to think a school should be able to look after a child for over an hour?

[pingu2209]

More of a "is my friend being unreasonable" or the school?

A mum friend of mine has a career job but can't afford a nanny. A nanny would cost all of her salary. She uses the before and after school club. She works 1 hour away and her husband works 1 1/2 hours away from school. She was phoned up and asked to come and collect her son as he had a temperature and a rash.

She said, "okay I will be there in about 1 1/4 hours." The school office said, "well we need you here asap, can you get someone to come in the next 10 mins?"

My friend said, "no, I don't have any family living near by and I am uncomfortable asking a friend to pick up my son who is ill and may be contagious."

The school said to her, "you need to have an emergency contact who can get here in under 10 mins."

She replied, "well that would be great in an ideal world, but we are not from here and have no family. A friend would pick up if I was running late, but as all my friends here have children, I can't ask them to pick up my son who is ill. I am just over an hour away but the longer I am on the phone to you the longer I will be. I need to make a couple of calls to cancel meetings etc. I can't just run out, I need about 15 mins just to close up my desk etc."

I understand that a school is there to educate our children, it is not childcare or a 'sick room'. However, surely they need to understand that if both parents are working and they don't have a nanny, one of them will be along as soon as possible.

Who is being unreasonable?

I agree with you SardineQueen.

in a perfect world we would all be there within 10 mins or have someone else who can be; the world is not perfect.

Your kids, your responsibility to care for them adequately

They are under the care at the school while they are at school. Or are parents meant to sit at the back of the class in case anything goes wrong these days.

smiler why should the school deal because they have assumed responsibility

you have answered your own question there.. because you have assumed responsibilty

dont get me wrong the responsibilty cuts both ways.. parents have a responsibilty to try and get their child picked up asap.. clearly a sick child is better in a home envirnment that a school corridor and I would be doing my best to make that happen

You do have a responsibilty to deal with the child till an appropriate adult can turn up .

Yes you have a right to be angry if they saunter in 2 hours later saying I was having my nails done or some such rubbish or they just leave it till home time cos they know he/she would be fine

but it doesnt abdicate you of the responsibility.. how the ht copes with that responsibility is part of his/her job. They can cope with it by making parents sign agreements to unreasonable pick up times, they can make teachers cope with what they see as unreasonable work load.. or take a simpler more common sense approach

but at the end of the day - they have assumed responsibilty for each child in their school and not to show any responsibilty would be a sackable offence in my opinion

The school's job is to educate children who are fit and well enough to attend - it is also their job is to provide pastoral care for the children, to act in loco parentis until the child can be picked up.

Are some posters SO dim they can't see that being able to pick a child up within half an hour is just not an option for many parents - that's life. Of course it would be lovely for the child to have Mummy or Daddy at home, ready & able to pick them up if they're feeling poorly, but shock horror - many Mums & Dads of school age children work outside the home and can't just get a well paid job near the school. FGS - don't you think they bloody well would if they could? Do you really think people choose to commute so far just for the fun of it? Not to mention that many kids are being sent to schools nowhere near their house - would you like them to all move as well??

We don't all live in small communities anymore where we know are neighbours well enough to ask this kind of favour, many of our friends are also working outside the home or have very small children and our families no longer live on our doorstep. Times have changed and not everyone is able to provide an alternative emergency contact. It may inconvenience the school, but that's the way it goes isn't it. Maybe the school need to have an emergency carer on hand who is called in when a child needs caring for? It's easier for the school to have one than each parent to have one.

Don't sick children wait in the school office? The secretary/admin person is there all day.

Ds2 had a very nasty accident at school (3 severed finger tips, 2 fractured fingers including a displaced fracture). We live a 10-15 min walk from school. I was in town when I got the call finishing Christmas shopping. My car was in the car park at the opposite end of town. I jumped in a taxi, retrieved the car, got to school - all within a 2 mile radius but it still took at least 30 minutes to get there.

