Terms of Service

Last updated 4 November 2026

1. Who you are dealing with

These terms are between you and Shaolin Skateboards Limited, a private limited company registered in England and Wales under company number 11708722, trading as Shaolyn Skateboards. They cover everything at shaolynskateboards.com — the brand site, the web shop and the app download page — and the Shaolyn mobile app. Using any of them means you accept these terms. How we handle your data is set out separately in our Privacy Policy.

2. Accounts

You must be 18 or over to hold an account. Signing up, with the form or by continuing with Google or Apple, means you confirm that you are, and that you accept these terms and our Privacy Policy. Give accurate details, keep your login to yourself, and tell us promptly if you think someone else has access; you can change your password and sign out of every other device in the app. After ten wrong passwords for one email address in fifteen minutes, signing in with a password is paused for fifteen minutes on any phone or browser that has not signed in to that account before; one that has keeps its own count. You are responsible for what happens under your account.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms or is used to harm another user. A suspended account is signed out everywhere, its upcoming lessons (as teacher or as student) are cancelled with a full refund to the student, and events it hosts are called off. Lifting a suspension does not bring those back. If you think we got it wrong, email us.

3. What Shaolyn is — and is not

Teachers on Shaolyn are independent. They are not our employees, agents or partners. We provide the platform that introduces you to them, takes the payment and holds the booking; the lesson itself is a contract between you and the teacher.

We verify a teacher's identity and review their application before they can appear on the map, but we do not supervise lessons, set teaching methods or guarantee any particular outcome.

4. Booking a lesson

You choose a teacher, a meetup spot, a date and a duration. Your card is charged when you book, and the teacher then accepts or declines. Shaolyn retains a platform fee from each lesson — the percentage is shown in the app before you pay — and the remainder is paid to the teacher through Stripe Connect: for a lesson priced in pounds, once the lesson is over or you cancel it late (section 5); for a lesson priced in any other currency, when you book it.

Bookings must be made at least two hours before the lesson starts. If the payment doesn't go through within 15 minutes, the time is released, and a payment that completes after that is refunded in full rather than booked. The teacher has until an hour before the start, and at most three days, to accept; a request still unanswered then expires and is refunded in full.

Lessons for under-18s. Accounts are for adults. If the lesson is for someone under 18 you must be their parent or guardian, say so when you book, and come to the lesson and stay for all of it. Only a teacher who holds the enhanced criminal records check for the part of the UK the spot is in (DBS in England and Wales, PVG in Scotland, AccessNI in Northern Ireland), verified by us and valid on the day, can be booked for an under-18. The app shows which teachers those are, and where, and will not take the booking otherwise; lessons for under-18s are only possible in the UK for now. If a teacher's check stops covering a lesson before it happens, we cancel the lesson and refund you in full.

Events. Events at spots are for adults, unless the host holds a check that covers under-18s there; then a parent or guardian may bring their child, and stays with them throughout.

5. Cancellations and refunds

• The teacher declines, or does not respond in time: full refund.
• The teacher cancels, or fails to arrive: full refund, issued automatically.
• You cancel more than 24 hours before the start: full refund.
• You cancel less than 24 hours before the start: half the price back, or what is left to refund if that is less.
• You do not arrive: no refund. The teacher held the time.
• Shaolyn cancels: full refund. We may cancel a lesson, for example for someone's safety, or when the teacher's check no longer covers a lesson for an under-18.

Once a lesson has started, neither side can cancel it: the arrival check in section 6 decides what happens. Refunds go back to the card you paid with, and gift card credit you used comes back as credit. Your statutory rights as a consumer are not affected by anything in this section.

6. Arriving, and how we know you did

Around the time of a lesson the app shares both parties' locations with our server, and each is marked as arrived on coming within 150 metres of the meetup spot. This is what makes the refund rules above work without either of you having to argue about it. If you turn location permission off, we cannot record your arrival, and a dispute will be decided on whatever other evidence exists. How this data is handled is set out in our Privacy Policy.

7. Teaching on Shaolyn

If your application to teach is approved, you agree that:

• you are self-employed and responsible for your own tax, insurance and any licences your area requires;
• you are 18 or over. If your identity check doesn't give us your date of birth, we confirm it from the document before you can teach;
• your verified identity lets you teach adults. You will not teach anyone under 18 (in a lesson booked for them, at an event you host, or at a school) unless you hold the enhanced check for that part of the UK (DBS in England and Wales, PVG in Scotland, AccessNI in Northern Ireland), verified by us and covering the day, and you will tell us at once if anything about it changes. When your checks stop covering work you have taken on, we cancel that work with a full refund and take you off any school block it was part of;
• when a student cancels late, you are paid your share of the part of the price that is not refunded, however they paid;
• the information in your profile is true, and your meetup spots are places you may lawfully skate and teach;
• photos you add to a spot are your own or yours to share, and you let us show them in the app with your display name;
• you will turn up to lessons you have accepted, on time, and behave professionally;
• you will not take payment outside the platform for a lesson arranged on it;
• you will tell us at once about any injury or incident during a lesson.

