School refused to release my child until after parents’ meeting – is this allowed?

@maryanne3 it’s not about whether a court would entertain the issue, it’s never going to end up near a court. It is important for parents to understand their own rights in relation to their parental responsibilities and to understand the limits of the schools authority over their children. Schools don’t have the right to stop parents collecting their children for any reason without a court order, parents yield too much authority to schools. There are other ways to manage discipline at school than to detain parents and children.

Please, don't do that. You must always speak up if something doesn't feel right. I've worked in schools for 20 years, you have a RIGHT to have your say if you want. Maybe there was a miscommunication between the school and parents,happens all the time!
Just send a short email expressing your surprise that you were not informed earlier of this meeting and ask what were the reasons for not allowing children to be collected? And also state that in future,you would appreciate a little more notice of a situation like this as you could have had somewhere else to be. Who cares about being seen as a PITA as another poster put it! The PITA parents and those with the loudest voices are the ones who get things done in my experience. Don't stay quiet to avoid conflict,people will walk all over you.
Edited to say I just noticed that you already sent an email. Good!

The rights part isn’t about having notice about the meeting. It’s about the children not being released to the parents in order to coerce attendance. If OP had known about the meeting since the day her DC was born, the school would still be acting outrageously to do that.

If anyone can point out what possible excuse there was for attacking the OP for not being Properly British, I'd be fascinated to hear the "reasoning" there.

@Joloman74 I’m as British as they come and my schools would not have done this. It’s not how schools behave with pupils or parents.

I’m UK born and bred, there is no way I’d just deal with it and move on. School pick up times are tight with two children in different schools so I couldn’t hang about for a 20 minute meeting no matter how much notice was given. Schools do not have the right to detain your child and certainly not to demand parents attend a meeting. I would have demanded my child be returned to me immediately and would be well within my rights to do so.

No. It’s not acceptable. Only if child is being disciplined and I’m assuming this wasn’t the case. If it’s not possible to stay, you are able to walk out. Meetings should have plenty of notice - do you have a school diary or newsletter with dates? It’s inevitable not everyone can stay so school should have alternative methods to disseminate info.

Obviously human rights is a step too far but children must be released after a school day. Late collection is a bigger issue for schools! Parents cannot be forced to go to any meeting.

Born and bred in this country. The school had no right to keep the children after school away from parents unless there was serious incident and it wasn’t safe for kids to be released.
No need to consult lawyers and the OP just wanted to know if it was normal and I can say hand on heart this is not normal school behaviour. I finish one job, collect kid and then start another job at 4pm. This would affect my earning and ability to pay bills as self employed if I was late.
It sounds like the parents were even in the meeting if the teacher just shut the door on parents waiting.
plus having worked in schools, you wouldn’t be able to hold back a bunch of angry bear mums who want to collect their precious cubs!!

I really dont understand why people are making excuses for the teachers and the school.

1. It matters not when the school communicated this meeting to parents whether 1 hour, 1 week, 1 month etc Parent can say yes to the meeting and do not have to attend if they do not wish to. Teachers and schools cannot compel them to attend a meeting.

1. Teachers/schools cannot refuse parents access to their child unless there is some sort of safeguarding or danger issue.....a parents meeting wont cut it. Holding children hostage is out of order and beyond belief.

All the excuses, however reasonable they may sound. does not in any way excuse this dictatorial, hostage situation of parent and child that has transpired. If it is 'inconvenient' or 'annoying' or whatever for them that is not the parents problem if they want/need/would like to pick up their child.

Teachers/schools need to get off their high horses and not dictate to parents in this situation. Again I say, who do they think they are?

If they had only notified parents that morning, I would absolutely say you're fine to not stay. If it was a reminder, rather than a first notification, that would be different. However, if people are ill or have to leave, it seems unreasonable to hold them there unwillingly. My DC's old primary school always left things to the last minute, I was a governor and kept stressing more notice needed to be given. But they wouldn't have stopped people from leaving.

Exactly this.

If you have somewhere else to be straight afterwards, "only 20 minutes" is going to make you very late.

