DC disclosed this to me

Yep. Always err on the side of caution with child protection.

This

I would contact the school and ask as part of your disclosure if you can speak to your DC on the phone. That way she won’t randomly get pulled aside and asked for a statement and blindsided, you have an opportunity to tell her yourself why and what’s happening. Emphasise that the school will not disclose where this has come from.

I must say, if the girl came in to school with bruises on her face, it’s extremely poor form from the teachers to not have addressed that already (unless they have). It might also be something that’s already on their radar but hard to prove so your call could really help them.

Imo it's nothing to do with your dd. You don't need to discuss it. You need to report it to school.. I reported 2 dd's being physically abused by their dm.
Sadly they knew who had reported them and my dd's were ignored after that.. No regrets though.

To add even if she is back today i think you need to have a more detailed conversation with your daughter and report the concerns to the school regardless

Your daughter has said if she's not back today she will report it, I would wait until 3:30 to see if she has, or text her if you can before then. You don't have the details your daughter does. You haven't really got the information to make a report at this point. As above there are very few situations, it having already been a few days, that there will be a difference between an 11:15 report and a 3:30 report.

You can't unknow what you know. Contact the school today. I don't think that you have a choice.

wait to discuss with teen, dont break her trust.

I’ve worked in schools and in social services and this is spot on.

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility- you should report to the safeguarding lead. Hopefully the school are already aware, if not, they need to act on this.

As someone else stated 'Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility'. I work in a school, and if a child had disclosed this to me, I would be talking to our Safeguarding Lead (DSL) at school - it would need to be logged and then the DSL decides what avenue to take with the information.

You can find out who the Safeguarding Lead is at your daughter's school by the school website. I would suggest to email the DSL directly, but if it's anything like my son's secondary school, emails seem to end up in Junk folders, that staff don't check 🙄 I would then therefore call the school and ask if it's possible for the DSL to call you, after explaining that your daughter has disclosed something about another child, to you. I wouldn't give the other child's name though to anyone, other than the DSL. Don't give opinions to the DSL, just the facts that you've been told.

The daughter is telling the school. If she doesn’t OP can tell the school this afternoon. Do you think her DD might stop telling her anything if she cuts across her plan? Any other issues. OP may not be told at all leaving the other girl in s worse position. Think

Your call may well be the final piece of the jigsaw of concerns that the safeguarding lead needs to act. Your call will be confidential (or email). Your daughter won't know, unless you choose to tell her.

Please do it now.

"Have it in hand"? They're children!

Tell the school now, but explain why you did that to your child later. I’d be concerned that if you told your dd what you are going to do, then she might tell her friend. There might be consequences to her telling her friend, like the friend doesn’t come to school or the parents find out.

How old are the teens here? Old enough to have phones? Has no-one been in contact with this child? Given the family context, I’d report it to school today.

Contact the school. Our school has a system called MyConcern which a lot of schools use to log every single concern from any adult. These all feed together to build a bigger picture. Safeguarding is the responsibility of everyone.

You can of course make it clear that your daughter told you in confidence but that you are concerned and even if it was nothing, it needs to be logged.

Even if she is not experiencing any abuse at home, school will still benefit from knowing that friends are noticing that her homelife isn't good. She has a right to feel safe. I'd imagine that school are already aware of her home context but if things are being noticed more by friends, it could reflect an escalation in things at home.

If you think about the news stories of children who were allegedly let down by social services, there are always the voices of neighbours or teachers or other family members saying that they knew something was off but not this bad. It's OK to tell school about something being off.

If she's already been off a few days then there are few situations where the difference between telling the school now or at 3.30 would make a difference. I'd wait until your DD comes home and tell the school together if she hasn't already. Otherwise you risk giving a half garbled tale based on hearsay, which the school would struggle to know how best to respond to. They can ask your DD further questions

Report to the school safeguarding lead immediately. You won't be exposed or identified in any way, and your daughter doesn't need to know. I've had to do this (and even after multiple rounds of safeguarding training I wondered if I should). It may be unnecessary, it may enable them to prevent something horrible happening. You'll probably never know. But it's the right thing to do either way. It feels uncomfortable, but it's better than risking the alternative.

for goodness sake - this is NOT the daughter's responsibilty or something that she should have to be mature about. It's a straightforward safeguarding check that needs carrying out asap

You must act.
Today.

My DC once disclosed something a friend had said and I absolutely told the school.

I completely agree with this. My children are much younger than your child OP, and whilst I tell them that anything they tell me doesn’t go any further, I have always caveated that with “unless someone is being harmed or at risk of harm”. As far as I am concerned, your greater responsibility in this situation is to the child who is at risk of harm. You can explain this to your child later. As others have mentioned, your name and your child’s name will not be passed on.

Why didn’t you ask for more information last night when she disclosed it to you?

ok, to answer this clearly, no it is not reasonable to wait until your daughter is home. It is not a teenagers responsibility to decide or be consulted on a safeguarding report.
As PP have said, best case scenario the girl is ill in bed and the school checks in. Worst case she is lying battered and in further danger and you're adding another 24 hours to potential help arriving...