School not letting my child from the school

Well that’s just it. There isn’t one 🤷🏽‍♀️

Ultimately if they refuse to let a child leave at the end of the school day against her wishes and her parents' instructions, it's presumably false imprisonment.

Which specific law is the school not following?

Even if there were 10 adults at home that could collect your daughter, I’d still fight this tooth and nail. It’s the principle. They can’t just choose to not abide by the law by placing their own paper thin policies that hold no water.

Keep going OP.

What does your daughter think about this saga?

Several of my siblings, friends and aquaintences schools have had this policy, over the decades. They successfully challenged the policy if they thought their kids were mature enough to walk home without an adult earlier at a younger age. Most of the kids who left alone lived very near the school like the OP's kid, while the few who lived further weren't actually walking home on their own but with a same age or older sibling. (Some kids are twins or have a sibling who is just over a year older.) None of the kids crossed busy roads.

My own DD's school has this policy and parents ignore it if they live right next to the school and their child is 8+. The head complaints but the joke is some of the same children can be found playing on the street within 30 minutes of the school ending without parental supervision right in front of the school. The kids have changed out of uniform.

A blanket policy is dangerous as unfortunately I personally know children in Year 6 who weren't mature enough to walk home alone but were allowed to by their parent and the school couldn't do anything even when they reported to social services and the police had to be involved.

They do literally hand directly to a parent, right up to Y4, they don't have Y5 and Y6 as they are a first school. It seems crazy to me.

How are they making sure a parent is picking them up? Do they actually hand them over to a parent? If not I bet many parents just ignore the policy and the school don't care. This is about covering themselves and nothing to do with safeguarding the child. I can't see that's in the child's best interest in Y6 given they'll be off to secondary school following year.

I think you've missed the irony.

What age is a first school? Under 8 years old?

Lots of businesses have core hours.

Even if they don't, people can manage picking up their child(ren) however it only works if the child(ren) are then able to entertain themselves at home for up to an hour while the parent can continue working.

So over the years I've worked with people who have had meetings on the phone while they are on the move until about 3 minutes before school kick out time when they can't talk to you about business matters around other parents. They then come back on again about 10-15 minutes later.

I've also worked with people whose children aged 8+ come home alone and shout "Hello" to their parent. If I'm in a meeting with that parent I ask the parent to go and talk to their kid for a few minutes and if they can't get back to message me.

In my recent experience, Y6 pupils were allowed to leave school and walk home without an adult meeting them but the parent/guardian had to give written permission. The school is in loco parentis for the time they are there so I can understand that they need parental permission.

After all, by Y7 they may have to find their own way to and from senior school, often by public transport.
How will they learn any independence?

@wombat15 I'm aware that it is not across England completely, but there are regularly threads on here about the same thing. My best friend is a teacher at a first school that never allows pupils to leave on their own.

Have you ever worked with any other timezone? 3-5 is standard meeting time as it allows both continental europe and US East coast to join.

The policy is not an England school policy. It's just a policy at OP's children's school.

I assure you there definitely are schools which run their own ASC

Isn't that what school are doing? All children can walk home from the April when they are in Year 5. No exceptions.

@Kutika I'm with you on this. Schools in England coddle children to a ridiculous extent. I live in Scotland and children are only handed to a parent for the first two years of primary school. So from 7 years old it is up to the parent if they collect their child or not.

Those who say you are fighting it for no reason when you could rearrange your day to collect, are not getting the point that the school are in the wrong here. It is not in their jurisdiction to insist on this. If others would be happy to roll over and be told what to do by school that is up to them. It doesn't mean you should.

I see, so a slight amount of inconvenience in terms of not scheduling meetings between 3 and 4 is too much for your business to handle. I wonder if this has been tested yet by an employee exercising their legal right to request flexible working. I think you'd find it very hard to argue that 1 hour a day when meetings can't be held with that one employee is having a significant impact on your business.

They may be part of the same Trust but the school won't be running it as it would be too much responsibility for the Head.

Anyway as I said in my own PPs and many other posters have agreed with - you need to be bloody minded about this.

You have been told loads of ways of doing this practically as writing to people doesn't always work until you start taking action.