible place to check.
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