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?

As long as it takes for the parent or someone willing to do them a favour takes to get there as quick as they can.

However long that is?

Well, yes, because it there isn't an alternative to getting there or getting someone else there as quickly as possible.

I don't understand some of the attitudes on here about it being unreasonable for both parents to be more than an hour away. My other half works in a managerial position for a large national company and is responsible for managing people over many branches in the South. Some days he will be in Brighton, sometimes Newbury, sometimes Southampton, sometimes Guildford. If we ever conceive, I am relatively local to where we live, but I have another friend, for example, who runs training courses for companies all over London at their offices. What about people in retail who work in management and need to visit different branches of their shops? These people can't just move work to be nearer the school, or move their DCs to different schools.

What happened before mobile phones? My mother was a SAHM in the 70s and 80s. she lived about 15 minutes from our schools, but might well have been spending a couple of hours at a friend's house, or, when I was 9, say, and my brothers 4, would spend a sunny afternoon with them at the park or in the country before picking me up. Or even doing the weekly shop for an hour or so. She wouldn't be hovering near her landline the whole time. Schools coped.

My friend (who son was ill) really isn't the character to wind up people (I am but she isn't). The school office were purely pissed off that she couldn't pick up before 1 1/4 hrs.

However, I have been thinking. To be fair on the office staff. More and more mums are working - necessity in this day and age. Perhaps they are increasingly getting sick children who can't be picked up immediately so are very regularly looking after a child or two. This may be an increasingly difficult problem for them.

However, working mums will not go away and as the economy worsens, more and more mums will start to have to work.

Seriously, what can a working mum do? It is unreasonable to assume all mums will work within an hour of school, especially where we live (in prime commuter belt direct into London). Even if they do all they can to go directly to the school, many will take over an hour.

It is not good enough for the school to say, you have to have an emergency contact who can pick up immediately. If a mum doesn't have one, they don't.

Surely it is for the school to recognise and admit that there is an issue and to address it within the running of the school. Even if it is to have a new school policy that states ill children who can't be picked up immediately but do not require immediate medical attention, will be sent to the school office but will not necessarily have constant supervision. All parents need to agree to that. Parents can't have it both ways.

"It is not good enough for the school to say, you have to have an emergency contact who can pick up immediately. If a mum doesn't have one, they don't."

But your friend does-she just didn´t want to ask them(?) in case her son was contagious.

TBH, what would worry me most is that if the child was very ill, the school wouldn´t act but would wait for the parent!

I'm wondering whether the OP's friend suspected her child was ill but sent him in anyway...

Whatever, the school was BU. They are in loco parentis - they have full legal responsibility while the child is in their care. There's no imaginary 10 minute deadline after which the child is no longer their problem.

When I start my new job next week, I'll be 1hr 40mins away from ds's school. Dh is at least the same. ds will go to a childminder before and after school but I don't think she'd be very keen to pick him up during the day if he had gone down with someone that appeared to be contagious (must ask her, though). My other emergency contacts are the mothers of other children in the school, so again, imagine they wouldn't want to pick up a spotty child with a temperature.

Wish I could be nearer, but until one of the 'how dare you work more than 10 minutes away' crowd have offered to pay my mortgage, council tax and utility bills, that's the way it is, unfortunately.

Btw, ds's ordinary state primary does have a sick room, supervised by a TA when necessary.

I can't understand why some of you feel that it is 'expected' for another mum to pick up a child who is ill with a possibly contagious illness. I really don't deem an ill child to be an emergency that required immediate pick up - the child can wait for their mum to come. Okay, it isn't great but it won't kill them!

Of course, there are mums, and I am one of them, who would help a friend out with their ill child if they couldn't get to the school quickly. However, that is their, and my, choice. It should not be expected. It doesn't fall under an emergency.

I have said that I will help out for a few people. If they can't get to school in time, give me a call, I will pick them up.

However, say there is something doing the rounds, like the Novo virus did. I would feel very uneasy picking up a child who is showing signs of the illness.

I class a 5 year old ill at school as an emergency really and would arrange whichever way meant they were out of school and with someone who could give the care and attention needed as soon as possible.

