To be furious with daughters school.

That's terrible. I'd be catching them out personally.

First I would formally ask them to provide the reason they ask for receipt of the email to be acknowledged.

I would go from there, but likely they say so they know the child is safe to be released from school because otherwise it's a breach of safeguarding policy.

I would then ask them to provide the response they received.

Then I would make a formal safeguarding complaint on that basis with that proof. They breached their own safeguarding policy. I'd contact OFSTED too.

I agree with this except for the OP not being contactable. She is contactable. it's no harder to call a landline than it is a mobile. The school messed up.

But I agree there should be contingency plans in case the OP can't get to her dd on time or at all (although it's only for a few more weeks).

I agree. It isnt about whether or not she is old enough to walk home or not.
It is about you knowing where she is, which at age 10 or 11 you still should. You should know if she is in school, or wandering around outside school alone, or with a friend, or at home. The school left you thinking she was safely in a club, which meant no adult was responsible for her whereabouts.

I had a similar thing once when I specifically asked the school to pass a message to my daughter that I couldnt collect her from school so she walk home and I'd meet her at home. The school failed to pass on the message. My daughter was then confused and upset, worrying why I hadnt come to collect her. Luckily i had previously given her a standing instruction that, if in doubt, she is now old enough to always start walking home and use her phone to call me on the way. She belatedly remembered (after her initial upset calmed down and she realised I was probably detained at work not dead on the motorway) and she set off home and phoned me. No thanks to her school.

I was angry but I didnt complain as her school is generally a bit rubbish about this sort of thing and I want my DD to get out of the habit of thinking schools are administratively effective. When the admin goes wrong, the safeguarding sometimes follows suit.

It sounds from the OPs post like they usually do check, but for some reason this hasn't happened on this occasion. It says they usually call if no response to the email. I'd just make them aware of what happened and let them sort out why the call didn't happen.

You are right to be furious with the school. They didn't even follow their own protocol since the email asked for a response to prove receipt and you didn't provide that. Fwiw when our DC's after school club was cancelled, they called every parent to inform them and left messages saying all the DC would be kept in the school with a teacher until a parent arrived to collect them.

Going forward, you do need a better system with your DD. She needs to know how long to wait for you and what to do if you don't turn up. There could be lots of reasons why you could be delayed and it's not ideal that you haven't taught your DD what to do in those circumstances.

I think you also have to consider if there is another mobile network you can switch to, that does get a signal. Or maybe consider changing the order of your DD's emergency contacts. Since you are now restricted to only one means of communication when you're at work, it might be better if the second contact was moved to first.

You have given your daughter permission to leave the school by herself though. Unless your daughter said that she needed to call you, they would assume that she could get home. Lots of parents make arrangements outside school, I’m not sure how you can expect the school to keep track of these and remember your specific out of school meeting arrangements. Either get your daughter a phone or tell her what to do if you are not at the meeting point.

Yes school have absolutely failed int heir duty of care here. That said, going forward if you want to allow some independence for your child you must back it up with contingency plans. Your poor DD was failed by both school and you. Nobody ensured her safety. Nobody made sure she know what to do if something went wrong. Speak to school and put some back up plans in place.

I have a yr 6 Daughter and I would be fuming too. Her School would never let that happen though. It’s a safe guarding issue.
Really bad.

But why would you walk back to school? Surely child would assume Mum was running late/traffic/road closures etc and wait.

Mum knows where to pick child up, if she walked back to school then she wouldn't know where she was and had no phone to communicate. By the time she got there she'd probably have been met by the cleaners with all staff gone home anyway.

And yes, maybe next year she'll be in high school and can deal with walking to and from, but this is this year and the school have a responsibility towards her.

I wouldn't have expected more than a text or email. I would, however, have expected my 11 year old daughter to be able to tell a staff member that she needed to get in contact with you to fetch her.

I don't think you are being unreasonable at all to be furious.

