To be furious with daughters school.

Absolutely dreadful.

I totally agree - having been told that mum was coming, it would be very easy to wait so long that returning to school was no longer a sensible option.

I think the takeaway here is to identify some safe friends/shopkeepers/whoever that she can go to if that happens again. Phones are just a convenience, they are not infaliable. And yes, be furious with the school for setting her up like this.

As the email asks you to acknowledge that you have seen it, I would expect them to phone any one who didn't reply to them.

YANBU, the school should always ring, not everyone can check their emails during the day time when they are working. They should have held on to her until they had got hold of you. They told her that you were aware of it, which you weren't.

I also think she should have a mobile now if she is walking part way on her own. You could get a basic text and talk if you don't want to get a smartphone, but when DD was that age I gave her my old iphone so that she could use the apps and so that I could track her on find my iphone etc.

Yes this - the school is at fault and you should complain, but you should have a plan of what your daughter does if he unexpected happens.

and in future, yea I will make sure she has a phone with her to school.

Er if you don't get reception on your phone will she be able to contact you?

Does she know your work phone number?

When I started high school my mum sewed a £5 into my blazer. I couldn't get at it without ripping the lining but it was there for emergencies, maybe you could do something similar?

The school are crap though, telling her you knew, it is a safeguarding issue.

Definitely a safeguarding issue. I'm sure they will know that or there wouldn't be the request to acknowledge.

Yes she should have a phone but phones run out of battery etc. Tell her she's done nothing wrong but next time she should go to the school office and explain the problem.

They should have phoned you. However, if you are allowing your daughter to do independent travel to school, she needs to have a phone and money on her every day, and be aware of back up plans in case of things changing or going wrong, all of which is something you should have put in place before allowing independent travel, so it’s on you also.

School should have phoned you, though I can understand how it fell through the cracks. Are you certain they didn’t, given you don’t sound particularly contactable?

But. I think you bear some responsibility here too - your daughter should have a phone/money and a plan for what to do if not picked up. What would have happened if you had an accident/flat tyre and were running late?

Had you given at any point permission for your daughter to be allowed to leave without you being there. It is common that the majority of year 5/6s exit my themselves but they need permission.

Meh I can’t get stewed about this.
Yes, the school were wrong to make sure you were informed and I understand your anger of course, but in the last few weeks in Yr 6 I think she should have a basic phone anyway so she can make contact with you, and should be making her own way home.

I know society is different these days but we all walked to/from primary school alone or in small groups from Juniors (Yr 3), crossing the main A6 with the lollipop man. It built confidence and resilience - my single parent mum had to work so I had no option, we just got on with it. Life skills!

The school asked for parents to confirm they had seen the email. Why did they do this if they were not going to make sure all parents had actually confirmed this. The school then specifically told the OPs daughter that her parent had been informed. If they hadn’t done this, OPs daughter may have done things differently. If the school seemingly are taking responsibility by informing parents and then telling kids that their parents are aware, they should actually mean it.

If they want the responsibility to be on the parent, I’m sure OP will be happy to call each week and check the club is on. When my kids were at primary, if you called to check things like this, you’d get a receptionist tell you that they would have let you know if anything had changed, usually sounding pissed off you had wasted their time. It was even put on a newsletter about how much time was taken up by routine calls from parents, when they could get their info online etc and changes would be communicated by the school.

And yes, the school should be able to get it right on things like this where the children’s safety is involved. If they were not capable of following a set of instructions, they should have said. But the fact remains, they didn’t even follow up on their own procedure of making sure each parent had confirmed receipt of the email...which they put in place!

Definitely a safeguarding issue.
A short notice cancellation like that needs a phone call.
I'm a school governor and would be seriously concerned about this if it were reported to me. There would be an urgent review of policy and retraining.

YANBU. The school and after school club absolutely should have made sure the parents were aware that the club was cancelled - it's not up to a child to make alternative arrangements in the event of a balls-up by adults who have responsibility for them. If they emailed parents then they were obviously aware that they had to inform parents - they then stepped back and didn't follow up on their request for parents to confirm they'd received the email.

So yes, your DC should have a phone in future in case of emergencies but definitely take this up with the school - this is a major safeguarding issue. I've raised 3 DC and used an afterschool club with each one - the club was meticulous with their communication and never failed in their duty of care.

Definitely not unreasonable. That's awful behaviour on the schools part. I'd definitely be making a complaint. I wonder if there were other children and parents effected...?

Agree with @Eeksteek

You haven’t put any plans in place. What happens if you were running late? Or had an accident on the way? What would she do then?

@ComDummings I’d be so angry as well, they should have called you. Emails aren’t acceptable for last minute or urgent changes or details.

I agree with this.

This!

The trouble is they are often prevented from doing so. My DD took herself to and from school from year 5, but was not allowed a phone or money in school. So what was she supposed to do?

I agree school should have been more on it with the cancellation, but if you’ve given permission for her to walk out and she didn’t go back, what were they supposed to do? If she waited at school I’m sure they’d have phoned you.

Also, though, you ought to have discussed a plan for her to follow if you didn’t arrive as a condition of her being able to walk. Which would be to go back to school and ask for help. Ten year olds are only learning to be independent, and need obvious support at first and she was possibly worried and didn’t know what to do. In the circumstances, waiting there wasn’t a terrible option. She could probably reason that it was just a mix up and not your usual time.

Really really shit not everybody has emails linked to their phone.

They need to keep the children in the school if their parents have not replied to the email.

That is bad and I would be straight into the school. Similar happened to my DS in year 6. We lived round the corner from the school and I finally relented ( yes I am a neurotic mum) to let him walk home by himself. He had after school club and like your DD’s it was cancelled. The school didn’t let the parents know at all!!! I was at the shops and when I got home my DS was sitting on the doorstop. He had sat there for 40 mins. I went into school next day and they said as they are year 6 they should be fine. !!! I spoke to headmaster and the policy was changed to be contacted. My DS took his phone from that day on even though the school forbid them.

@TwasAGoodYear

Not at all. The OP is completely reliant on the school to follow a strict set of instructions should X happen. In reality that not how life works, mistakes are made, there needed to be contingency plans put in place.

It’s not the schools sole responsibility. An argument could be made that the OP contacts the school on the day of the club to make sure it’s still running. Why should the onus be on the the school.

The school clearly made a mistake but the OP has made some major misjudgements here too.

YANBU . I was a teacher myself and think that this is totally unacceptable. I would email the Headteacher to complain. The school is lacking in its duty of care in this instance.

Would the school contact parents if that club was cancelled? This is purely out of interest as the schools I worked in wouldn’t have told parents a dance class etc was cancelled. The way they saw it was clubs not run by the school had a contract with the parent and had nothing to do with the school. This came after one child in P5 who was supposed to walk to a club never arrived. It transpired they’d decided to go to a park with a friend and the parent blamed the school.

I think a lot depends on which type of club it was as the OP seems to have gone immediately to blaming the school.

I can understand why she didn't return to school. Let's assume it's a ten minute walk into village. Then if you're waiting for a lift you'd give it say 20 mins in case mum was stuck in traffic. By then it's likely that the school was shut so not worth walking the ten minutes back.

The school fucked up by telling dd you knew she was finishing early.

I would buy her a cheap Android phone that can be used for calls or texts but you're justified in feeling annoyed and let down by the school.