Cannot get to school as have no petrol- headteacher say's it an 'unauthorised absence'. Anyone else in this situation?

[Schoolfuel1]

DC school is nearly 8 miles away.
Spent weekend going to 5 different petrol stations and all were shut. We tried calling some other's petrol stations (who didn't answer). We are following all the facebool fuel pages and the google fuel map, but there was still no stations with petrol.

So this morning I did not have enough petrol to do the 8 mile journey x4 times as my petrol light is on. DH very low too and we need to keep some for him to try get to a petrol station to get me some.

Headteacher say's unacceptable as other kids and staff are in (many live in the village so walk). Says we could get a taxi- its £25 each way, including my return journeys that's £100 for one day.I'm not wanting a child to be in a taxi themselves with a total stranger.

Say's as we "cannot afford a taxi" we should get a bus- no direct bus, only one takes over 2 hours and how is their guarantee bus will get petrol? Say's we should know who parents in our village are to lift share-we genuinely do not of anyone so she say's we need to go on facebook to find them

So basically , dc is marked as an unauthorised absence today and she is expected in tomorrow no matter what.

My older dc's school couldn't be more different- supportive and offering to help get her to school.

Is anyone else placed in this position? What if can't get petrol this week- or the week after- will we get fined and have to go to court?

I know you couldn't get petrol, but what exactly were you expecting the school to say?

They're not going to say, SURE hope the kids enjoy their time off. The local education authorities expect them to have children in 100% of the time, they cannot authorise an absence because a parent says they cannot get petrol.

I'm glad you're sorted with petrol now.

@Schoolfuel1 Her email was fine. I don't think the headteacher could ask other parents to provide your DC with lifts, that's not their remit.

It must be a big school and village to not know the other families that go to the same school as your DC, but it does show there are some making the same journey. Do you know anyone in your village who might know? The class facebook group would normally have been a great idea, except tonight as it's gone kaput.

Which region are you in? It's odd that you were the only family affected?

@RumblyMumbly no it’s not a big school, but we are in a different county. We asked in our Facebook group if anyone lives near and no one does. A majority live in the school village themselves.

@Kk789 I expect her to say sorry you are affected by a situation beyond your control, let me know if we can help. That was it

@Schoolfuel1 but you just said you asked could she [the headmistress] ask the parents in our village on our behalf if we could lift share as we genuinely do not know who they are- therefore how could we ask anyone

Which suggests there are pupils/parents making the journey from your village. For safeguarding purposes the headteacher couldn't disclose them to you and anyway it's absolutely not her job to sort out lift-shares for pupils.

If it's a friendly village you could ask around and find out? What years your DC in, does she know who lives in the village that she goes to school with?

@RumblyMumbly we have never, ever been aware of anyone ever living in our village that goes to this school. This was the first time it had ever being mentioned in the 2 years we been there.
Our village has lots more schools locally, both state and private but when we moved it was an awkward time of year so this will all that had spaces for dc year group . I feel if the head wanted to issue an unauthorised absence based on the fact we could ask other parents, if she’s claiming other parents live here she needs to be of some help and at least message them. We can’t do it ourself as she won’t pass the information on, and can’t due to data protection, so she was in the position get in touch- not us . If she saying you “could get here, but I won’t help you get here so here’s a mark against dc”then I just find it baffling. I partly suspect she didn’t actually realise where we live so was back tracking as if I’m honest!

I know you couldn't get petrol, but what exactly were you expecting the school to say?

1 - Does DC have books and materials at home?
2 - Here are contact details for DC's teacher.
3 - Please arrange with the teacher to try to get work done while you are marooned at home. Ask the teacher to set work and to be available by email for questions.
4 - Offer of attendance via Zoom.

If the crisis goes on for longer, then teachers are going to be affected too.

The school needs to be a bit more prepared - contingency plans for absent teachers, absent students, etc should have been in place. It's not good enough to simply make an impossible demand of a parent in the middle of a well-acknowledged crisis.

[quote RumblyMumbly]@madcats what do you mean wiping out yeargroups? Are whole year groups being instructed to work from home again temporarily due to outbreaks?[/quote]
20% of our year 9s were off ill with Covid +ve last week (year 10's had about 10-15% children +ve for about a fortnight earlier in the term, but that's calmed down). Other years just have a handful of cases. There are also children off with that nasty cold.

Close contacts are told to go home and get a PCR and they are allowed back after that if they get a -ve result. Luckily the local test centre is a 20 minute walk from school but it is a massive disruption.

Lots of lessons have to to be online and face to face because there is a child stuck at home waiting for test results.

@Caramellatteplease

Except when we moved to this area, it was either this school or one even further away that had spaces left

I'm pretty sure if they cant offer you a school within a 3 mile radius you are entitled to school transport anyway. No good now, but well worth looking into in the future

Yes, unless policy has changed I used to know kids who got taxied to school every day for this reason. Whether taxis have fuel / drivers are vetted is another matter.

But it IS an unauthorised absence. It shouldn't go any further than that on both sides. But it does need to be marked down as unauthorised.

