Schools fining for late pick up

[FredrikaPeri]

Our kid's school has instigated a fine of £1 a minute for late pick up.

Does your school do this?
How do you feel about that?

The question should be ... why are parents so consistently late to the point that the school have had to impose fines?

It's abit of a piss take from the parents.and sounds like the school are taking a stance and quite rightly so.

People saying don't be late clearly don't have two children at two different children where one child is persistently let out late which makes me late to pick up my other child! It's not my fault!

Two different schools even.

@viques use your common sense. ;) and don't be obtuse for your imaginary audience.

Pick them up from school, drop off at Grandma's and then job interview.

Honestly, some people here are morons. And no, I've never been late.

I’ve been late twice

Once there was an accident on the main road and I was stuck for over 4 hours, I phoned DH who was 1/2 hour away and he left work to pick them up I phoned the school and they put DC in after school club which I paid for.

2nd time I was in hospital with one DC and was late by 15 mins (appointments over ran) school were absolutely fine about it. I did profusely apologise and dc had been awaiting that appointment for 6 months, in hind sight I should have booked after school club that day - but wasn’t expecting a 12.45 appointment to be an hour and a half nearly 2 hours late.

It does appear that we have a few at our school which are on the consistently late (for both drop off and pick ups) I have no idea if they are changed or not, I don’t pay attention. Perfectly reasonable in my opinion

Ouch, bringing out your big words to wound! I only asked because personally I would have allowed a decent margin of time to get to an interview so would have made alternative arrangements for after school.

No because you're not being expected by the school to care for the children outside of your standard contracted hours...

I agree with this, it's unfair to expect staff to watch your kids after school when they have work to do and their own lives to get on with. It's also upsetting for children if parents are late, can make them very anxious.

It’s a great idea. It’s really simple: don’t be late.

Don’t most schools have a pick up window? Unofficially at least? Our official let out time is 3:25 rarely is a child seen until at least 3:28 and then they file out the classes one by one. I don’t do a lot of pick-ups only on activity days but I’d be pissed off to be fined a fiver at the gate at 3:30 given the dc won’t make it out of school for another two minutes. I think any unpicked up child is brought back in at 3:40 to sit on the chairs of shame. (Parents shame not the child) Fair enough to start fining at that point as creating extra work as office staff will call to find out where you are.

Oh sorry @viques ! I didn't mean to be so sensitive about the whole situation. I was just so stressed as it was a last minute interview and I really loved the job spec. I hate being unemployed - its heart flutteringly stressful.

Sorry!! 🫂

Not a problem at all just don't be late. My DC were never late for school and I was never late collecting them.

No problem, hope the interview went well.

There is a good story in ‘Freakonomics’ about when a school in the US did it. They found that late pick-ups increased dramatically. $1 for great child-care? Absolute bargain. The parents picked their kids up an hour later.

I don't think this (or a version of it) is that unusual. Over 40 years ago my school used to put children in the after school care club if their parents were late and the parents would have to pay for the whole session.

Are there some people who'll always be late regardless because it seems to me the majority of people have reasonable reasons to be late i.e. traffic accident, overrunning appointments and so forth. It seems a lot to me, 5 mins is £5.

Splendid idea

There's one local scenario when half the parents would be late - there's a canal bridge that if opened means a good 10 minute detour (ignoring gridlock). Would also catch people coming back from local shops on foot, and the footbridge detour is similar time (shorter distance because of tow path and going the wrong way down 1 way streets on foot). I can't find any schedule for that bridge opening online - it's literally when boats need to pass, got caught by it on the way to work a few time though!

I've been late for pick up a couple of times, both involved major code browns from younger DC as we were about to leave (so would have been worse if we'd left earlier).

@FredrikaPeri I think it’s ridiculous, £1 a minute is disgraceful with everything that’s going on right now and families struggling to eat. I don’t think any parent is deliberately late, I often see those with younger children struggle to make it on time occasionally and understandably so. Sometimes a baby poops at the last minute or toddlers decide they want to stop walking and examine a twig on the ground for 5min.

I think it's right to put the DC into after school care and charge if that option is available otherwise keep a record, late more than twice in a school year is a referral to child services. I can't see how fining works otherwise, how do they bill the parents and enforce it? What if parents refuse to pay? It's not like school can refuse the child their school place.

I suppose the other option is that after school time is the total responsibility of parents and children walk home on their own as they did when I was a child. If the parents don't want little Johnny to cross the roads they get there to collect. If child has accident etc it is on the parents.

Lateness is very annoying in all walks of life but sometimes unavoidable.

I was late twice for pickup for DD in her whole time at primary school. Once was because of a huge crash blocking a main road near the school - they'd even shut the pavement to pedestrians because of fire risk and scattered glass as I found when I got off the bus and tried walking. Loads of people were late that day.

Second time was because I had to take DS to A&E. I phoned the school and they agreed to keep DD until I could arrange someone else to pick her up.

Persistent lateness must be very irritating for school staff. However I think a £1 a minute is excessive and going to be nearly impossible to administrate. Short of standing with a stop watch how are you going to judge it? If there is a queue of parents to pick children up how do you determine the exact time of arrival - when they get to the door? When they join the queue? What do you do if they dispute it - and people would be sure to

£5 for 5 minutes and a pound for every 2 minutes after that would probably be a lot simpler to administrate.

So how late does a parent have to be before that £1 a minute kicks in? Are they charged if they’re not standing at the gate the minute the teacher brings the kids out?

I’d have issues with that policy at my kids primary school if they started charging immediately.

They let the kids out from 3 different gates, EYFS at one gate, KS1 at a 2nd gate and KS2 at a 3rd gate.
It’s not possible for a parent who’s at one gate to be seen by a teacher letting kids out of another gate due to the school layout.
Usually the teachers try to stagger the exit times slightly, but it’s not uncommon for kids to start appearing at more than one gate simultaneously.

So at my DC’s primary a parent with children in different year groups can be on site before the school finish time and still not manage to get all their DC immediately.

I think it’s a great idea, our school’s policy is £2.50 per 15minuets. If you’re not late it won’t effect you so no point worrying over it.

I'm interested in those schools that put late parents' children into after school care. Our school makes you book a term at a time because they're at capacity; they don't have the staff ratios to add in some random extra child.

It does depend if its a one off can't be avoided accurate or regular piss take. I had 4 kids at four different schools once. I now have 3 at 3 different schools. Luckily currently my LA is liable for two of their transport but if for any reason that stopped I would be praying it got reported to socail services for my kids disability SW to get involved. What do you do when two schools kick out at the same time? One is a infant and one has serve SEN. Who would you leave hanging about? In my case my SEN child as transport has the right to take the child to the police station ( the nearest is 15 miles away) so that would resolve my issue sharpish