Serious incidents between pupils in the school holidays

[Foxesandsquirrels]

Out of curiosity, how do schools go about dealing with serious incidents in the school holidays? As an example, things like serious fights between pupils, pupils being caught shoplifting, arrested etc. Things that would get you, at the very least, some sort of suspension in term time. I don't expect schools to sort this out, but this sort of thing ends up getting dragged into the school eventually. Do they just come back in Sept to deal with the collateral damage? Do social services take over or is there some sort of DSL on duty the whole time?

@QueenofLouisiana how do you book holidays out of interest? Our senco has an out of office saying consultations will be answered within 2 weeks of the return to school. This is a mainstream school but has a vv high ehcp population. Roughly 15 per year.

@Foxesandsquirrels we have booked a holiday at the end of August, so if I check emails before I go I can be back in time to respond in the 15 days.

Legally, it’s 15 days- working or not!

This year we need to be around for DS’s a levels and DH has to be in school for 2 days around GCSE results, so actually the very end works quite well.

We don’t travel to places with no wifi for extended periods! Not what we planned now we don’t have children in tow, that’s for sure.

Our inner city school DSL and safeguarding teams are contacted if it involves things like domestic violence, abuse etc. However, it is the police and social services that trigger it.
Incidents of kids fighting, stealing from shops etc wouldn’t be flagged with DSL in the holidays or out of school hours unless it was due to child neglect. I’m pretty certain that’s the case everywhere

How are you pretty certain that's the case everywhere? I don't mean that in a facetious way, but how on earth could you possibly know that? Every DSL, DDSL and head that's commented on here has said the opposite to you.

So if you were assaulted by one of your work colleagues out of work time you would expect your HR department to just shrug it off?

Not in my area, the safeguarding process with the police, social workers etc. runs twenty four hours a day every day and notifications are made on the risk and need, not due to who is working. My professional experience is that ICPCs, missing persons' meetings and MARACs keep on going all year round but in our area they are not usually attended by schools if it's not term time.

I would expect the police to deal with it, not HR.

You are deluded. If you assaulted one of your colleagues in or out of work, you would lose your job AND police would be involved.
Parents complain all the time now schools don't prepare kids for the real world. I think in school consequences for dangerous and illegal activities outside of school, are a very valuable and real lesson kids should be learning.

But you would still expect HR to be made aware of it so that they can monitor the situation, take appropriate steps to keep you safe and escalate the matter as needed.

I would expect HR to respond on the next working day-not at the weekend or holidays.

I would expect HR to respond on the next working day-not at the weekend or holidays.

But there are statutory timescales for some aspects of safeguarding.

For safeguarding staff every day is the next working day.

It's sad this is being debated really. I'm also sad that it all falls onto schools. The system is broken.

And you're a real charmer to everyone who doesn't quite think like you do.

Thinks like me? What are you on about. Name one job where you can assault your colleague and still keep your job.

Surely you can see a difference between if it happened in work or out? No work witnesses? Innocent til proven guilty? Or do you expect a level of vigilantism in the office? Anyone could go to HR and say Foxes attacked me.

You think a child would be suspended because someone said they had a fight with no evidence? I don't see your point tbh. When there is an allegation of wrongdoing at work, depending on the allegation the employees are at the very least separated and at most, suspended until investigation is done. HR would always be involved.

You can definitely lose your job if you attack a colleague outside work.

I have known it happen more than once.

Of course people could make malicious allegations. People can do that about anything. That’s why HR would speak to the people involved and do a bit of digging.

If it also comes with a conviction of some sort, it’s unlikely to be malicious complaint.

If there’s no evidence and the person is denying it, then they will get away with it. Just like they would if someone accused them of stealing or anything else.

Parents complain all the time now schools don't prepare kids for the real world.

How have we reached the point where people genuinely think all parental responsibility should be outsourced to schools?! Stuff kids do outside of school in the holidays or weekends is for parents to deal with.

It's sad this is being debated really. I'm also sad that it all falls onto schools. The system is broken.

Tbf @Foxesandsquirrels a certain amount falls on schools and it's a lot but other agencies also share the burden.

Yup on paper. The reality is the threshold for referral to social services in my borough is so high most kids who would be on early help pre pandemic don't even make it past referral. Same with camhs and every other external service. Schools are left to pick up the pieces.

I don't know how we have got there, but there is a scary amount of parents who just don't care.

We'll have to agree to disagree - I'm referring to real life experience and not on paper.

Same. I think once you get to the stage of external agencies though, I feel it really depends on your area and it's likely a post code lottery in terms of quality of service and timelines.

I would say that the situation is that all agencies - social services, police, housing, the criminal justice system, family courts,CAMHS, Special Schools, local authorities, health service - are ALL peddling their hardest and doing what they can with the resources they have available. Nobody is sitting around saying ‘we’ll relax and let schools pick it up’, everyone is working hard on a huge caseload with too few staff and high staff turnover.

Things fall to schools because, when all the services that they should be able to refer on to have no capacity, the fact remains that schools see a child every day, and it is impossible to see a child in need and say ‘you know, as nobody has capacity to see you - for no fault of theirs - we’ll just ignore your needs’.

Every part of the system is doing their best. Just the capacity doesn’t meet the level of need.