@mathanxiety

I know you couldn't get petrol, but what exactly were you expecting the school to say?

1 - Does DC have books and materials at home?
2 - Here are contact details for DC's teacher.
3 - Please arrange with the teacher to try to get work done while you are marooned at home. Ask the teacher to set work and to be available by email for questions.
4 - Offer of attendance via Zoom.

If the crisis goes on for longer, then teachers are going to be affected too.

The school needs to be a bit more prepared - contingency plans for absent teachers, absent students, etc should have been in place. It's not good enough to simply make an impossible demand of a parent in the middle of a well-acknowledged crisis.

@mathanxiety a very good post indeed. At the beginning of the term the school did send an email with home learning instructions if a dc couldn’t attend school in person. Dc completed their work at home yesterday, which raises the question that why if we said dc was isolating but they’d completed their work would that NOT count as an absence, but due to a national transportation issue it WAS counted as an unauthorised absence, though their set work was completed?

@Madcats yes our secondary is similar. I feel sorry for teachers trying to do inperson and remote teaching simultaneously yet again. I also feel sympathy for the senior leadership team trying to manage all of these circumstances which are just as much out of their control as out of parents control.

@Schoolfuel1 probably a good time to ask around in your village or through your school parents facebook group as someone will know who else is coming in from your direction. You could even put a friendly ' we are coming in from xx and have fuel until the end of the week if anyone else living in our direction needs a lift? ' you might be helping someone else in a similar situation. As I said the fuel situation round us has been bad so people with electric cars have volunteered to help others out.

@mathanxiety so the school were prepared and had remote learning available.@Schoolfuel1 did you tell the headteacher / teacher that your DC had completed their work remotely?

Whereabouts in the country are you?

Maybe the headteacher has been listening to Boris Johnson as according to him there is no crisis - despite the empty shelves, pigs being killed but not going into the food chain and fuel stations running dry suggesting otherwise!

The difference is the legal wording.

The LEA have a legal obligation to provide an education suitably adequate to a childs needs. The parent has a legal responsibility to ensure their child obtains an education, that generally assumes the parent gets the child to school ready to learn.

In the case of illness which coronavirus counts as, the LEA still has an obligation to provide an education. Doing it at home fulfils the legal requirements.

The school doesn't have any legal responsibility for how you get your child to school (unless it's by school transport). You are responsible for getting your child to school. If you havent done that because your preferred transportation method has failed, there us no obligation on to school to make allowances. You have failed your legal obligations, they havent failed theirs, hence the absence doesn't need to be authorised.

It's why, if your situation is how you describe, I'd be persuing Local authority transport. Your legal obligation then ends at the point you present the child at the transportation. If the transport then goes wrong it's on the LEA not you. They still have a legal responsibility to provide an education.

Theres a lot that can go wrong for such a long journey, either to need to be aware that you may be liable to sort (expensive) alternatives if your normal transport goes wrong or you need to check out whether the LEA are fulfilling their legal obligations in the first place (I suspect not).

If the OP's child goes to school in a different county then the LEA have no responsibility to get the child there. They will have offered a place in their LEA which the OP refused. Completely understandable if the school just across the county border is nearer and could accommodate her dc. But that leaves responsibility for transport firmly in the OP's court.

The school really has no choice but to put it down as an Unauthorised Absence. That might seem unfair but there's no choice.

OP, is it near enough to cycle?

If the OP's child goes to school in a different county then the LEA have no responsibility to get the child there. They will have offered a place in their LEA which the OP refused. Completely understandable if the school just across the county border is nearer and could accommodate her dc. But that leaves responsibility for transport firmly in the OP's court.

Local authorities must make suitable travel arrangements for eligible children to attend their qualifying school. As long as the child attends their nearest suitable school (regardless of county boundaries) and they live beyond three miles away (for 8-16 year olds) then the council must provide transport (plus other caveats around children with SEND and unsafe walking routes). “Nearest suitable school” = nearest school with places available i.e. at the point of applying for a school place there were no nearer schools with places.

If the OP's child goes to school in a different county then the LEA have no responsibility to get the child there. They will have offered a place in their LEA which the OP refused

This is not necessarily true. They will offer the nearest school with a place, and that can be in a different council area. It's not unusual for addresses which are right by a demarcation line,and for whom the nearest school within the borough with a place could be a totally unreasonable distance away.

If it's more than the qualifying distance, they should provide transport.

@catmothertes1

Why is there not a school bus if the school is 8 miles away?

There aren't generally school buses for primary schools. Sometimes for secondary.

Is the only issue with the bus that it takes a long time? If it does go between your house and the school at roughly the right times I’d probably consider that as an interim measure and pack some entertainment.

The Local Authority has a duty to provide transport. Since they have not done so, that's a defence to any attempts to fine or prosecute for the absence. But it's not likely to get to that point anyway.

HeronLanyon
Sometimes I wish we could make our own codes up
In all seriousness, I feel for the OP, but an unauthorised absence for a child who has otherwise good attendance is neither here nor there and won't go anywhere.

The school would have a bigger issue if they started authorising these sorts of absences because the chronically poor attending children would be kept off using that excuse.