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 really don't get this stuff about there not being enough staff in schools to deal with sick children. I went to primary school in the 70's. We did not have a nurse at the school. The nurse came in occasionaly to test hearing, look for nits, etc. There were no TA's.

IMO there were less school staff then, but schools dealt with sick children sensibly. Yes there were more sahm, but there were others who worked like my mum as it was a poor area. And it was rare to have a home phone never mind a mobile.

Anyone who went into town shopping for example, would be totally uncontactable. And where I lived was a new build area, so few people had families very close by.

If children were sick they usually sat in the school office with the school secretary keeping an eye on them.

Nothing you have posted smiler explains why it is any harder these days for schools to do exactly the same.

Totally agree with you lesley33 - I was at school in the 60s - no question of mobile phones etc and it wasn't that rare to not even have a phone at home. I am sure we never had 'emergency contacts' either. We also had no TAs in the class rooms. The schools just had to cope.

yy lesley

Well Lesley, all I can refer you to is the Ofsted webpage and the legislation surrounding Non Maintained Schools regulation 2009; Section 175 of the Education Act 2002, The Childrens Act 2004, Keeping Children Safe, and ECM (Every Child Matters).

Each of those peices of legisation which informs how schools interact and care for childen in thier care. What they can do - what they can't do. Good practice, bad practice etc.

I don't have time to find all the relevant sections and paragraphs, but feel free to look yourself - it's all in there. So - to say that nothing's changed since the 70's is completely incorrect.

oh and with the Norovirus, schools are being very cautious - and rightfully so. This froms mumsnet...

www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/children-parenting-190/primary-school-age-4-11-years-60/482309-school-sickness-policy.html

But the school isn´t saying that the parents should be within 10mins drive/walk whatever.

It´s saying a contact of less that an hour away would be nice!

I'm actually quite surprised there is anybody who thinks the school is being reasonable!

Like someone else said, I work in the same building as one of my daughters and in the next door building to the other (the nursery school.) But if my children are ill they stay in school (granted we have a nice cosy sick bay with beds, books and DVDs available). I have classes to teach and we don't get supply teachers in my school, people lose their free periods to cover. I'm not prepared to put out other colleagues and have my classes subjected to an endless supply of cover work rather than teaching just so I can take a child home who is perfectly safe and well cared for in school.

I live in a village where the only people I know are also teachers in the school. My mum lives at the other end of the country and I have no other family close by. I am a single parent.

There aren't any more options. It's never occured to me that the school wouldn't be understanding on this issue.

manicinsomniac......

Who does think the school is being reasonable? Or to put it another way who here has said that 10 mins is reasonable?

diddl - in the opening post the parent was told that there needed to be an emergency contact within 10 minutes of the school.

This is just one of those cases of an administrator annoyed at having been put out so making crap up. You get the same sort of thing if you try to do something out of the ordinary at the doctors or in a bank (there was a thread about bank clerks making up crap a few days ago).

What are parents supposed to do if they have kids at two different schools?

What does the school do if they go on a trip? Demand that the emergency contacts follow the school bus at a distance no greater than 10 minutes? Dont think so!

This is one of those things that makes me glad our youngest finishes primary in a few weeks.

This is a pointless arguement based on hurt feelings and an awful lot of 'coulda, woulda, shoulda'! No one was bu as the school looked after the child in question and the parent collected her child as soon as she could. The fact that the school expressed disapproval is really irrelavant as it will not prevent them doing exactly the same thing if the situation arises again.

If the parent feels slighted by the remarks from the school office then she should have a nice or or and get over it. Reality is, not everyone is going to be conveniently located to pick up children at short notice. You should always try to provide emergency contacts but they cannot always be there asap. [shrugs] shit happens. Far too much needless hand wringing on this thread imo.

Even if there is an emergency contact within an hour you can guarantee that the genuine emergency saves itself up for when the contact is uncontactable. My DCs have always saved their crises up for when I was abroad and only DH was available to get the injured child to hospital. It is just sod's law.

bigmouthstrikesagain.....

Smiths fan perchance? (apols for hijacking the thread!)

"diddl - in the opening post the parent was told that there needed to be an emergency contact within 10 minutes of the school."

Yes, I know.

But I took no notice as it´s obviously crap & was said for effect.

My dd is in a country school. The majority of the pupils live more than 10minutes away because the place is spread out. Even if they were all SAHM they couldn't guarantee getting there within 20minutes and that is providing they were in

We are one of the closest the quickest I have walked it is 8minutes when she was sent home sick. If you factor in putting on shoes, coat and switching off cooker etc. that would be more than 10minutes or are we supposed to run bare foot, jacketless and allow the house to go on fire in the process

How could you tell - yes, among other bands - but Morrissey provides the best song titles to plunder imo

Hi - I'm the OP. The 10 min rule is a rule, not crap made up by the school office secretary.

