Child given money by "Vicar" at school

Ring up the church and ask to speak to the Vicar not the trainee and ask what on earth is going on. No it's not appropriate at all.

I work in a school. If you were to email a member of staff in the holidays you would get an out off office reply with a link saying who to contact with urgent safeguarding concerns. That email address is always monitored, even in holiday, so it's possible that your daughters school may have the same? If not senior staff will probably be checking their emails so contact the head.

😬it would make me uneasy.

This made me feel uneasy! Maybe harmless but telling her to keep it between them has given me the creeps!

Lets get to the facts before you rush to judgement.

I agree.

If this is a C of E school then there is only one vicar that goes in for Collective Worship and that is the Vicar of the Church that the school is attached to.

So the child should have seen this person before.

If the individual was a Vicar-in-training ie a Curate, then he would not be sent in alone. The 'attached' Vicar would have brought him in and introduced him to the children saying, "this is Jo Bloggs who is my Curate and he will be taking you for collective worship today".

Also I can't understand why a Vicar/Curate would want to visit a school on Maundy Thurday ? This is one of the busiest times in the Church's year in the run-up to Easter and time would be at a premium at the 'attached' Church.
There is preparation to be done for the Feetwashing service, stripping of the altar and the Easter Vigil.

I would certainly report this to the school ASAP.

Maybe this “vicar” is under the misapprehension that your daughter comes from a poor family and as such cannot afford Easter treats.
So he gave her the £5 out of being charitable and asked her not to say anything because obviously he couldn’t do it for everyone - nor did he want to embarrass your poor family.
I mean - that could happen, it’s entirely possible and plausible.
Many things are plausible that are not unseemly.
It’s sad that in today’s world, the first thing we jump to is something evil or wrong or bad - instead of at least waiting for an explanation.
Everybody is a perv, a rapist, a child molester.
And I was raped at 16 by the town mayor - still, I know that not everyone is as evil and horrible as he was.

With the amount of child abuse we see from religious bodies I would contact school and the police .

Diocese will brush it under the carpet as a none-event, which it is not.

I would email the school or ideally the headteacher directly. Most headteachers I know do monitor their inbox over the holidays (many still attend things like safeguarding meetings, particularly in small schools with no pastoral lead!) so they may see the email and get back to you.

As PP have said, also contact the LADO in your area to report the incident and tell the school you have done this.

Do you mean 101?

Our school and most schools in our area broke up end of day Thursday. It's not a religious school either.

Schools broke up here in Somerset on Thursday 2nd. Your research is flawed.

You can start to see why people like Jimmy Savile got away with what they did when some people's default response is to assume that a potential victim is lying and just dismiss it out of hand.

Very red flag and needs reporting…but there is also the possibility your child got it from somewhere else and is trying to feed you a convincing lie. Just report the facts to the safeguarding lead at school. Don’t start a witch hunt.

You'd hope the LADO would be more helpful than the one in Brighton.

It's a safeguarding concern, and the school will either investigate or be able to clear up any misunderstanding.
Headteachers still monitor their emails during the holidays so will see this and prioritise it.
Either way it needs to be on their radar as soon as possible.

Here are the contact details for the Church of England Diocese of Durham safeguarding team. There will be an out of hours contact as well. They will take this very seriously.

https://www.durhamdiocese.org/support-for-your-role/parish-safeguarding-officers/support-and-contacts

You can also contact the Local Authority Designated Officer for your area.

I wouldn’t wait until 20th. I’d report now to school, church and police

Newsflash, different areas have different holidays.

In that case I would contact 111 or your local SW out of hours number and report it. This person will be around kids all the time because of his role. If he is in fact grooming children it needs to be reported ASAP. I definitely would not wait until schools reopen.

And yet so many don't know better or have ulterior motives.

I could write a long list of weird, weird things church people have done that I personally and 1st hand know of.

Many are misguided rather than predators but still ffs.

Report him.

`Of course.

Does your dc have any contact with this guy at church?

South west here and we were still at school yesterday too.
I know it's the holidays now but based on the potential severity I would be emailing the teacher/headteacher and any other safeguarding lead to hope that one of them is contactable. It may all be innocent and other children were given money (though this does sound under heard of) or maybe there was something she was supposed to have done with the money which she didn't understand.
Anyway you need to try and get hold of someone to let them know and to investigate.

This will give you an idea but appreciate it’s not local to you liverpoolcofe.org/diocese-safeguarding/parish-safeguarding-officers/

Op I would 100% report this both to the school and to the C of E safeguarding officer for your diocese.