Banadir Language School

Terms and Conditions

Banadir Language School

Version 1.0

Date published: TO BE COMPLETED: date these terms go live on the website

Next review date: TO BE COMPLETED: date 12 months after publication

Owner: Omar Ahmed, founder and headmaster

These are the rules of the arrangement between you and the school. They are written in short, plain sentences on purpose. If you would like them read to you, or explained in Somali, please ask us using the details in Section 14.

1. Who these terms are between

These terms are between:

the school, Banadir Language School, founded and led by Omar Ahmed, and
the student. If the student is under 18, the agreement is with the parent or guardian, not with the child.

You accept these terms when you complete the application form and pay your first monthly fee.

2. The courses and the fees

We teach English online, in live small group classes. We offer four courses.

Course	Monthly fee, per student
General English, Beginner level	$25
General English, Intermediate level	$25
Advanced English	$30
Business and Academic English	$30

How the fee works

The fee is per student, per month. It is not per class and not per hour.
One fee covers one student. Two children in one family are two fees.
Fees are shown in United States dollars. Your bank, wallet or remittance service may charge its own fee on top. That charge belongs to them, not to us, and we cannot refund it.
We bill monthly, in advance, on the same date each month, starting on the date of your first payment.
If we change a fee, we will tell every affected student in writing at least 30 days before it takes effect. The new fee never applies to a month you have already paid for.

How you can pay

Somali mobile wallets
M-Pesa, for students in Kenya
Debit and credit cards
PayPal
Remittance transfer

Somebody else may pay for you, for example a relative living abroad. When they do, they must quote the student's application code so the money reaches the right student. The agreement is still with the student, or with the parent of a child, not with the person paying.

If a payment fails or is late

We write to you the same week and tell you what is missing.
The student keeps their place and keeps attending for 7 days.
If nothing arrives within 7 days, we pause access to classes and to replays. We do not delete the student's record and we do not remove them from the class list.
As soon as the payment arrives, access returns the same day.

We do not charge a late fee. We do not send debt collectors. We do not embarrass a student in front of a class over money. If you are having trouble paying, write to us before the date, and we will talk to you.

3. What the school promises

These are our obligations. Each one can be checked.

We will teach the class on the timetable. TO BE COMPLETED: number of classes per week and the length of each class for each course.
Classes are live and small. The maximum number of students in a class is TO BE COMPLETED: maximum class size, to be set by the school. A class is taught by a real teacher, live, not by recording alone.
Adults and children are taught in separate classes, always. They are never mixed, for any reason, in any class.
Every class is recorded, and every enrolled student in that class can watch the replay through their own login on the school platform. The replay is available within TO BE COMPLETED: number of hours after the class, recommended 24 and stays for 14 days.
We will tell you before we change your timetable, at least TO BE COMPLETED: number of days, recommended 7 in advance, except in an emergency.
Your teacher will follow the Teacher Code of Conduct, which is published and which the founder has signed too.
We will keep your data as promised in the Privacy Policy, and never use it for marketing.
We will answer you. A message about a class is answered within 2 working days. A formal complaint follows the Complaints Procedure.
We will refund you as set out in the Refund and Cancellation Policy, by the same route the money arrived, within 14 days.
If we cancel a class, you do not lose it. See Section 6.

4. What the student promises

Give true information at enrolment, including the student's real name and real date of birth. Age decides whether a student is placed in a children's class or an adult class, so a false age is a safety matter, not a paperwork matter.
Pay the monthly fee on time.
Use your own login. Do not share it, sell it, or let another person use it. One login is for one student.
Do not record, screenshot, download or re-share a class or a replay. The replay is for the enrolled student's own study, on their own login, and nothing else. Recordings contain other people's children.
Do not share the class link with anyone, ever.
Join under your real name, so the teacher can check you against the class list at the door. If a student uses a family member's account, the parent must tell us that account name in advance.
Behave in class as set out in Section 7.
Tell us if your contact details change, so that we can reach you when a class changes.
Do not copy or re-sell our teaching materials. You may use them for your own study and print them for yourself.

