Secondary pupil not allowed to wait in reception

I would cover reception but my normal job didn’t involve the students. It wasn’t my place to manage them and I actually couldn’t discipline them etc. so if someone kicked off in reception I had to find a member of staff, who might all be in meetings.
Students in the library/after school activity should also be logged in, in case there is a fire.
sometimes in my daughters school a site supervisor is sat at reception, probably as staff are elsewhere and he’s just there to open/close doors.

The other thing is the fact she doesn’t have a phone either isn’t on the school

OP you have to sort this out either we a new phone and library or she walks

It's not that, he can't sign a waiver. As we've said upthread, it's safeguarding. When school ends and thet are dismissed they go home or to a designated area under supervision where their attendance is recorded. The reception staff have a designated job and it's not student supervision.
Anyway - it's either the Library or she finds a way to get herself home independently.

Exactly. I honestly don't see what some people are not comprehending. All the receptionist has said is she can't stay in the reception area and she needs to use the space provided (the library) to wait. Yet some posters are responding as though she's being forced to wait outside in minus temperatures in the rain.

She can stay though. It’s really a non issue she just needs to go to the designated area for children to be after school - the library.

to try to make an issue of it is just being daft and petty, tell her to go to the library and come out at 3.45!

I see what you mean. I left school 18 years ago but I always remember pupils in reception after school hours for various reasons and nobody batted an eyelid! Perhaps it’s changed now. It’s a pity the school can’t cover their backs if she stays regularly and get her dad to sign a waiver in case of injuries etc.

It's not so much that she "needs" to be supervised. It's more that, say you left her home alone for 1/2 an hour, you do it in the confidence that she won't have an accident or will be able to cope if she does. If you have that confidence, it's fine.

While she is on school premises, she IS school's responsibility. No she doesn't "need" supervising, but if she does randomly give herself a paper cut, even if she would deal with a small cut when home alone fine, it IS school's responsibility to make sure she's ok. If they have no staff in the reception area at that time, then it is still their responsibility. So they are very much entitled to want her off the premises at the end of school, unless she is doing a designated club, event, detention etc.

I think, @GravyBoatWars , some people are perhaps not au fait with current safeguarding rules. They just remember when they were at school and don't understand how much it's all changed.

I’m surprised some people (parents?) are confused by why a school wouldn’t be able to have random students on campus unsupervised. Schools are required to keep registers of which students are under their care in which locations at any given time, and to provide for the safety of those students; rolls aren’t just taken to track how often students are missing school. This includes things like emergency plans and ensuring students are never accessible by people without appropriate DBS checks. One of the most basic components of safety/safeguarding is knowing who is in the care of whom.

Basic example - maintenance and repair work on the premises is often contracted out to external parties and either this needs to be done in areas/times when students are not present or school personnel needs to be there supervising students at all times. Another would be a fire evacuation plan, or a lockdown procedure in case of external threat. Staff have plans and designated responsibilities for these scenarios that depend on knowing which areas might contain students and usually having a list (even a simple sign-in/out list) to account for all students present. And unfortunately students themselves can be the threat (to the safety of students, staff, themselves, or property) so rules about student presence on school grounds after hours have to guard against that. You can say that a receptionist doesn’t need to be supervising a student waiting for a parent but these sorts of grey areas where it’s left up to different parties to make independent assumptions about how much responsibility the school has are safety and liability nightmares.

You can get a "not smart" phone from argos for £8 to call her on.
She'd probably learn road safety better with friends whilst having some independence rather than feeling she's constantly got you watching and doing it for her. Children can't develop independence without being allowed a bit of breathing space to do so.

Could she walk to a meeting place. How far is home. Honestly she is 12 and she's your oldest so you are still treating her like
She is in primary school. All kids her age walk home. She won't be alone there will
Be loads walking along the paths

How do all her friends and classmates get home . I few you are babying her a bit at age 12. Can't she walk with her pals or get a bus. Usually crowds of kids are walking from a secondary.

Ah OK @TotHappy I think that sounds like quite an unusual site for a school (tho maybe not?). School where I worked, students could not leave the site without being seen and would be rounded up if they did. Also staff were frequently out in the area where some would congregate to smoke to rally them back to where they should be.

Totally agree tho with no supervision happening after school – that’s kind of the point. Once the day has ended, the student needs to leave the site unless they are staying on for a club (which might simply be homework club – a chance to work in the library). That's why the OP’s DC needs to go home, meet her dad en route or be at a club/library.

