School lost my child…

[anicecuppateaa]

School have a policy of handing over children at the classroom door, so parents queue up each morning/ afternoon. Yesterday our childminder went to pick 4 year old DTs up and only one appeared when called by the teacher.

Teacher thought DT1 was in the toilet and it was only when the classroom was empty they realised he wasn’t. He had walked round to another playground (on the other side of the school) trying to find childminder.

I am not sure what, if anything to ask/ say to school. They were very blase this morning when I asked about it, and if anything blamed the childminder, whereas she says they had a number of teachers and other staff looking for him.

Should I chat to school again or leave it? Would you be satisfied with their response? (i have also spoken to DTs and reminded them to never leave without an me/ childminder)

This is not an acceptable response from the school. Communicate with the Head by email so there is a written trail. The staff should be giving this a lot of thought and changing their procedures straight away so they can reassure you.

Maybe ask the childminder to give her version in writing to you. For them to blame her seems completely ridiculous.

If they only handed one of your two children over to the childminder in the first instance then how on earth can the school be seeking to attribute this incident down to her? That’s ridiculous.
The fact that this scenario unfolded should provoke an appropriate level of professional contrition and resultant review of safeguarding procedures at pick up / drop off. At the very least

So the school is saying the childminder is lying then? Because if the children were in the classroom and only one appeared when called, that cannot possibly be the childminder's fault because they weren't with her. It could only be the childminder's fault if both children were handed over, and then one disappeared.

Thank you for the comments. I have a tendency to either do nothing or overreact in these situations so wanted to sense check my response.

There is only one way out of the classroom so he must have got out when other children were being handed over. Or he was called and slipped past the teacher/ childminder but that is SO unlike him I don’t know why he would have done that.

I want to email the school and ask about procedures/ how they will ensure this doesn’t happen again. Does that sound reasonable? I don’t want to be that parent but equally want my dc to be safe!

I'm confused as to why did the kid walk to another playground rather than go to the usual place though?

@anicecuppateaa Is the problem that your DT got his coat and didn’t go back into the classroom to be released by the teacher? That really means the teacher did not notice he hadn’t come back. I’m assuming he didn’t squeeze past the classroom door.

In these circumstances, I would contact the head and ask for an explanation as to why DT was not in the classroom to be released to your childminder. If your DT wandered off, they should not have been able to get out of the school. So was he found in the school, or outside? If outside, how did he get out? What doors are unsupervised or can be opened by a child without being seen? Were there unsupervised open doors? Ask very direct questions. They have a duty of care to dc and ask how this will be undertaken in future with a view to keeping DC safe. I would expect a full response. If you don’t get it, escalate via the complaints policy.

What does DT mean?

@LumiK because the childminder picks up 2 older children from the KS2 classrooms.

@TizerorFizz teacher stands at the door to the playground and calls the child(ren) whose parent is at the front of the line. Child then comes to get their coat and goes past teacher into playground (not sure if that makes sense…but its classroom, coat, teacher in order of things to go past). He was found in school grounds, but on the other side of the school (having walked through 3 different open gates).

Twin

Losing a 4 year old is completely unacceptable. The schools response is very poor, that would send my alarm bells ringing that they are trying to twist the blame onto somebody else.
I would definitely email them to express your concerns.

Have you asked your 4yo what happened? The teacher doesn't know, the childminder doesn't know... but the 4yo probably knows how he got out.

Do you know how your dc got separated?

@TickingAlongNicely not really. He was very upset last night when i tried to ask him (which, along with his general character makes me almost certain he didn’t deliberately try to escape). The childminder said the same and said her priority was to make sure he was ok/ didn’t want to upset him further, but I will ask him again tonight.

Did he go to the toilet and where are they in relation to the class? Because it might make sense that he went to the loo, and then seeing it was dismissal time for some unknown reason didn’t go back to the classroom and instead went to try to find the childminder?? Maybe thinking of the older kids the childminder also collects if we went in the direction of their playground/classrooms?? I wouldn’t like the schools response either though, and how on earth could it possibly be anything to do with the childminder? Talk to the head and if they still can’t explain it then I would complain. It’s not good enough with a 4YO.

@anicecuppateaa The school are clearly wrong to not know where a YR child is. There should not be open external doors available to him. He must have been absent from the classroom but probably when the teacher stood at the door. I’d still probably ask about school security because if parents are coming and going, I assume gates were open too. My DC also did classroom, cloakroom but were released from the cloakroom and no other way out. I think you have suffered from a lack of security and inattention by staff. Don’t let them blame DT.

The school need to investigate why the child wandered off. That’s not particularly typical behaviour.

I'd absolutely be speaking to the school, it's unacceptable anything could have happened. He could have walked out the gate and been hit by a car or anything. I'd be wanting a real apology and reassurance that it won't happen again

@Tessasays Unless a school has strict protocols about open external doors, they cannot promise anything.

Most schools have doors that use high latches and buzz in entry. So a teacher lets out DC by opening a door. No other doors should be open unless monitored by a teacher. So this teacher didn’t know where DT was because she was standing by the door to release DC. The DT presumably walked out of the other door but then found an open external door. This is the fault of security protocols. The DT should not have been able to find an open unmanned door. He should not be able to open an external door by himself. So did he walk out with another child? Was he elsewhere is the school? It’s very lax. DT could presumably have walked out of the grounds too.

This is very poor and if the school can't offer an explanation and reassurances as to what is in place to prevent this in future then I would consider contacting the LADO at your local authority. This is safeguarding matter.

School definitely being a bit useless there.

Also might be a good opportunity to reassure DTs that they did nothing wrong and maybe talk through what they should do if something similar happens in the future - back to the classroom/go to the office or whatever the procedure should be - until they're collected.

DC should know the route back to the classroom but teacher should know where DC are and they should remain in the classroom.

I've had a similar situation before (as a teacher). A child did go to the toilet but in the rush of home time, I took the rest down and told him to come to our line when he finished. We have multiple exits at home time and my boy decided to take himself out another class's door because he thought he wouldn't have to line up with us. His mum was very understanding but it did prompt a change from me in the way I manage end of day procedure and now I always get them to either go first if they need or they have to be dismissed and then wait until the whole line is gone to ask to come back in. Much easier to keep track of them when it's one child than 33! I'm sure the teacher will have been super stressed but it's worth a conversation because being reflective about situations that occur help better our practice.

Hopefully no more than 30 in the class and hopefully a TA present too. I do think the teacher needs to know all dc are in the classroom before anyone goes outside. Also it needs to be clear that the only outside route dc can use is the via their own classroom and must have a handover from teacher.

The school also needs to reassess its health and safety policy in relation to security and safety of DC. It’s not entirely a safeguarding issue but of course it’s linked.