Terms of Use

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

These Terms of Use are an agreement between you and Phil’s Cohort (“Phil’s Cohort”, “we”, “us”). They cover the public website, the family app, the student app, the help assistant, the Linux lab and every other part of the programme (together, “the Service”).

By ticking the box at registration, signing in, or using the Service, you confirm that you have read and accept these terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not accept them, do not register or use the Service.

2. Who may register

Only a parent or legal guardian aged 18 or over may register a child. By registering you confirm that you are the child’s parent or legal guardian, that you have the authority to accept these terms for them, and that the details you give are true.

Children use the Service under your responsibility and supervision. You agree to explain these terms to your child in a way they understand, and you are responsible for how your child uses the Service.

A place is offered only after a mentor reviews the registration. We may decline or end a registration at our discretion, for example where the details are wrong, the child is outside the programme’s age range, or we are not able to offer a place.

3. What the Service is, and what it is not

The Service teaches technology skills, starting with the Linux command line. Lessons are taught by an AI tutor, a human mentor follows each child’s progress, and children practise in a disposable Linux computer in the browser.

• The Service is for education only. It is not professional, technical, career or legal advice.
• AI tutors and assistants can be wrong. Answers, explanations and marks are given in good faith, and a mentor reviews progress, but you should not rely on any single answer as certainly correct.
• We do not promise any particular outcome, including any exam pass, certification, admission, employment or earnings. Certifications such as CompTIA Security+ or AWS Cloud Practitioner are run by their own organisations under their own rules, ages and fees. We are not part of, endorsed by or affiliated with them.
• Programme content, levels, timetables and features may change as the programme develops. We will tell you about changes that matter.

4. Accounts and security

You sign in with your WhatsApp number and a password. Your child signs in with a username and a sign-in code from their mentor. Keep these private. You are responsible for everything done with your account and your child’s sign-in details, and you must tell us straight away if you think someone else knows them.

We may reset a password at your request after checking that the request comes from you. We may suspend an account to protect a child, other users or the Service.

5. Fees and payment are your choice

• Registering is free. Whether to take up a place, which plan and packages to choose, and whether to continue each month are decisions for you alone, at your discretion. Nothing in the Service obliges you to pay.
• Before anything is billed, a mentor confirms your child’s plan and the fees with you. Fees are only those confirmed with you and shown on your invoice.
• We send one family invoice a month, addressed to the guardian named as the bill payer, with a due date and reminders. We do not take money automatically.
• If you choose not to pay, or do not pay by the due date, we may pause your child’s access to lessons, the tutor and the lab until the invoice is settled or the account is closed. Pausing is not a penalty: your child’s progress is kept, and access returns once payment is confirmed.
• Fees for a month that has started are not refundable, except where the law requires a refund or where we decide, at our discretion, to give one. If we end a place for reasons that are not your fault, we refund any fees paid for time not yet provided.
• You pay any charges your bank or payment provider makes. We may change our fees for future months by telling you at least 30 days before; you are free to stop instead.
• An invoice cannot be used as evidence of any promise beyond the plan and period it describes.

6. Using the Service properly

You agree, and you will make sure your child agrees, not to:

• use the lab or any part of the Service to attack, scan, probe or break into any system, network or account, or to send spam or malware;
• try to get around the lab’s limits, other users’ accounts, our security or the help assistant’s rules;
• upload or type anything illegal, abusive, sexual, hateful or harmful, or anyone else’s personal information;
• share sign-in details, resell access, or copy, scrape or republish lessons and materials;
• harass, threaten or try to contact other students, or pretend to be someone else.

The lab is a practice machine. It can be reset or replaced at any time and is not a place to keep work. We may stop any session, and suspend or end any account, that breaks these rules.

7. Keeping children safe

The Service is designed so that students do not message one another, and staff speak with families through the family app or WhatsApp. If we believe a child may be at risk of harm, we may act to protect them, including pausing an account and contacting you or, where the law requires or allows it, the appropriate authorities.

Please tell us at once about any concern through the family app (Help, then Talk to a person), or on WhatsApp at +2349042510558.

8. Our content and your child’s work

Lessons, the curriculum, the tutor, the software, the design and the brand belong to us or our licensors. We give you and your child a personal, non-transferable licence to use them for your child’s own learning while the account is open.

What your child writes or makes remains theirs. You give us permission to store and use it to run the Service for your child, for example to mark it, to help the tutor and mentor teach, and to show progress.

9. Availability and third parties

We aim to keep the Service available, but it is provided “as is” and “as available”. It may be interrupted for maintenance, updates or reasons outside our control, including failures of internet connections, hosting, AI or other providers we rely on. We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.

Links to other websites are for convenience. We are not responsible for their content or practices.

10. Limits on our responsibility

To the fullest extent the law allows:

• we give no promises or guarantees about the Service other than those set out in these terms, and all others are excluded;
• we are not liable for any indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of opportunity, earnings, data, exam results or expected outcomes, however it arises;
• we are not liable for loss caused by your or your child’s breach of these terms, by information you give us being wrong, or by anyone using your sign-in details;
• our total liability to you for all claims connected with the Service is limited to the fees you actually paid us in the three months before the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or your rights under consumer protection or data protection law.

11. Your responsibility to us

You agree to compensate us for any claim, loss or reasonable cost (including reasonable legal fees) that results from your breach of these terms, from your child’s misuse of the Service while under your responsibility, or from information you gave us being untrue. This does not apply to the extent the loss was caused by our own breach or negligence.

12. Ending the agreement

You may stop using the Service and close your account at any time, without giving a reason, by telling us. We may end your account or your child’s place with notice, or straight away if these terms are seriously broken or a child’s safety requires it.

When an account closes, access ends. We delete or anonymise personal data as described in the Privacy Policy, except records we must keep by law, such as invoices. Fees already due for time provided remain due.

13. Settling disagreements

If something goes wrong, please tell us first through the family app (Help, then Talk to a person), or on WhatsApp at +2349042510558. We will try to resolve it with you in good faith within 30 days.

If it is not resolved, either of us may refer the matter to mediation. If mediation does not settle it within 30 days, the dispute will be finally decided by arbitration under the Arbitration and Mediation Act 2023, before a single arbitrator, seated in Lagos, Nigeria, in English. Claims are brought individually, not as part of a group or representative action, to the extent the law allows.

Nothing here stops either of us from asking a court for urgent protection, or you from bringing a complaint to a regulator, including the Nigeria Data Protection Commission or the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

14. General

These terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

We may update these terms. We will show the date and version at the top, and for changes that matter we will ask you to accept the new version in the family app before you continue. If you do not accept, you may close your account.

If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we do not enforce a right straight away, we can still enforce it later. You may not transfer this agreement; we may transfer it to a successor running the Service, and will tell you if we do. These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between us about the Service.

Questions about these terms: through the family app (Help, then Talk to a person), or on WhatsApp at +2349042510558.