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 understand people not wanting to go further than their job description when they haven't had a pay rise for years and you do have to put a limit on the 'extras' that you do. Most employers sadly overload anyone who is good, diligent and flexible with too much work and responsibility, which then leads them to become stressed, demotivated and probably find work elsewhere...but I digress

Though I have to say the matters addressed above certainly should be part of the school staff's job description.

But ultimately, the school did take responsibility-and to be fair, if they don´t have facilities & he has to sit in the office, of course they want him there for as short a time as possible.

Hulababy - we moved to Scotland, and I had to leave my support network behind in Essex. Even though we have been here for three years, I haven't made many friends yet, and none who I would be able to ask to be an emergency contact for the dses if they got ill, and dh and I were unavailable.

So can you please explain how I am supposed to have a life of any sort at all. I attend a weekly psychotherapy group - it's 1.5 hours long, and I have to switch my phone off whilst I am there, and there will be times when dh is unavailable at that time too - he might be down in London or even in Germany - so what should I do? Not go, in case the school need to contact me?

What about my having a social life - if I decide to go to Glasgow or Braehead or Silverburn for shopping, I could well be over an hour from home, by the time I had got back to the car and made my way through the traffic. So presumeably these are out of the question.

I'm sure I am not the only person who has little or no back up outside of a partner, and would find it nigh impossible to find another emergency contact - so if I am to fulfill my obligations as a parent (at least, my obligations as far as some on this thread are concerned), I would have to stay at home all day, every day - just in case.

And at least I am lucky enough not to have to work.

The fact that the rash had died down by the time the parent arrived - some hour or more later - is pretty irrelevant tbh. The fact is when the school called the child did have a temperature and a rash, As said before, ime, sending a child home is not doe on a whim or lightly.

And the mum did not know that the rash would have died down by the time she'd arrived.

Can you imagine the complaints on MN if the school had not called mum and the rash had been something more worrying? Why did school not call? Why was my child left at school feeling ill? Why did school let a contagious child stay at school infecting the other children? etc.

Can you not be contacted at all in an emergency? At the prison I wasn't allowed a phone and had no direct phone - but there was a number school could call if case of emergency and someone could get to me. I wouldn't have been able to get to school within an hour granted, but it would have been very unusual for both m and Dh to be uncontactable or over an hour away.

In real emergencies, as said before, schools will hold onto children. I can think of no cases where they wouldn't.

I am an emergency contact for one of DD's school friends. I have been sincebeing at the school for just a few weeks. We got to know one another entirely via the children. But she asked me as she was struggling and of course I agreed. Perhaps your children have a special friend whose parents might be willing for the very rare occasion it might be needed?

Something like that did happen to ds2, Hulababy. He was left with an obviously broken wrist, sitting at school waiting for dh to get to him. It just happened that that day I had gone to the gym with a friend, and my phone was out of earshot in my locker whilst I was in the pool, but luckily dh was on his way back from London (we lived in Essex) for a dr's appointment and was able to divert and pick up ds2.

But the school was less than two minutes drive from the front door of A&E, and even though the school were 'in loco parentis', they did NOT act as a reasonable parent would have done, and take him straight there - which is what dh did as soon as he saw ds2's wrist. Obviously the secretaries are not trained first aiders or healthcare professionals, but neither is dh, and he saw straight away that ds2 needed to go to casualty. I can't help wondering how long the school would have left him sitting there, if they hadn't been able to get hold of dh. Before you ask - yes, I did have another emergency contact, but she doesn't drive, so would have had to walk to school and walk ds2 to casualty.

I am not entirely sure that I would want to tell the school 'if you need me at such and such a time on such and such a day, I will be at the local mental hospital (very identifiable name) having group therapy, Hulababy.

Pressed post too soon:

All the boys are at senior school, so I don't know any of their friends' parents, other than to say 'Hi' to in passing at Parents Evenings. I genuinely do not know any of them well enough even to know if they work during the day, let alone to ask them to be an emergency contact.

I am such a billy no mates.

I dont see why a school should take a child to school for a non life threatening injury. Unless it was obvious the limb was at risk then the school did the right thing waiting for the parents to arrive IMO.

Sirzy you think a child with a broken bone should be sitting in pain waiting to be collected, however long it takes, because it's "not the school's job" to take them to A&E?

You're all heart

Unless they know the parents are hours away yes. The should do first aid and wait unless they are in agony or the limb is compromised. They can't know if it's a break or a sprain or just bruising anyway.

I broke my wrist at school, I waited for my mum to arrive went to a and e and survived to tell the tale. A friend broke his arm but had an open fracture the school got him straight to a and e.

To take a child to a and e will take 2 members of staff for child protection reasons and therefore should only be done in an emergency.

I think a broken bone qualifies!!

My dh was on a train on his way down from London - certainly well over half an hour away from the school, Sirzy. And ds2 had already been sitting there whilst the school had tried (and failed) to contact me.