School seemed to think this was completely reasonable and acceptable - I took immediate action to ensure that my child could be taken to hospital asap. Time taken was fine. OPs school definitely unreasonable.

Sardinequeen and Sybilbeddows.....

I think we're wandering into the realms of fantasy a little here. I don't think "a parent has problems that mean they need medical treatment, automatically means that they are not caring for them adequately." was ever really stated? What I think was meant was - there should be some arrangement in place which means someone else can pick the child up. If there is absolutely no one available for the reasons mentioned, then I would suggest that this is a fairly unique case and what we are taking about here are general principles.

schools are able to give prescribed medicine if parents have signed permission, they are not allowed to administer basic painkillers in cases of headaches. They are not allowed to use antiseptic cream, plasters etc. Common sense? Stymied by rules and regulations and common sense goes out of the window.

This seems to be getting silly. I see nothing wrong with schools wanting a point of contact that is generally able to get to the school pretty quickly when needed. Of course there is no way of guaranteeing they will always be available but that is different from it always being the case it will take a few hours to get there.

When a child is poorly it is in there best interest to be at home/at a friends house where they can have cuddles and sleep or whatever else to there hearts content not sat in a corner feeling sorry for themselves. Not always going to be possible but ideally it should be most of the time.

smiler. This comment is just downright nasty. Try reading it. "Realms of fantasy"

mrsbunnthebaker Wed 25-May-11 11:59:12
So tell me what to do, Smiler10. Are you honestly saying I shouldn't go to my psychotherapy group because one of the dses might get ill, and I don't have any emergency contacts apart from dh - who might well be in a meeting and unable to take the call?

thats no concern of the school. Your kids, your responsibility to care for them adequately.

Frasersmummy,

How have I answered my own question? Of course schools have responsibility for children in thier care. On a legal basis, and as part of CCS and ECF EVERY ADULT has a duty of care to children!! That's law.

The point isn't about whether the school has responsibility (I've never disputed that). What I dispute is the automatic assumption that the school "will and should cope with it", and "the school should recognise that my husband works 2 hours away, and I work 3 hours away" which is wrong. It's not thier concern!! They agree to educate - you agree to being a carer.

I'm off to make the most of my day off now (and before any smart ar$e says it, I'll keep my phone on, and make sure I'm close to the school)!

A slightly different angle: what if you're a lone parent who has to take a job with an hour's commute because it's the only job you can find? Or should that lone parent instead chose to sit at home and claim benefit in case the child is ill? No, no, hang on lone parents can't do that anymore, they have to claim jobseekers, and in the little jobseekers contract it states that you must be willing to apply for jobs with an hour's commute and if you dont, you are refusing work and will have your jobseekers money stopped. No sarcasm intended at all but in that situation what do you do if you dont have anyone who could collect quickly?

As I said before I dont know anyone from the school as I always worked so never had time to chat in the playground and make mummy friends. I had childminders but they would not mind ill children for obvious reasons.

When my ds was small he was often very poorly with asthma, he spent a lot of time in hospital so missed huge chunks of his education (and I had lots of time off work). When he went back to school he would always be on extra inhalers which the staff were not allowed to touch. I couldn't go in to help him at dinnertime as I was an hour away at work, I had to trust a six year old to take his inhalers correctly. After all this his teachers would panic if he so much as coughed and call me to collect him. I do understand why but most of these times there was nothing wrong with him. A few months later I recieved a letter from the head telling me his low level of attendance was unacceptable.

No win situation really however you look at it!

PS - that was meant to say ECM not ECF (every child matters)

Sardinequeen!! Listen to yourself for one minute and calm down! AHHHHH

What I mean is that to assume every case is like the one you're talking about is "the realms of fantasy". I've stated quite clearly that this is a fairly unusual situation (didn't you read that in my post?!?). My point is that we can't use that a fairly unusual example to aruge general points.

How is that nasty?

smiler can I ask??? its none of my business and you dont need to tell me ..

are you a teacher??

When we moved to this area we knew no one, had no family near by, both worked.