5. How classes run

Classes are online and live, on TO BE COMPLETED: name of the video class platform.
Your timetable, your class link and your materials are on your own login on the school platform.
The teacher opens the class 5 minutes early and admits students one at a time, by name, from a waiting room. Nobody enters automatically.
The teacher says out loud that the class is being recorded before the recording starts.
A student who does not have recording permission is asked privately to keep their camera off. They are taught exactly the same, they stay in the class, and they receive the same materials.
If a lesson cannot go ahead because only one child has arrived, the teacher will not teach a one to one lesson with a child. The class is rescheduled instead. This is a safeguarding rule and it is not negotiable.
A parent of a child may sit in on their own child's class at any time, without asking first.

What you need at your end. A device with a camera and microphone, and an internet connection good enough for video. We cannot teach a student we cannot see or hear. If your connection fails during a class, use the replay, and tell your teacher.

6. Attendance, lateness, and classes we cancel

If you miss a class

You receive the recording of that class, and
you receive one class credit, valid for three months.

You do not have to explain why you missed it. There is no penalty and no note from a doctor.

Lateness

Doors stay open for the whole class. A late student is admitted whenever they arrive.
Please arrive on time. The teacher will not repeat the first part of the lesson for a late student, because that takes the lesson from the students who arrived. Use the replay for what you missed.
Repeated lateness is not punished, but the teacher may speak to you, or to a child's parent, about whether the class time still suits you.

Long absence. If a student is absent for a whole month without contacting us, we will write to the student, or to the parent of a child, and ask what they would like to do. We will not simply keep taking a fee in silence. If we hear nothing after TO BE COMPLETED: number of weeks, recommended 4, we will pause the billing.

If the school cancels a class

This is our fault, so it costs you nothing.

We tell you as early as we can, on TO BE COMPLETED: the channel used for class messages, for example the class WhatsApp group.
We either run the class at another time within the same month, or
we give you a class credit valid for three months.
If we cancel more than TO BE COMPLETED: number, recommended 2 classes in one month and cannot re-run them, we refund that month in full, even if the month has already started. The Refund and Cancellation Policy sets this out.

7. Conduct in class

A class is a shared room. These rules protect everyone in it.

Everyone in a class will

speak to classmates and to the teacher with respect,
let others speak and finish,
keep the class chat about the lesson,
accept that classmates make mistakes, because that is what a language class is for.

Nobody in a class may

insult, mock, bully or threaten another person,
use abusive or sexual language,
attack a person for their religion, country, clan, race, sex or ability,
share anything violent, sexual or frightening on camera or in the chat,
record, screenshot or share the class,
bring an uninvited person into the class,
disrupt the lesson so that others cannot learn.

What we do if it happens

The teacher speaks to the student, privately where possible. For a child, the teacher tells the parent the same day.
If it happens again, the school writes to the student, or to the parent of a child, and sets out what must change.
For serious behaviour, or behaviour that continues, we may remove the student from the class immediately. See Section 8.
Anything that puts a child at risk is handled under the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy, not under this section, and it may be reported to the police or child protection service in the country where the child lives.

Adults in a children's class. The only adults in a children's class are the teacher and, if the parent chooses, that child's own parent or guardian. Any other adult will be removed at once.

8. How either side can end the arrangement

You may leave at any time. You do not have to give a reason.

Tell us in writing, by email or by message, that you wish to stop.
What you get back is set by the Refund and Cancellation Policy: cancel before your first class of the month and you get a full refund of that month, and after your first class of the month, that month runs and is not refunded.
We stop billing you from the next month.
Your login closes within 5 working days. Replays end when the login closes, so download nothing but watch what you need before then.
Unused class credits end when you leave, unless you tell us you are coming back within their three month life.

We may end it too. We will only do this for a reason, and we will put the reason in writing.

