Wanting to get this teacher fired

[lividbeyondbelief]

My dd attends a language class on saturday mornings in central london. This week due to horrible traffic we were 30 minutes late to collect her. We tried texting her teacher to say we were stuck in traffic but never got a reply. Anyway to make a long story short - she left my dd outside the school, alone with another boy, whilst she went out to go buy lunch. To make matters worse she told her to lie to us and say she was in the room next door if we asked where the teacher was when we collected our dd.

Our daughter was really upset and cried whilst being outside alone with this boy. My dh noticed she had been crying but the teacher just dismissed it, saying to dh she cried because he was late.

Obviously the bond of trust is broken and she wont be going back ever again. My question is what else should we do?

I know it's not a preschool - I was giving an example

SPB - what if your back up plan failed? I mean, just because you have filled in a form giving details of a friend, doesn;t mean they are available 24/7 in the event that you can't pick up your child.

But this has nothing to do with preschool children. And am I really the only one who thinks this is a load of old bollocks? Because I really don't believe a word of this

(Actually there are so many inconsistencies, I'm inclined to agree Sarah!)

"vintageteacups Sun 20-Feb-11 20:57:26
herbietea it is possible to send a text but not have enough reception for a call
"

Yes, it is as I have discovered!! where we live the coverage is dreadful, my old phone could never make calls but could send/receive texts - I assume because there is a window of opportunity rather than a need for continuous coverage. My new one can make calls OK which in itself is odd - it's the same SIM

seeker, I don't think that's what any but a small minority of people are saying.

It's that, even if the teacher shouldn't have left the children alone, it may have been hard for her to know what else to do, and it certainly doesn't excuse the parent.

No, although it doesn't have anything to do with preschool children, I'm using that to illustrate the point that the language school isn't adhearing to policy and procedure. Safeguarding children doesn't just get dropped because it's not a school running it.

Voilethill - no you haven't - responded to my scentatio, I mean. I'm asking you directly - would you be happy to find your child sitting on the wall outside a locked school if you were unavoidably late?

Yes or no.

As someone who has actually written safeguarding children policies and procedures, I know that the school are not fulfilling their policies (if they have actually written any!!!)

violet, if my backup plan failed I would expect my DCs to stay exactly where they were and for that responsible adult to stay with them. Obviously I'd be passing any late pick up charges onto the OP.

I suppose to my mind NO MATTER what other businss I have in mind, not leaving small children alone is top priority. Everything else would have to work round that. I wouldn't like it in the slightest.

Is it the age of the children? After all, what if they were 2 and 3? Presumably nothing then could be so important that you'd leave them alone??

If it ios about the ages,/ that I can understand (or not as the case may be - I ahve no knowledge of London and no knowledge of 6/7 year olds). But if people are arguing that for this age this was reasonable, I could buy that. Just not the "she had something more important to do" argument.

seeker - it depends on many variables - age of child, their temperament, the location....

And whether I was unhappy about it or ok with it, the big question I would be asking is: could I have had any part to play in this at all?

That's pretty crucial really.

If young children are allowed out of a class early, and left sitting outside, the tutor is in clear breech of their responsbility to be teaching the class.

If I had turned up half an hour late, without bothering to phone ahead (because apparently being half an hour late is no big deal!) then I would hopefully have the good grace to be annoyed with myself, not the tutor.

I would never be in a sitation where I had to collect my own child so close to the end of my own classes. I know that no matter what I have to be the very last person to leave the premises.

Someone mentioned a ballet class. At dd's ballet class the primary aged children are handed over to a parent. If one is slightly late they sit in the corner of the dance studio whilst the teacher starts the next class.

I have been running classes for 8 years and in that time have had children beibg picked up late numerous times. I prefer that parents text rather than call becasue I can not usually hear/answer the phone if I am supervising/teaching children wheras I can quickly glance at a text. However mobile coverage is poor in the area where the school is.

The most I would do would be to leave a child sitting in the reception area (which has a buzzer entry door) whilst I went off to get a drink/something to eat/pack up by stuff.

arrgghh!! breach

but surely the two issues are completely separate. The OP could have been fairly to blame (as in this situation) or she could have keeled over with a heart attack 10 minutes before setting off. That has nothing to do with the reasonable duty of care adults have towards children.

And the point people have repeatedly made, is that the reasonable duty of care, could easily have conflicted with the tutors duty of care to her own children (or dependent relatives, or health, or whatever..)

I would have been annoyed by the OP, especially if I had wanted to gt off early or needed to pop out to buy lunch but I would never have left a child alone.

elphabadefiesgravity and what if you left that child there sitting alone and there was a fire? Would that have been left by you inside the building alone?

surely duty of care is of whoever is responsible for the chilkd at the time? Your child will be with another responsible adult, surely? Which provides more options.

I don't think it is a language school - its someone who is paid to teach a few children their parent's language for free for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning. It just happens to be held in a school hall but is no more anything to do with the school than if someone hires the hall in the afternoon for a childrens' party.

I very much doubt it is registerd in anyway and probably is run on an relaxed basis (no eveidence for this but just the way the OP's posts read to me). The "teacher" probably hasn't had any training and has either done what she thinks is best or just hasn't really given it much thought at all as maybe her culture isn't bound by health and safety at every turn.

Not saying that the teacher was right at all, just trying to make some sense of the situation without much input from the OP.

Still avoiding a direct answer I see, violethill.

stealthpolarbear your point is perfectly valid, but there needs to be a separation between the responsibilities of the teacher and the school.

To be honest it seems to me that it was the school that's at fault here if:

• there was no other member of staff the teacher could turn to in order to ask them to key an eye on the children

• the school hadn't given better instructions out to parents over what to do in the event they can't pick up their children

livid just out of curiosity, de donde eres?

seeker, would you leave a 6 year old child in this situation, to go and collect your own 6 year old child?

MrIC I completely disagree. No responsible adult would leave a child. If she were a teacher other policies would come into effect. She isn't (as far as we can tell). All she has is general adult common sense and sense of responsibility and care.