Given detention for lateness on tube strike day

It seems rather mean of them especially when you see the queues of school children trying to get onto buses. It is a pig to get round London at the moment. My DS’s school isn’t giving sanctions for lateness this week. They have just said that they would rather they were in and late than not in at all.

Yanbu. Of course the stupid school shouldn't have given detentions (not sure what your child's neuro diversity has to do with anything).

Anyone who said YABU on this thread is just being contrary or an arsehole.

I'm sorry my comment upset you. You're right, I have no experience of how schools work with ND kids.

I have plenty of experience, some personal, of the application of the Equality Act 2010 on disability in the workplace.

I'm really saddened that kids are being let down by the law, and I'm sorry for your experience.

My boss left early on Monday. They then had to walk from north to south London. Leaving early doesn't always work.

I don't think any of us have to imagine what happens when surgeons turn in late for work. Medics don't all the time. Timekeeping in the NHS is atrocious.

Not a chance I’d send my child on a bike in London on a strike day especially if they weren’t very experienced on doing so

There are over a million bicycle journeys made in london every day, can't be all bad

School have been crazy. Do they really want exhausted kids who have got up hours earlier than usual to get in? A bit of grace during a difficult time would be reasonable. During previous strikes I’ve seen grown men push school kids out the way to get on buses.

The fair thing would've been for you to give the school a heads up

I'm going to have a wild guess that the school staff knew about the strike, and didn't need a 'heads up' @ProudCat

The problem with this is that many schools now are banning phones.
The OPs child set off for school earlier than usual but still didn't make it on time.
Now obviously I don't know the rules for phones for that particular school or whether the child even has a phone but this is one of the reasons why many parents don't actually want phones completely banned in schools.
The OP wouldn't have been able to phone in to report her child running late because as far as the OP knew her child left home with "plenty" of time.
The child themselves wouldn't have even been able to contact the school to explain the situation.
This is why children still need their phones.

My school cancelled late detention today. Normally they do the detentions same day but my head is a reasonable decent human being and cancels detention when there are genuine reasons - like tube strikes !

I think it’s completely unreasonable. Concerts were cancelled for goodness sake. But you’ll get loads of cunts on here that tell you your child should have camped at school in order to be on time and questioning why he can’t walk like they’ve never heard of a disability. I would challenge the detention politely.

I'm so thankful our school are sensible about these things. First time you're late it's logged and that's all. If it's persistent without good reason then it escalates but they do recognise that sometimes something unexpected happens an a journey just takes longer than expected.

I'm reminded of the time the coach fetching our kids from a residential just failed to turn up. We were cheering the staff for working out ways through the adversity, perhaps if it was OP's school they'd have put the staff in detention when they eventually got back instead.

Bit of goodwill goes both ways.

I was in central london today. There was so much other stuff working. I didn't have any problem getting in or getting home.

Our school never gives a detention if you phone in and say the child is going to be late; can you call in and ask for them to be excused?

17.25 OP says “her” so that’s how I deduced she was talking about a girl. If I’m wrong, so be it.

It is a bit mean to be honest my two in high school were around 5minutes late yesterday despite their bus being on time.we live a 15minute bus ride from school and they got the bus at 8.30 which would usually get them there on time for 9am. There's roadworks going on in the area which caused a lot of traffic so I've encouraged them to get the bus 20minutes earlier so even with traffic issues they'll still be at school on time. Schools aren't fussed for a few minutes on a one off basis they're more bothered about persistent lateness without a good reason

That’s harsh. When I worked in schools that wouldn’t have happened. Any type of punishment for lateness was suspended if there were train or bus strikes, or if we knew of any other transport issues.

The problem with rules is that they have to be consistently applied otherwise they're considered unfair.

You're asking for inconsistency because you believe that's what's fair. Your logic is flawed.

Did you send a note explaining difficulties? Did you email the attendance office? Did you email the head of year? All in advance? Or are you saying all this after the event?

The fair thing would've been for you to give the school a heads up. This isn't the first strike. You would've known what this could look like.

So yeah, maybe think forward rather than reactively backwards to apportion blame. Not great if you also already knew what am impact this would have on your kid.

No, she did not

I just take a punt. Sometimes DD, sometimes DS. You win some, you lose some

Most employers in London have protocols for days when public transport is disrupted.

For example they'd say you are expected to walk for an hour or, if they've got multiple offices/shops go to one near home.

If @Longingdreamer's son did all they could then detention's pretty harsh. If they left home at usual time and took no precautions against travel trouble then I've less sympathy.

School put my ds in an isolation booth when his school shoes broke and the shoe shops were closed. Covid times.. Headteacher made me facetime from our local 2 supermarkets to show they had no suitable shoes... Removed him from the school soon after.

They said “they” so we must assume gender neutral or non binary surely.

Or have to ask to urinate

Twll me you have no idea how schools work with neurodiverse kids without telling me.

Yes it's school dependant. But fro. Experience. Schools don't give a toss if ita because of disability