An emergency, in my books, is something that requires urgent medical attention - like a broken arm or leg, a seizure, or serious infection - something for which you could justify an ambulance or an immediate visit to the doctor or A&E. Most things that children are sent home from school aren't genuine emergencies under these criteria. For example, ds1 used to get really bad headaches - he'd throw up, fall asleep and wake up feeling better. Yes, he needed to be at home as soon as that was possible, but it wasn't an emergency as such.

Childhood illnesses and injuries range in severity and seriousness from life-threatening down to 'there there' and a bandaid.

Some days I think it's a combination of people being so ridiculously paranoid about every bug going around (but let's face it, if they've been in school a couple hours, then come down ill, they've already exposed quite a few children!) and the fact that because most people have mobiles, the schools expect instant contact and retrieval. Years ago, before mobiles were the norm, the schools weren't quite so panic-stricken about reaching the parent immediately unless it was an actual emergency.

But how many emergency (non-parent) contacts could really give that care anyway?

At primary, if I'd rushed out around lunchtime, say, to collect a friend's sick child, the poor kid would have presumably come back home with me, then off to nursery, then the ordinary school pickup and possibly an after-school activity as well, unless I could ring friends in turn to do those pickups. And I'm local, freelance and helpful.

All my own local friends now work, often in schools, so they're out as 'emergency' contacts.

All our neighbours are on the frail and elderly side with lovely clean carpets entirely unsuited to sick children.

DS1 is at school 30 minutes away from the other two. LEA choice, not ours. I have been known to say, 'Could you bung him in a taxi? It'll be quicker...'

DavidTenantsGirl - well said!

But for the child it is. It may not be life threatening but for that child it is urgent they get out of school as soon as it is possible.

I am sure no parent likes the thought of there child being sat at school upset and ill and would do whatever is needed to get someone to them as urgently as possible.

Sirzy I just don't think that is the case. A child won't see it as an emergency. If the mum is over an hour and just explains to her child when she arrives, sorry darling I was at work/shopping/swimming but came straight away as soon as I could. The child will know. It isn't going to harm them - physically or emotionally.

Of course a child wants to be home if they are off colour, but it really won't harm them to sit quietly on a chair whilst they wait for their parent to come and get them - be it 10 mins or 2 hours - whatever time the parent can get there. Clearly the parent should leave as soon as is practicle and head straight for school - anything else is taking the piss.

It isn't an emergency.

pingu - I have experience of both state and primary and have seen no difference, good or bad. IME neither have sick rooms or spare staff availble to sit with a sick child for lengthy periods of time. If my DD's school calls me to collect her I am still expected to arrive asap and I doubt they'd be impressed if it was over an hour tbh.

StealthPolarBear Wed 25-May-11 22:43:57
But Hulababy if an emergency contact picks up the child they won't be at home either

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Well no, but they'd be in a much more comfortable and suitable location for feeling ill. It is a home with comfy chairs or sofa to lie on and a bathroom on hand. Rather than a hard chair by the office with through traffic and noise.

Hula, isn't your dd at the junior part of my old school, IIRC? Unless it's changed radically, lots of girls lived more than an hour away, even in juniors. Plenty of parents, even SAHMs, couldn't have got there in much under an hour.

I've sent 3 children home today (school of just over 200+) One of them was sick on my feet. one had chickenpox (looked like bites initially and I though of this thread), one had a bad bump. If I'd had to hold on to all 3 of them I wouldn't have had room in the office.

The bump and the sick were emergencies IMO but the CP - well damage is done there, what can you do?

saggarmakersbottomknocker

How long was it before they were collected?

Bump mum came straight away, maybe 10 minutes, CP mum was in town so half an hour and sick mum was at work and was about the same. Thankfully he wasn't sick again after the first bout. My shoes may not ever be the same again though (he'd had cheerios for breakfast).

saggarmakerbottomknocker. If the sick child's mother said, I'm at my mother's. I will come straight away but my mum lives over an hour away so i will be there in 1 1/4 hours. I don't have anyone else to pick up as my husband is even further away and at work, I have no family at all in the area and any mummy friends of mine have small children and I can't ask them to pick up my child who is vomiting.

What would you say? Or I guess, what would you think?

Poor child