Child given money by "Vicar" at school

I've never seen or been involved with a children's Object Lesson. I had never heard of them until tonight.

However, I understand that the school is C of E and that is not taught (as far as I am aware)in their schools.

It’s the saying “just between you and me” that’s the issue

i know what you mean by the “old Irish grandad type” as my children seem to get given money at random by older people at the football/on the bus or whatever but the difference is they will say to me “is it ok if I give her” or they’ll do it in front of me perfectly openly and kindly -

giving money to one kid in a group and telling them to keep it quiet is… not ok. even if well meaning and thought maybe the child wouldn’t get any Easter treats and was trying to be kind, surely - if you were visiting a school - you’d day to staff afterwards “is it ok to give some cash so you can make sure everyone gets some chocolate” not give a fiver to a random child?!

I would ask more questions before diving in. It may well be true, in which case the school need to be aware. But, at this age my daughter started to tell lies, she could steal and lie bare faced. She once told the teacher her Dad had beaten her, but they realised it was a fib when she described him doing a round house kick on her.

she grew out of it, but it was crappy as I had to question everything she said for a few years. It stopped around 9/10. She is a teen now and showing clear signs of autism which she has masked until a couple of years ago, not sure if she had been lying as part of that.

Anyway, just ask questions before leaping to conclusions.

I go to church and have been involved in kids work in the past. The church is very up to date with safeguarding, no vicar would fail to know that this was totally inappropriate. Definitely report.

This above and definitely not Maundy Money, the King gave that out in St Asaph yesterday and it's not coins of the realm or notes.

I would presume it was a Easter money thing and a sont tell your parents so you can spend it on yourself type thing same as my grandparents did for me yes no relation but it was when I was young so back when there was no conspiracy in everything like these days

Do you spend a lot of time in churches or watching children's object lessons?

I don't know what's gone on here any more than anybody else does, but I was raising it as a realistic possibility rather than jumping straight to grooming.

Also, they wouldn't tell the child to keep it secret.

Right. That makes it a bit clearer then. You know who to contact and you have a name.

Thanks for that info.

However, I think £5 is rather a lot of money to allow a child to keep ?

I've never heard of it in C of E or Catholic churches either.

Wouldn't the names of the vicar and curate(s) be on the parish website?

Yes, I have to say I was assuming C of E, but that's easily checked. Someone must know who this person is.

However, this is 2026, and child protection and safeguarding are huge issues. The church is dealing with historic cases of child abuse and has had to implement safeguarding.
This is not another worldly unaware older gentleman. This is someone who must have done safeguarding training.

You've never heard of object lessons? Quite often they do involve money as they talk about value systems or similar and cash can be a good way to make it understandable. Sometimes the poor kid who got dragged up to assist the pastor (or whoever) would get to keep the money or other object. This is not unusual or uncommon in children's work. I haven't known it to happen with a fiver, but definitely with coins. I worked for a non -denominational Christian organisation.

can we not think this is a school version of Naundy money/.

@MadeInGrimsby. You need to know the denomination and name of the clergy though, the c of e diocese can’t help unless they are from c of e. On a positive note we monitor the email (well I do at least) a few times a day during weekends and administration is back in on Tuesday if it’s more complicated to work out who it could be

It needs reporting.
However, unless the vicar has contact with DD outside of school it seems very low risk.

Hopefully its a case of she either looked sad or he got the impression she doesnt have much money, and he gave it without considering the more modern rules around safeguarding and conduct.

Its the sort of thing which wouldn't have seemed unusual in the past, I remember being given money around christmas time on 2 occasions as a child, both times by elderly men who seemed to have no other intentions, one was a neighbour and the other a stranger.

Yes, please do this.

This is a distraction now, I was responding to an earlier poster.
Please report this to the school, and to the Diocese.

If you know what church the vicar was from, they will have a safeguarding lead whose contact should be on the church website. That should be monitored daily even over Easter weekend and you could tell them what your daughter is saying and ask them to get to the bottom of what happened

I think she's unreasonable not to have reported it straight away and contacted the diocese ( not that I voted that way, but I could see how some might).

Definitely take this up with the school in the first instance - send an email without delay.

I'm on the same team as you, if you've read my posts.