to be really annoyed with the school?

[mumnotmachine]

I picked my 9yo son up from school today and he promptly burst into tears when he saw me.

He was due on a nature walk with school this morning, he went in today with the permission slip, wellies and drink as requested.

It turns out he wasnt allowed to go on the walk- the reason? I hadnt crossed out on the permission slip I do/do not give permission.

When I enquired as to why I wasnt contacted (its not as though they had to go delving through files for my number- it was written on the permission slip) the secretary said that due to the number of people who either hadnt sent the slip back or not crossed out the relevant section the head had said it wasnt feasible to contact all those parents for permission.

There were 10 slips.

AIBU to be fuming with the HT?
While I can see that I didnt cross out the relevant part, surely the fact that he had wellies etc with him says something?
And it was 10 slips- wasnt exactly going to involve hours of phoning.

I cried my eyes out in the car- it seems so unfair.

[exoticfruits]

He wasn't alone though-I expect he joined the other 9.

[Catsu]

OP says he WAS the only one in his class left behind. The other 9 were in different classes!

[exoticfruits]

He wasn't the only one left-there were 10 of them!

[rockinhippy]

- lol - I've only just spotted your nick name

[Catsu]

YANBU, your poor DS being the only one in his class left behind when it was clear he was supposed to be going along and was a simple error.

I think its a very good idea to go and see the HT. Not to kick up a huge stink, as obviously the damage is done now and cant be changed, but to offer up suggestions as to how this sort of thing can be avoided in future and to ask the HT to implement some changes...

The two obvious things are

1. To give more notice of slips to be returned so that if there are errors/non responders then parents can be checked with over several days at pick up/drop off time, saving the need for phone calls. You getting a slip home on a Monday for a trip on the Tuesday is just asking for problems really! A week in advance is more reasonable to request
   
2. To have a generic slip at the beginning of each year/term to cover all local walking trips and then only have additional slips for longer trips that require payment and coach travel. If the school secretary really is so rushed off his/her feet that they cant manage a phone call to you then this should lessen their work load considerably and be very helpful to the school as well as the parents!
   

Hope you manage to get something sorted from your meeting with the HT!

[rockinhippy]

YABU - I might say different if your DS was 5, but by 9 your DS should be responsible enough to nag the hell out of remind & keep on until you until you do it, he should also be able to spot for himself that you'd made a mistake - or like my YOUNGER DD fill it in for you & hand it to you for a signature

yes I can understand that you are upset that he feels let down, but maybe you BOTH can learn something from that - ie him learning that Mum is not a machine & you learning to encourage him that he is old enough to take some responsibility for himself

[exoticfruits]

This is what happens with health and safety-the school sticks to the letter. Imagine he had had a terrible accident and the form didn't actually give permission!

[charleneanne]

dont blame the school for your mistakes YOU didnt fill in the form correctly so your son missed the trip open your eyes in future and fill out the form correctly sorry but i am with the school on this one why should they have to run around after parents who cant be bothered to fill out a form correctly its so easy a child could do it dont pass the blame onto the school

[gorionine]

StayingNearlyHeadlessNicksGirl, Appologies as not only you are right that it is not because one school does it that all schools do but as well, Ds told me after school that they only called me because the trip was arranged a few days ago for a small group of the class (I do not know what the criteria was) someone did not turn up and he was next on the list, sorry and embarassed.

[Pandemoniaa]

It's a shame the OP's ds couldn't go on this nature walk but, in the greater scheme of things, it's not a fucking tragedy and certainly not worth the ridiculous drama of a Lake of Tears from the OP.

Perhaps the school could have been more helpful but actually, the school secretary probably had rather more pressing things to do than ring parents who couldn't be bothered to fill a form in properly. Perhaps the OP will be a little more careful next time and avoid another devistating family trauma.

[Groovee]

Every day is manic in our school reception, with phones ringing, children arriving late, staff being given the lists of children who haven't turned up and a truancy call having to be sent, school dinner orders having to be ordered, parents turning up and demanding to be seen. I don't think it is an admins job to call and follow up children who's parents haven't filled out the form correctly. Learn from the experience and explain to your child that you were to blame and not the school.

[BrigitBigKnickers]

Common sense doesn't always come into it where risk assessments are concerned. Even for local walks a 7 page risk assessment has to be filled in for every visit where I work. stating you have obtained permission from guardians, is on the form.

If something happened to your child on the trip (unlikely I know on a nature walk) and you wanted to sue claiming you hadn't given permission for the trip, the school wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Does seem rather extreme though especially as he had his wellies and you had actually returned the form (albeit incorrectly) but I can see it from the point of view of the school who probably get fed up with letters not being returned and being expected to make hundreds of phone calls to chase up letters.