The reason the daughter was waiting on her own was not because of this 'ridiculous arrangement' but because the school allowed her to leave earlier than was planned and told her that her mother knew. Without actually checking OP DID know.
The situation is not entirely predictable at all. Parents expect their child to leave school at the time they should be leaving school. Not an hour earlier without being informed about it.

Your dd should have walked back to school. Yes school should have made sure everyone was contacted but you have the arrangement that your dc leave and walk on their own so its not really schools fault. Also its not really the end of the world for a 11 year old to hang around for an hour. Soon enough she will be hanging out after school in bus shelters and Street corners.

I’d let school know but I wouldn’t be furious. I’d look on it as a good learning experience no harm done. Letting DD leave school to stand in a village waiting for you with no means of contacting you or you her was always going to go wrong eg caught up in traffic due to a crash, car breaking down etc.
Give her a Phone and discuss plan B. Does she go back to school. Is there a mum of a school friend in village she could knock on their door etc. If there’s a change to pick up time she rings you before leaving school doesn’t just accept mum knows etc. Explain who to ask for help if you really hadn’t turned up eg ask in shop, ask a mum with a child.

Would the school contact parents if that club was cancelled?

Primary schools mine have gone to always have let parents know - by text or phone call.

Everyone keeps mention Y7 - IME it's often easier as -while it changes whether they are allowed phone out in school time - they can at least keep them in their bags as they can money - and most do have phones or very least friends with phone who can ring.

I think primary schools often don't want phones or money held by the children.

I raise it with the head - maybe someone didn't follow procedures or it's a situation they hadn't thought of previously.

That is normal in a lot of places. The school where I worked and my grandchildren's school both let yr 6s walk home alone. In this instance when a club had been cancelled the parent should have been told though.

They should have phoned. But YABU to be furious about it. The reason your daughter was waiting on her own for an hour was the ridiculous arrangement you seem to have every single day. If she regularly leaves school on her own to walk to the next village, without money or a phone, then this situation is entirely predictable and you should have thought about it before now.

My point isn’t to say that should happen. My point is that an argument could be made. The OP has admitted that she is hard to reach, therefore she should take additional all steps to ensure the all bases are covered. For example, contacting the school to make sure the club is running.

Yes, she has asked school to contact her workplace but in this case it failed to happen. These things do happen. The point is the OP has no other back up plan.

In most circumstances a parent could be reached by mobile. She can’t, therefore additional steps on her side need to be taken. That includes telling the school to contact her workplace, but could also include her contacting the school for confirmation, having another parent who’s child is also part of the club made a contact, making sure her child has a phone, making sure her child understands what to do in the event of something going wrong

This. You have given your daughter permission to leave school and be collected by you off premises. It is your responsibility to ensure that she can contact you if there are any issues. Yes, the school should text all parents as well as email, that's not a difficult thing to do, but certainly they cannot be requested to call everyone on a landline, that is for your daughter to do. She is at the end of Year 6, and quite responsible enough to be able to contact you or return to school if there is a problem.

Again, yes, I know, years ago, and things are different now, are they? Are they really? I caught a bus to town from my school, caught another bus across town, and walked home. My mum didn't drive, many didn't back then, so most kids had to make their own way home.

You have arranged pick up outside schools control. You need to make sure she has a way to contact you.

She’s not Y7 and doesn’t use public transport to get home so I’m not sure of your point here .
When my 2 were Y6 they did walk off the school premises to meet me (too far to walk home) but they knew that if there was an issue that had to go back to school and wait in the office.
I would be pretty annoyed at the school about this OP

You have given permission for your daughter to leave school premises.

When you daughter realised the club wasnt on did she still leave the school? Did she say anything to the teachers?

@Incognitomum11 I'd be speaking to OFSTED about this particular issue

Why on earth should the parents have to contact the school every 'Tuesday' or whatever?! If there's 20 kids in each club and a club each night, that's 20 phone calls the reception has to handle every single sodding day!

Its annoying. But why didn't your DD tell the school there would be nobody to pick her up. Or walk back to school when you weren't there.

This is on the school 100%

Why doesn't your daughter have a phone?