And frankly, even if you get 24 hours' notice, or even a week's notice, you still have the right to say, "Sorry, I can't make it, I have a pre-existing commitment and will need to collect my child at the usual time."

But again, “only 20 mins” is ridiculous reasoning for so many reasons that have been set out already.

I could not wait 20 mins, under any circumstances. I have another child to collect from elsewhere.

Even if it was a preplanned afterschool meeting, planned weeks in advance, directly after school would be a tough one for me and I’d be relying on dh being able to take time off work to collect my other child in the next town.

Many parents work anyway and couldn’t come to a meeting right after school as they don’t do school pick up.

Ive had 3 children in primary and secondary school now, there have been a couple of meetings right after school for info on SATS, and a couple right after drop off when the first started reception, but they are very clear that they will email parents who cannot attend all the information. They don’t go holding children back if it’s after school.

If it really was the case that the school only told parents about the extra-meeting that morning (and do check) then they are somewhat at fault. My guess is that there was some 'incident' earlier in the day, and the head teacher decided to nip it in the bud early in the term by calling this extra meeting, and ensuring parents were there to listen. However if it really put you out, then you can always write to the head teacher explaining your circumstances, and how it is not always convenient for parents to hang around after school at such short notice. Be constructive, suggest that 24 hours warning might have helped. Hopefully you will get a fuller explanation as to what was behind it. In terms of 'rights' I doubt any court would find against the head as, given it was only 20 minutes, this would probably be seen as a reasonable part of ensuring good discipline in the school. So I would not try talking about 'rights'. Just see it as part of a reasonable dialogue with the school. They have a hard job, and presumably you want your child to be in an ordered and controlled environment.

Nasty.
OP hasn’t mentioned lawyers. They were simply asking if this was normal practice. As someone who worked in a school I would join others in saying that no, it isn’t normal to stop parents collecting their children at the normal time and if this had been tried at our school there would have been a riot on the gates.

But don’t let facts get in the way of your xenophobic attitude.

Huh? I'm British and have 5 kids, I've never seen or heard of a school doing this before and I wouldn't be happy about it at all. Especially if, like the op, I had other commitments and really couldn't stay for an extra 20 minutes.

No need for you to explain yourself to this xenophobic PP. Or to express your gratitude for living in Britain.

You asked a perfectly reasonable question regarding whether it is normal or allowed in the UK. The vast majority of PP’s have told you that it is neither so you were right to ask and also right to raise it with the school x

Yes at mine too - I wouldn't be able to physically get them. But if I was at the school gate requesting my children be released and the school refused to comply AND physically prevented me from accessing them, that would be false imprisonment, surely? That's a pretty serious stance to take just to ensure parents attend a meeting about uniform

I’m surprised at the number of posters saying why didn’t you just go in and get your child. At the school I used to work at, even after the end of the school day, parents couldn’t just walk in to school, they had to be let in by either the teacher at the classroom door to the playground or the admin staff via the office entrance. I assumed all schools were now like this for safeguarding reasons.

Whether or not OP had 2 hours, 2 weeks or even 2 months notice of the meeting, even if she had signed and said she could attend the meeting and for some reason couldnt when the time came, teachers have no right to refuse a request from a parent or a person with parental responsibilities to collect their child. They have overstepped the mark demanding parents attend the meeting and hold their child hostage until they do. They may feel they have a difficult job to do but, come on now, who do they really think they are?

I agree. Really bad of the school. You should have insisted really to collect him on time. They needed to give more notice.

Why is it that those who chose to emigrate to the UK for a better life always look for reasons to consult a lawyer that their rights have been breached? Especially their human rights? You need to understand that in a new country things are going to happen that you havnt experienced before. Just accept it and move on! It's not the end of the world and hardly cause for taking things further.

As a teacher, I hope this post is by a member of the public, rather than a colleague who can't play nicely with others on the internet.

OP didn’t say the information was unimportant, she was quite clear that it was the method of communication that was unreasonable. (And that the unreasonableness was exacerbated by very poor execution).

Why do you think the reasons for the meeting are unreasonable? They seem very important to me.