Not anymore, I left in 2016. Large split site school, to travel between sites you had to cross a public road and traverse a public (though rarely used) lane. So obviously kids could get out - it wasn't in any sense a secure campus. Of course, kids were supervised in lessons and there were staff on duty in halls and corridors but there was nothing to keep the kids in halls and corridors. In fact they were encouraged out ASAP after eating as there was nowhere near enough space for everyone.
So kids at break and lunch would be anywhere within 100m radius of the school. SLT would take it in turns to wander the fields a bit but they could see a few kids at a time. They'd break up any obvious fights but I wouldn't say they were supervising the kids, rather they were supervising the field for large scale trouble. If anyone wanted to leave, light a fire, have sex, torture a bird or a fellow pupil they could and no adult would notice.
After school, kids could be anywhere. They were dismissed. Some went across to a previous classroom to pick up something they'd forgotten. Some went across to the other site for a detention. Some went to a club. Some went to watch whatever sport practice was going on on the field. Some went to the library. Some hung around waiting for mates who were in clubs/detentions. Some hung around in corridors/reception waiting for a parent. No register. If they were there too long I.e. teachers starting to leave they would be asked to go too i suppose but not by 3.45! I was usually there till 6 or 7 myself and only ever saw the odd sixth former leaving or football player.

None of this seemed unusual to me because it was exactly the same when I was a pupil at school myself, also in a large semi-rural split site school. Maybe it was.

A 12 year old doesn’t need to be supervised in a reception area, surely? What are they going to do? Maybe I just live on a different planet 🤣 My school used to just put a shutter down and leave the waiting area open. There was CCTV in there as well so the staff behind the shutters could see.

is Your dd SEND? I’m not sure she needs to wait in a supervised area at 12, most kids are getting buses for an hour plus round here to various schools and sorting themselves out

Can't go off into a private office to make a call if

a) it's an incoming one
b) there's a 12 year needing to be supervised

Because it’s the not the receptionists problem that your daughter, who is in high school, can’t make her own way home.

I agree, but on the other hand, they shouldn’t be making calls that could be overheard by other people that aren’t concerned with that information anyway, even if it’s other members of staff walking by, or a random parent could also walk in at any moment waiting to speak to a teacher. Private phone calls and meetings should be behind closed doors if there’s major concerns about sensitive information and confidentiality.

So ... a potential scenario. Child impatiently waiting in reception wanders out and has a fall or a slip and a serious injury. Cleaners, after all, do their thing after school, and not always with warning signs up. Repairs are done once the kids have left. Would you sue the school or the receptionist for a lack of supervision?

I work in a school. Reception staff make phone calls which relate to pupils, often personal, sensitive information. Don’t think they’d be too pleased about a random 12 year standing there waiting for their Dad listening to it.

Reception are often less confident or able to tell kids to go away - after all, when there's nobody else around who could know the names of the less well behaved students, what can they do if they're told to fuck off? Much safer to say nicely 'wouldn't you rather be in the library? where there's two members of staff and other kids

I've been cornered at 5pm crossing the site in the dark by aggrieved six foot youths because I wouldn't let one of them use the recording studio unsupervised with his 12 year old female friend and some mates from the school he was on a managed move from. I do not want to think what could have happened had one of the cleaners - the only male on site - had been locking up the premises on the other end of the site instead of walking through the unlit path from a small sidebuilding where I worked alone.

Sensitive information in a reception area, which by definition is a public waiting area? She’s not actually in the office space. I think you’re reaching a bit there.

Otherwise I agree with others, unless she’s disabled or has any condition that prevents her from making her own way home, or you don’t live a reasonable walking distance away, why can she not make her own way? Perhaps there is a good reason though, and in which case they’re being a bit ridiculous IMO.

Kids are hardly supervised anyway at secondary school, reception doesn't need to be manned. Kids could be anywhere!

@TotHappy that is really not the case. Do you work in a secondary school? Of course the students are supervised. In lessons, at break time, at lunchtime (teachers have a duty rota for all of the social time). They really couldn’t be "anywhere" and there would be an issue if they were (hence registers and students being chased up for being late). That's during school hours mind you.

The issue as everyone says, is twofold IMHO:

• Reception is not a suitable place to wait as an everyday, 30 minute practice – staff could be dealing with confidential issues in that time after school and if lots of people did it, it would be an issue
• More importantly , @Gonnaenodothat you really should address the issue of your DC's independence and ability to cross roads and walk somewhere on her own. By the age of 12 this should be a usual thing - walking to school, to a local shop, to the park, to a friend’s house; getting the bus into town, walking to a local social activity. Please for her sake take action to make this happen – I would start tomorrow. (This assumes as others flag, that there is no major SEN – tho tbh one of my DC has LD and they were walking to and from school by year 6 – but I guess if she has serious mobility issues or some ND that makes it unsafe for her to cross roads that’s another matter. OP didn’t say so tho tbf)

I would imagine any secondary school aged child will not want to remain in school after hours unless absolutely necessary. Why would having one person waiting in reception after school prompt others to do the same? As I said, op should just check with reception. I'm sure if it was a rule then instead of the receptionist just making passive aggressive comments, the ops dd would be told categorically not to wait in reception as it isn't allowed.