We may remove a teacher from the platform at our discretion, in particular where a student's safety is in question.

8. Skateboarding carries risk

Skateboarding can cause serious injury. You take part at your own risk, and you are responsible for wearing appropriate protective equipment and for judging whether a session, a spot or a manoeuvre is within your ability. If you have a medical condition that a fall could aggravate, take advice before booking.

9. The shop

Prices are in pounds sterling and include UK VAT where it applies. Shipping is charged by zone at checkout. Orders outside the UK may attract import duty or tax on delivery, charged by your local customs and payable by you.

UK and EU consumers may cancel an order within 14 days of receiving it and return the goods unused for a refund; email us first. Faulty goods are replaced or refunded.

10. Gift cards

A Shaolyn gift card is credit towards lessons booked through the app and goods bought in the app's shop. It is sold in pounds sterling, in whole pounds from £20 to £500, and never expires. Once its code has been redeemed the credit belongs to the account that redeemed it, and comes off that account's lessons and shop orders at checkout in the app. It pays for lessons priced in pounds and for shop orders, shipping included; the website's own basket takes cards only. It cannot be exchanged for cash. When credit would cover nearly all of a lesson or an order, your card pays at least 30p, the smallest amount Stripe can take, and that much less credit is used.

If you bought a card and change your mind, you may cancel it within 14 days of buying it as long as it has not been redeemed: email us from the address you bought it with and we refund the card you paid with. After it has been redeemed the purchase is final. If a lesson paid wholly or partly with credit is refunded under section 5, or a shop order under section 9, the credit share comes back as credit and the card share goes back to the card. Credit left on an account that is deleted is forfeited.

Keep the code safe: whoever redeems it gets the credit. We can replace a lost code for the buyer while the card is unredeemed, but we cannot undo a redemption.

11. Schools

A school (or any organisation booking sessions for a group of children) contracts with Shaolin Skateboards Limited, not with an individual teacher. We quote each school its own price for a block of dates, as a rate per pupil per hour on the number of pupils the school books, and nothing is charged until the school has agreed it. We confirm the block in writing with the name of the teacher and a statement of the safeguarding checks we hold for them, and invoice the school for the block, payable within 30 days by card or bank transfer. Our prices do not include VAT, as we are not registered for it.

Every teacher we send to a school holds the enhanced check with the children's barred list for the part of the UK the school is in (DBS in England and Wales, PVG in Scotland, AccessNI in Northern Ireland). We have verified it ourselves, from the original certificate or, for a check we applied for, from the clear result sent to us; we count it for three years from issue, or for a year from our last status check of a DBS certificate on the Update Service; and a teacher whose check stops covering a block is taken off it. Every teacher has also had their identity and age verified. Teachers are self-employed and engaged by us for the block. A teacher may ask us to introduce them to a school; any sessions that follow are booked with us, on these terms, like any other.

The school agrees to:

• have a member of its staff present with the group for the whole of every session;
• provide a flat, dry space clear of furniture, suitable for skateboarding, and tell us in advance about any pupil whose needs the teacher should know about;
• obtain any parental consent it needs and keep its own register; we hold no pupil names or personal details, only a headcount;
• let the teacher stop a session, or exclude a pupil from it, where safety requires;
• check the boards, helmets and pads it provides, where it provides them, and accept that helmets are worn at all times.

A session cancelled by either side with at least 48 hours' notice is not charged. A session the school cancels with less notice is charged in full. A session we cancel, or that cannot run because of the weather, is not charged and we offer another date. If a block is cancelled by the school after it has been confirmed, sessions already taught and any session within the 48-hour window are charged.

Section 8 applies to every pupil who takes part. Section 13 applies to our liability to the school, except that our total liability for a block is limited to the amount invoiced for it.

12. Acceptable use

Do not use Shaolyn to harass, threaten or defraud anyone, to impersonate another person, to scrape or attack the service, or to post anything unlawful. Messaging is for arranging and discussing your lesson.

You can report someone from their profile, a chat or an event. The report, with the last ten messages of the chat if you report from one, goes to Shaolyn staff, and the person is not told who reported them. You can also block someone: neither of you can then message the other or book a new lesson with the other, and neither sees the other on the live map. Lessons already booked stay booked, and the other person is not told.

13. Our liability

We do not exclude liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded. Subject to that, we are not liable for the acts or omissions of an independent teacher or student, and our total liability to you for anything arising out of these terms is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim.

We aim to keep the service available but do not guarantee it will be uninterrupted or error-free.

14. Changes

We may change these terms. The date at the top will change with them, and we will tell you in the app if a change is significant. Continuing to use Shaolyn after that means you accept the new terms.

15. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you live elsewhere in the UK you may also bring proceedings in your own country's courts.

16. Contact

info@shaolynskateboards.com

Registered office: Shaolin Skateboards Limited, 192 Bexley Lane, Sidcup, DA14 4JH, United Kingdom. Company number 11708722.