Noone picked up my daughter and school didn't ring.

OP’s sister travelled over from Australia with young ND son who has very limited diet. Went to OP’s for lunch, brought a pizza brand that her ND only eats and had the CHEEK ( 😆) to put it in the OP’s oven whilst the OP’s yorkies were cooking.

and the Op… well, you should read it. It certainly explains more about this thread and the OP’s stance on it!

Sorry OP I have to say I do agree with this!

I'm intrigued. What's the interest in the pizza brand?

I don’t understand why they didn’t call at the point that she went into the afterschool club. Because then the clock is ticking till the end of that session and if there is a problem it becomes an after hours one? Not saying it is the schools fault but it does seem odd to me. That said, my son’s school didn’t phone when his alcoholic father passed out and didn’t pick him up. A teacher brought him to our house and got no answer so walked back to the school. A mum friend spotted them and. Went down the school and got him. I was fully expecting further action from the school but I never heard from them about it. Yes, we are now divorced.

I’ll look forward to the thread!!!

Now you know the brand of pizza, would be lovely and thoughtful for you to have in the freezer ready and awaiting?!

I think the school used the quickest easiest solution to your child not being collected, placing them in ASC.
Whilst it may seem not effort to call parents, it depends if the contact numbers for parents are kept easily at hand in hard copy or a staff member has to ask Reception staff to find it “online”.
The teacher could have stuff/meeting etc to do straight after school and TAs usually leave straight away (I’m a TA in a SEN school) so it’s not always straightforward and chances are your child would have had to go to ASC anyway.

Pretty please will you update your thread about the visiting sister and the pizza drama?!!

And sounds like a tricky relationship with all of them!

So @Cantheowneroftheredcorsapleasemovetheircar did you find out via website or ask politely what the rules are of when they call /how long they leave a no show before calling a parent

I understood safeguarding was about protecting the child from harm?

You must have had a very sheltered career if you believed a call to a forgetful/disorganosaed/ delayed parent while a child plays happily in a after school club is the bare minimum of safeguarding?

unless there was a backstory, where i
did you see the harm to the child and why was this an urgent safeguarding issue?

Honestly, I think bare minimum safeguarding is making sure that the child in question was safe. Which they did.

I’m SLT/a DSL in a primary school and I’m pretty sure we would have called within 15 minutes as well. But I don’t think it’s terrible or worrying that they didn’t.

I absolutely think that the op should query the situation. But I don’t think she should be complaining; I (a chronic over apologiser, to be fair) would be apologising to the school for being late.

She is visiting from Australia OP!! Cut her some slack!

@Emeraude I am sure the school would have called.

Not once in 8 years of teaching was it so chaotic after school that I wouldn’t have been able to call a parent after 15 minutes of not being collected and if I couldn’t do it, then not a single member of teaching staff, SLT, support staff or admin staff could either. It’s absolute bare minimum safeguarding.

The sister’s role in it is completely separate to the school response.

I'm sure if OPs dd had been chucked out of ASC to make her own way home at 5pm, or even if the school had only got round to calling her then, she would have had different responses. But people are presuming that the school were going to call her at some point between 4pm and 5pm, and pointing out that there are a lot of reasons why they hadn't done so before 4pm.

There is literally nothing to indicate that the school were "contemplating NOT calling the parent" just that they hadn't done so YET.

Therefore why posters aren't frothing in indignation at something which didn't happen!

The OP literally asks "would you complain to the school" and the subject of her post is "no one picked up my daughter and the school didn't ring". Doesn't sound much like taking responsibility to me.

She delegated pick-up to the wrong person. That's on her, not the school and not only on her sister.

Much more reasonable would be to say I messed up, how can I politely raise the issue of being contacted more promptly with the school.

How is the OP phrased like this?

The OP i not trying to turn this round so "the whole situation becomes the school's fault" that's ridiculous.

She very clearly is angry at the sister and that has been clear from the start.

She was only saying she thinks she should have had a phone call.

People are also saying she tried dodging the fine or thought she shouldn't pay. She didn't say this either, she just pointed out that avoiding an extra charge is one of the reasons a phone call would have been helpful.

And she thanked the school! It says it right there in the very first post!!

I don't understand MN most of the time, I don't know if people don't bother to read properly or they just read what they want to for the fun of it

I wonder if it’s down to numbers- if they get a handful of kids every day where the parents are a little late, they just put the kids into ASC as it would too time consuming to phone all of the parents then and there- only to have most show up in 10-15 mins anyway. Then in 30 mins or so when the ones that were just a little held up in traffic of whatever have got their kids- they phone about whoever is left. I don’t think it warrants a complaint to the school, your DD was safe, it’s not their job to make sure you’re told as soon as possible when a family member has messed up so you get charged as little as possible - they’ve enough to do.

@Emeraude

Speaking for myself, I would not say that I am "fine about this". I am asking you and posters like you to consider the timeline.

Pick up at primary can be chaotic - lots of kids to dispatch, lots of kids to direct to ASC or other clubs, accident reports to discuss with parents, parents who come with questions and try to have a chat .... it was 40 mins.

I am 100% sure that they would have called in due course.

I am baffled that having been a primary teacher you can't see how this might happen.

I am a parent and even I can see that pick up time is busy and requires prioritisation.

It's the way the OP is phrased. It's her sister (and her for not sending a reminder) who messed up, yet it's the school who gets the complaints?

If I were her I would have apologised to the school for missing pick up, then politely clarified their policies or asked to be contacted next time.

I wouldn't be trying to turn this round so the whole situation becomes the school's fault and I am a poor innocent bystander in the whole mess. It's not a good look.

I find it baffling that so many people are so fine about this. I was a primary teacher for years before becoming a parent so just looking at it from a teacher’s point of view, I would NEVER have contemplated not calling the parent. Anything could have happened to them! Sure, after school club is fine once you have confirmation that the parent can’t get there any time soon, but I would absolutely check first. And from a parent’s point of view, I’d be fuming that no one thought to let me know something had gone wrong.

I think you have it wrong?

• OP'S anger IS directed at her sister.
• She wasn't going to complain about the care of her DD, she's simply questioning why she didn't get a phone call.

So, you escalate to safeguarding when you receive complaints, do you?
By doing that, you could cause a full SS investigation, just because of a complaint.

Is this why we hear of so many fruitless, wasted SS investigations?
Because someone didn't like receiving a complaint....