AIBU to raise concerns after school let father-in-law apply suncream when not an approved collector?

He is her grandfather! Your husband's Dad. Why on earth would be raise this?

So, why did you send a person to school who is not on your contact list?
By doing this you have consented and the school has done nothing wrong.
Stop stirring trouble and causing a ridiculous fuss over nothing.

You will also be aware then that not all parents share all their life history with school, and sometimes people are embarrassed about what happens in their family life or don’t even consider that school needs to know. I have worked with families who would reply to this situation with ‘well we never thought Granddad would come to school so why would we tell them’.
Schools only know what parents or other people tell them. Do not assume you know everything going on in someone’s life as very often you don’t.

So anyone who isn't on the approved collectors list should have access to children at school, as long as they're not collecting them? Is that your logic?

If you didn’t give them an ‘approved sun cream person’ list, this is on you. He didn’t collect her, so they won’t have checked the collector list.

It's just such a weird decision from school staff. It makes very little sense. There were lots of other options before that one.

The school were very lucky in this case that nothing more sinister was at play.

It just seems really silly to pull the kid out of class, disrupting the lesson, to have to have suncream applied (assuming she's not nursery / reception age bad needs help) rather than just passing it on

A bit like dropping in a water bottle and them making the kid come up and take a drink out of it.

Yeah you're not wrong. I don't see why on earth the school didn't just take in the cream and give to kid on break? Why pull them out of class and put them in a position where an adult not known to school touches their body?
So yeah I think I get the point now.

And if she was no contact with him for whatever reason? He'd still be able to name the daughter-in-law, the kids may still recognise him as grandpa...

These incidents are near misses; situations that have exposed gaps in safeguarding procedures. The school weren't aware that he had authorised access to that child... Assumption shouldn't be the fall back position when it comes to child safeguarding.

It's bizarre that instead of the suncream being delivered to the classroom for the child to pop on themselves (as they'd been doing all week), school decided to allow an unknown and unapproved male (to school) apply suncream to a child. Surely that strikes you as inappropriate?

The school is lucky that, in this case, it wasn't something sinister. In the schools I've worked with, they'd absolutely want this flagging to ensure they can keep children safe.

The lack of logic on the part of the school is the safeguarding issue.

If they Grandfather couldn’t, because he wasn’t known to them, leave the suncream for the child (who had been doing their own suncream so it’s not that the child couldn’t) because of safeguarding for allergies or him potentially being a random person, then that’s understandable. The Op likely should have called them to let them know grandad was bringing it.

Dealing with the issue of unknown grandad not being allowed to leave the cream by allowing him to put that very cream on the child himself is just madness.

There were multiple ways of dealing with the situation and they picked the one that would be the “so wrong it’s almost funny” example in a training course.

But surely the child identified their own grandparent? He would've said something like 'my daughter asked me to pop in with gd's suncream as she forgot. Can I leave it with you'?' then obviously they wouldn't allow it so brought out the child and she clearly knew him closely.

I just think it seems OTT. The only reason why I'd be concerned would be if I didn't trust FiL to touch child.

It's the potential isn't it?

Any adult (who isn't on the approved list) could wander into the school and end up being granted access to a child because they know them. It doesn't matter if the kids say 'hi X' because the majority of abuse happens when the children knows the abuser.

School should have checked in.

Ok what's her problem then? She is saying the grandad putting suncream on her was a risk. What else could be implied by that?

I'm with you OP and actually surprised by most of the replies thinking it was acceptable. Just because she knows him and can point out that he's a relative, doesn't mean you would want him to apply sunscreen on your child. For all they knew, there could've been a situation where you didn't want them having contact.

No because somebody making a Mumsnet thread isn't a lose for the school or safeguarding! Thread away, no-one cares!!

The school needs to follow sensible safeguarding procedure. If that upsets some parents and causes them to make a Mumsnet thread about it so be it!

Then it’s lose-lose isn’t it, really. So the OP is BU because they created the situation in the first place.

The better option is to take the suncream yourself I suppose.

You're quite possibly right about the AIBU, but that doesn't mean it isn't a better option. Some people on Mumsnet have a very poor understanding of safeguarding as evidenced by this thread!!

Jeepers. So glad my kids got through school decades ago. So many rules these days.

“Have an authorised member of staff help the child apply suncream”

haha I can see the AIBU now

“to be furious that school wouldn’t allow grandpa to apply suncream and made staff do it instead”

The staff member insisted on applying my son’s suncream even though his lovely grandpa was right there! Thinking of complaining the governors, the teacher is obviously a wrong’un and office staff are implying my FIL is a peedo

They didn’t let him leave with your dc and your dc was happy to see him, you definitely overreacted

The FIL has done nothing wrong and the OP is clear about that.

The issue is with the school. Their actions were not 'a sensible option in the circumstances'.

More sensible options would have been:

Call the parents to check.

Allow the child to apply the suncream themselves.

Keep the child inside at break time to prevent sunburn.

Have an authorised member of staff help the child apply suncream.

If a child at this school gets sunburnt because staff don't have the common sense to make a phone call, allow a child to apply their own suncream, keep them inside or get a staff member to assist this is not the fault of the OP or safeguarding procedure in general. It's a fault at the school and quite frankly someone so inept that these common sense options weren't taken shouldn't be working in a school office.

FFS she hasn’t done this. Apply some critical thinking

The lack of common sense in this thread is really depressing.

No there aren’t. fIL complied with the only option given to him. It was a sensible option in the circumstances Any fuss the OP makes will mean such common sense options are not given in the future to other children. Eventually a child will get sunburnt.

I agree with you OP - i work in a school and this would be seen as a safeguarding no without calling the parent first. Most of us can’t see what the problem is and that in itself is privilege. The stuff school is aware of that goes on is terrifying, hence why I am surprised. The child being old enough to say hi grandad is not the answer, most abuse happens in families and family friends. So I would raise it, not as a complaint but more to help them going forward. It’s a learning opportunity to help them and children who might not having such fabulous parents and grandparents as your child does.