So a child with a broken bone should sit in the school office until their parent arrives? That is just silly.

Of course the school should take him/her to hospital - and leave a message with the parent to meet them there. That's what all schools I have ever had anything to do with would do.

Even when I was at art college, the tutor took time out of his day to take one of my mates to A&E. And no, no one complained that we were being left without a teacher because you'd have to be a total prick to do that really.

Just had that today. I'm a CM and had a 1yr old and 2yr with me and we were having a lovely time at the local paddling pool. But we took almost 1hr to collect my DD1 as first of all I had to get the mindees dried and changed, then walk to the car (one is a very slow walker).

To be fair the school just said 'Get here when you can, the sooner the better'.
DD1 just had a headache due to a nasty cold that she has had for over 1 week now.

IME schools would always call parents to take them to A&E unless it was an emergency - in which case they'd call an ambulance - or the parents couldn't be contacted/couldn't arrive within a reasonable time - then someone within school would take them. Obviously if a child was screaming in agony or in very ovious distress then thiswould be deemed more of an emergency. It would then be assessed as to whether staff could actually move the child - most first aid training would say not too if you suspect broken bones - so may well call for an ambulance or paramedics first anyway.

The school will only ever call an ambulance if there is a very obvious emergency (child has an unexpected fit/very obvious broken bone/strong suspicion that there is something life threatening going on). Otherwise they will wait for parents - or ask parents to call on their behalf - because otherwise there is a risk the school gets the bill for an unnecessary ambulance call out.

Or at least, that is what seemed to happen in the school I worked in.

I've been called an hour before home time because my daughter had a cough fgs. She'd had the cough all week but the teacher had just noticed and insisted I come and get her I've also bee called to 'have a look at' both of them for various reason including nosebleeds (which I informed them she gets often but they had forgotten), a bump on the head and a bruised ear (!!!).

The school take the piss imo, we live 45 mins from any big towns with decent shops so it's not uncommon for even SAHM to be too far away to just pop in whenever the school demands it. And whilst I have plenty of very kind friends in the area, most of them have 3/4 kids of their own and ringing them would be a fair imposition, especially if it turns out to be contagious and it gets into their household as a result.

I was often left sitting in the corridor outside the office for over an hour at a time with migraines as a child and whilst it wasn't pleasant it wasn't the greatest tragedy of my life either.

Obviously most parents would hate their child to be ill in school and will make every effort to get there asap but the fact is that it's not always possible to be there instantaneously. I live across the road from the school and on the day of the bumped head they rang about 10 seconds after ds2 had puked his guts up all over the place so I had to simply tell them that I'd be there as soon as I could but that my vomiting baby had to take precedent over my accident prone child who wasn't in serious danger and was under the care of several responsible adults.

Oh, and they didn't want dd in school with a broken leg despite the doctors at the hospital saying there was no reason whatsoever for her to miss school! I had to get a letter from the hospital and really fight with them for her even to go in for half days... and the teacher basically called me heartless and told me it was 'very distressing' for her to see a child being brought to school 'in that condition' My school brought me swimming while I was still on crutches after a broken ankle fgs, and let me compete in the sports day with a cast!

Hmmm its a tricky one. The school obvioiusly want to get the child off the premises asap in case they are infectious, but it's a bit unreasonable to expect someone to get there within 10 mins.
A lot of people are in the same situation as you with no close family nearby and people who could normally step in at short notice, such as the other mums, woudlnt do it if a child is sick, quite understandably.
So I guess the school should be able to look after your child for an hour.
I also think employers should be more understanding about childcare emergencies. If you told people at work it was a genuine emergency - which it is - wouldn't they let you go straightaway?

Oh another thing, don't say it will take 1/14 hours, just say you'll be there asap.

Recently done a St johns ambulance first aid course for school/pre-school staff.they said to call an ambulance for any injury or illness which required hospital treatment.

I think that what the school deems an emergency is not what a parent deems an emergency.

The school deem an emergency to be when the child can not be in class.

A parent deems an emergency to be a life threatening event or where the child requires hospitalisation.

Of course in a true emergency a mummy friend at school would help - I know I would, even for mums that I don't know that well.

However, I would be really peeved for the school to call out another mum to pick up my child because they had thrown up! That isn't an emergency. That is for me to go and get my child as quickly as I possibly can - which may be 1 1/2 hours or may be 10 mins, depends where I am.

I am even more reticent to put other mum's as my emergency contacts now, knowing the school wish to use them when it is not an actual emergency, but actually an inconvenience - an inconvenience to the school.

SummerRain my DS was very pleased with himself for being best in his class at triple jump last week . . . with a broken arm (full arm cast). I did ask the school to try to get him involved in PE lessons, but I had more refereeing, etc in mind. He's fine though. No harm done. Well done the school!