It was either my or OH to pick up the kids if they were ill. There was no other way.

The school is being stupid.

My son goes to a school with children who often become unwell during the day. Them manage fine. They dont fuss and cause a panic. They are perfectly able to treat the situation appropriately.

They do have a school nurse which helps a lot. I also think they know better than to panic parents who have more than enough to deal with already.

The child that died at a school was neglected. He had a preexisting condition and had told the staff he was unwell. He wasnt left on his own as much as ignored.

Totally different situation.

I have several emergency contacts for my children, but I can't guarantee any one of them could get to school on any given day within 10 minutes. They all have lives to lead. My neighbours work, all my friends (and children's parents) work at least part time. Like many posters, we live in the London suburbs and if we are both at work in central London, it will take us about an hour to get to school. That's not an unreasonable commute. Right now, I'm at home and could get my son in 10 minutes, but yesterday I wasn't.

I really believe, as so often on Mumsnet, that some people lead extraordinarily risk averse lives. In what universe is is possible to always work within 10 or 20 minutes of your child's school and, in fact, be able to drop everything instantly and get there even if you do? I'm often in presentations and don't even check my phone for messages until the meeting is over. Just think, only 15 years ago most people didn't have mobile phones.

Frasersmummy,

No I don't mind you asking!! No i'm not a teacher, but my partner is. However, I was school governor for a number of years (a thankless task!).

oh you did say that sorry...

That does make your stance on this thread understandable (if clearly wrong- joke honest

I enjoy a good bun fight as much as the next person but hate it when it gets personal and think it might have seemed like I was getting at you .. I am not honest..

I just picked up a couple of lines from your posts sorry for any offence

I am bowing out of this one graciusly now ..

Not at all!! Enjoyed talking with ya!

Yeah - like you, I think it's time to bow out of this one now..!

Both my parents are dead. I have no friends who are SAHM. My brother works further away than me and DH do. Who am I supposed to put down as an emergency contact other than DH, Smiler? ( who is an hour's journey away by train)? I can usually make it in 3/4 of an hour. My mum used to be the contact, then DH's mum until she died. I ran out of emergency contacts when my dad died.

Well. Smiler10, it was my comment about my psychotherapy group that called up the 'thats no concern of the school. Your kids, your responsibility to care for them adequately...' comment from MrsBunn - and believe me, it did feel nasty and personal.

I was trying to point out that there are many circumstances which would mean that I couldn't get to the school within 30 minutes. Add to that the fact that I don't know anyone round here well enough to ask them to take my child home from school (or to A&E) for me, and I am left with a stark choice. The only way I can ensure that someone is available to pick one of the dses up if they get ill, is to stay at home all day, every day. I don't have many social activities, but the two that I do have during the day would be out of the question - one is too far away, and the other involves a lot of stuff that would have to be packed up before I could leave. In neither case could I guarantee to be home inside half an hour.

Also - if school is only supposed to educate our children, why are they so involved in other things in their lives - like how they get to school or what is in their packed lunches. Surely these are the responsibility of the parent, and the schools shouldn't bother about them?

Seriously what school really doesn't have 'resources' available to keep an eye on a sick child ie: settle child in a quiet corner whilst waiting for a parent/carer to pick the child up? I have been involved with four schools recently ranging from 40 pupils to over 400 and all of them had teaching assistants/mid-day supervisors/admin staff (part time) etc - I know it is not ideal and everyone's routine would be interrupted but it is a bit far fetched to state that in a school there is literally no-one available.

We all have to deal with emergancies - including schools.

"I am amazed at the state some children are sent to school in simply because mum can't, or would find it extremely difficult to, take time off work these days."

Or DAD, maybe?

Also find it highly ironic that on this thread people are spitting feathers about how it is the schools' job to do the very important job of teaching the children, while on threads about term time holidays the consensus is - ah well it's primary school, they don't learn much, a week on the beach will be just as educational

Riveninside - was wondering the other day whether you would ever be back, so pleased to see you are and hope everything is well with you.