*With 30 days notice, and a refund of any month you have paid for but not yet had:*

the course closes or the timetable ends,
the student's level no longer fits any class we run and we cannot place them,
fees have gone unpaid for more than TO BE COMPLETED: number of weeks, recommended 4 and we have had no reply.

*Immediately, with the unused part of the month refunded:*

a student behaves in a way that puts a child at risk,
a student threatens or abuses a teacher or a classmate,
a student shares a recording, a replay or a class link outside the class,
a student's account is used by a person who is not the enrolled student,
a false age was given at enrolment so that a student entered the wrong class.

We will always tell you what happened and why, in writing. If you think we got it wrong, use the Complaints Procedure, including the fourth step, which does not go through the school.

9. Recordings, materials and ownership

The school owns its teaching materials and its recordings. You may use them for your own study. You may not copy them for other people, publish them, or sell them.
Class recordings contain other students, including children. Sharing one outside the class is a serious breach of these terms and may also break the law where those students live.
What you write and say in class is yours. We do not use a student's work in advertising, and we do not use a student's face, name or voice in advertising, unless we ask you first and you say yes in writing. For a child, only a parent can say yes.

10. Privacy and children

How we handle data is set out in the Privacy Policy, which is part of these terms.
Every student under 18 is treated as a child, in every country. Enrolment for a child is not complete until a parent or guardian has signed the consent form.
We check the age of the child and the identity of the guardian at enrolment, because the law that applies to students living in Somalia requires it.
Parental consent is taken for every child, with no education exemption relied on anywhere, because the law that applies to students living in Kenya requires consent and gives no such exemption.
A parent may withdraw consent for recording at any time without their child losing their place.

11. What we do not promise

We would rather be honest than sound impressive.

We do not promise a particular exam result, grade, score or level by a particular date. Learning depends on the student too.
We do not promise a particular teacher for a particular class. Teachers change. The standard does not.
We do not promise that the internet will work. If our platform fails during a class, we re-run the class or give a class credit, as in Section 6.
We are not responsible for your device, your data bundle, your power supply, or the fees your bank or wallet charges.
Where a loss is our fault, our responsibility to you is limited to refunding the fees you paid for the affected month. Nothing in these terms removes a right you have under the law where you live, and nothing here limits our responsibility for a child's safety.

12. Changes to these terms

If we change these terms, we publish the new version on the website and write to every student, or to the parent of every child, at least 30 days before the change takes effect.
We will say plainly what changed and why.
If you do not accept the change, you may leave, and we will refund any month you have paid for but not yet had.

13. Governing law

Governing law: TO BE COMPLETED: the country where the school is legally registered, not yet established

We are stating this openly rather than filling the gap with a country that sounds convincing. The school's legal registration has not been completed yet, so we do not yet know which country's law will govern this agreement, and we are not going to name one we cannot stand behind. The moment it is settled, this section will be completed, this policy will be republished, and every student and parent will be told in writing.

Until then:

Nothing in this gap takes away any right you have under the law of the country where the student lives. If you live in Kenya or in Somalia, the data protection law of your own country applies to your data, and we follow it, as set out in the Privacy Policy.
Any dispute is first taken through the Complaints Procedure, including its fourth step, which reaches an independent contact outside the school.
We will not use the missing jurisdiction as an argument against a student or a parent, ever.

14. Contact

The school

Omar Ahmed, founder and headmaster

Email: info@banadirschool.com

Phone or WhatsApp: TO BE COMPLETED: school phone number

Independent outside contact, for any concern about the school or its founder

Salim, TheJamah

Email: hello@thejamah.com

Phone or WhatsApp: +1 631 417 0416

Salim is not employed by the school and does not report to the founder. TheJamah built the school's systems. He has agreed to receive concerns from parents, students and staff independently, and you may write to him without speaking to the school first.

15. Documents that form part of this agreement

Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy
Parental Consent Form for Class Recording
Teacher Code of Conduct
Privacy Policy
Refund and Cancellation Policy
Complaints Procedure

If a document above and these terms disagree, the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy wins over everything, and after that these terms win.