We are all asked to list 3 emergency numbers on school forms. The 10 min rule is not listed on the form but the office quoted it to me about 3 years ago.

My emergency contacts were: 1st me (normally at home but went out for the day), 2nd my dh who works in the City and 3rd my mum who lives an hour and 20 mins away (and actually doesn't drive so would rely upon her partner driving her if he was in).

I was supposed to pick my ds2 up at 12pm from the school pre-school but got stuck in traffic due to road closures. I was very new to the area (lived there less than 3 months) so I didn't know of other routes to get back to the school and got totally lost. I phoned the school saying I was lost and stuck trying to get back. I phoned them 3 times to keep in touch and to say I was still coming. In the end I was 1 1/2 hours late!!!!!!

I got to the school after driving for 2 1/2 hours feeling very stressed. To say the school was angry would be an understatement. I ended up having a row with the pre-school teacher and a lady in the school office.

I was told "you need to have SatNav" - seriously this was the answer the lady in the office gave me. I was told "you need to have an emergency contact who can pick up within 10 mins". I said, "but I don't know anyone here and my family either work or live well over an hour away". The teacher said, "that is not good enough, you need to find someone. We insist you change your emergency contacts".

I said, "but who? I know nobody". Basically this ping ponged back and forth for about 5 mins.

The school were not set up to look after a preschool child within the office/sick room. But I couldn't help my situation either - it was a one off as I normally am around the school area.

They were really really angry and I do feel their attitude is indicative of how they are to all parents.

They are being totally unreasonable pingu.
Ignore anyone who says otherwise

Although people may back off on finding out that you are a SAHM who was caught away from home, rather than an evil WOHM mother

OP sorry to hear that this is apparently a rule (though TBH I would still want to hear this from the head).

I would check this back with the local education authority (assuming that you are in the UK). If I am supposed to have an emergency contact within 10 minutes of the school then I can insist that they stay within 10 minutes of my emergency contacts and not go on extravagently expensive and pointless improving school trips.

Pingu - the school are being totally unreasonable. Say if your 3 'new' contacts were all unavaible. Are emergency contacts supposed to contact the school every day to say "I'm popping into town and will be more than 10 mins away, so if any of the children who I am a contact for, are ill, I won't be able to .

They are trying to be difficult -perhaps laying down their authority as you're new?

OP - I too would challenge that 10 min nonsense by the school. I'd ask to speak to the head and ask for the sickness policy (the school will have one).

Seeker

Also the wait for an hour until someone collects them point is irrelevant unless you are saying that the parent should give up work or move house (all for a one off incident?).

Even if someone else had collected the boy, it would very possibly be someone who doesn't "love him". He might also have to walk to the home of the person , especially if that person had other children and no room in the car etc.

If you are saying the parent shouldn't work and should always be 100% available to come into school in less than 30 mins (even you agree 10mins is ridiculous) than that is fine but let's be clear that that is what you are saying.

Any other solution would not be guaranteed to avoid the "feverish miserable boy " having to wait to see someone who "loves him" That is life sometimes

I work in a nursery school

if a child is sick, they get snuggled on the sofa and read stories, or left to sleep with adults checking on them regularly, until a parent can come and get them

nobody expects parents to be able to be there within ten minutes ffs

and we cuddle ill or hurt or upset children, it would be failing to meet their basic needs if we did not

wrt schools - some parents have social difficulties and have no friends, should they not work at all or go shopping?

some people work in jobs which they can't just walk out on - emergency medical settings for example, or the prison service - should they not send their children to ordinary state schools then?

this argument is preposterous. Of course it is the job of a school to take care of a sick child until someone can be found to pick them up.

What I didn't tell any of you was that the boy in question had a very slightly raised temperature and his 'rash' were about 5 bites on his tummy. When his mum got him home he wasn't acting ill at all, he was fine, clearly his temperature wasn't affecting him.

Her view was that the school were totally over reacting and the office staff just wanted to get rid of him as they didn't want the resonsibility of having to look after him. (It is the school office that look after 'sick' children by sitting them on a chair in the office).

Where I live lots of parents live over an hour away from their work. I'm sure that they would love to live nearer but the cost of housing prevents this. OP, I'm sure that next time the school rings to ask you to collect your dc from school at short notice you will know not to mention how long it will take you. Just say that you are on your way - you will get there when you can. Even if you have an emergency contact they may not be able to get to the school right away, they might be anywhere.

Besides, I once got a call from the school to tell me that dc had a red patch on his arm and please would I collect him asap as it might be contagious. If it was ever there at all it had gone by the time I got to school 1 hour later. I still don't know what they were on about and it's made me take such calls with a pinch of salt now because I know that they won't hesitate to call me for what was seeminly no reason at all.