We have a common local trips form that parents sign as the child joins the school so permission doesn't need to be sought for every little jaunt out of the school.

[StayingNearlyHeadlessNicksGirl]

Gorionine - it is not logical to suggest that just because your school secretary had time to call 29 parents this morning, every school should be able to.

Or it may be that, as your school had organised the workshop at the last minute, they felt it was their responsibility to contact the parents, whereas the OP's school had sent out forms, and it was the OP and other parents who hadn't filled the form in properly - hence it wasn't the school's responsibility to sort out the parents' cock ups.

I wonder if the OP and discrete would be happy if their dc had a trip cut short because the school had had to waste spend time chasing up a number of incorrectly filled-in permission slips, and so the children had not been able to leave on time? "AIBU to think my child shouldn't have to suffer the loss of half their nature walk time because other parents didn't fill in the permission slip properly??"

[gorionine]

Hulababy I think your idea makes a lot of sense and maybe I will point this to point this to the school.

[gorionine]

Fimbo Tue 12-Jul-11 16:36:55

Hard as it is and unfair as it seems, the school are not being unreasonable. I work in a school but today was a parent helper on a school trip. The organisation involved just to walk the children from one school to another is unbelievable, add on to that toilet runs, organising a first aid kit etc oh and we had to carry newspaper to cover dogs poo that went all the way down a path in a zig zag in big lumps. To have started phoning round 10 parents before the children went off, would have held things up massively.

This very morning, about 10 minutes after dropping the dcs in school I go a call from them asking if Dc was allowed on workshop at nearby school. I appologised saying I had not seen the slip to which secretary said " there was no slip it was just organised at the las minute!" So if they were able to call 29 parents to ask permission, i guess OP's school could have at least tried to call the few parents who forgot to cross the according words.

OP I would be really annoyed to but actually at myself as well aas the school.

[Hulababy]

You know, for small trips like these can't the school just have a coverall letter done at the start of term, and only need additional ones for proper trips away from school?

DD's school does this, as does her brownie pack. Seems to make far more sense and much less admin.

[robingood19]

yes, Mumsnet does reveal some pettyness in schools.

[jellybeans]

I have 5 DC and if I changed schools every time the school were out of order I would have been to loads of schools!! You have to look at the overall picture. If your child is doing OK and fairly happy in school, then it is not worth changing over one thing, even if the school were in the wrong and out of order. I am not sure here as they cannot take a child without permission surely. Yes they could have phoned up etc. but they would still probably need a signature and with 10 parents needed it wouldn't be possible. I would complain in writing though and ask them to do the tick box forms or to sign a form at the beginning of the school year covering all local trips.

[discrete]

I guess I just don't want petty people in charge of my children, staying.

[honeyandsalt]

Good luck trying to make the HT see common sense, they're argue black is blue if it covers their bums :(

If I were you I'd try and distract him with some awesomeage, like a cinema trip or camping in the garden or something. Or a really early morning nature walk (like, 4 am at this time of year!), he might actually get to see some nature. Bring a camera, take photos, and get him to bring them into school to show off how he saw some deer. Or deer footprints. Or whatever you see.

I'd be mad at myself and the school too, but you can't really fix this with the school, you just need to move on and try and ameliorate things with your son imho.

[berylmuspratt]

I work in the office at my son's school and we would have simply phoned you and the other parents to check it was ok (saying that it is a small school, but I am the only admin person there, I jobshare with someone else).

It's short notice to get the forms in so quickly, we usually try to give parents a week to respond and get the forms all back in a few days before the trip.

We also have a texting service where we can send a generic message to particular parents, does your school have that facility? It's a matter of pressing two keys on my keyboard !!

sorry your son missed out :(

[StayingNearlyHeadlessNicksGirl]

That is a massive assumption you are making, discrete.

[discrete]

StayingNearlyHeadlessNicksGirl - no, I would pull my child out because the attitude demonstrated in the incident is a symptom of where their priorities lie - and those priorities are unacceptable to me.

Excluding the child is one incident which is visible to the parent, but if the underlying attitude is there it will make itself manifest in a myriad of small ways which will not be, but which will impact the child nonetheless.

A school has enormous power over our children, and it is an enormous act of trust to leave them there. An incident like the one in the OP would break that trust for me and I would no longer be able to leave my child there.

[nolembit]

According to our LEA any school trip which takes place completely within school hours does not need parental consent, they only have to notify parents in order to give them the option to refuse consent. Our school would not and has not asked permission for that type of school trip.

[cazzybabs]

The thing it it is easy to say they should have phoned you ... but there may be external circumstances as to why no-one could phone - medical emergency/child protection case/teacher being ill ...