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.

[jellybeans]

YANBU but it is probably something to do with covering themselves if there were an incident and they had 'taken child without permission'. The permission slip means nothing if there is no permission given on it. I would be peed off too but seeing the head won't do alot. Maybe you could suggest making the forms clearer instead of a cross out bit on the same line, 2 seperate choices is often better or even tick boxes. It is less easy to miss it then. I have done it myself, I think most people have.

[pointydog]

The teacher would have been teaching, pixel. The office or management would have had to make the phone call and the head's decision was not to.

[HairyFrotter]

YANBU. I'm sure secretaries are busy at registration time and I wouldn't expect them to keep ringing and ringing. But an attempt to contact each of the parents wouldn't have been too much to ask and would only have taken a few minutes - particularly as children are going to be upset at missing out.

[PirateDinosaur]

I think, TBH, that if a parent has filled in the name and contact details and signed the permission slip and then sent the child into school with the full kit for the outing then that probably would stand up in court as giving permission to go even if "do not" wasn't crossed out.

[AbigailS]

I'm sorry your son was upset, but I don't think it was totally unreasonable. Lots of people are complaining it was too short notice to fill in a form and return it to school. If we have to give a month's notice of every event it could narrow experiences yet further. Primary school is supposed to be about all the lovely things like nature walks and sometimes you can't plan them a long time in advance. You see a learning opportunity and decide to take it. Having said that longer notice still doesn't mean you get all the permission slips back. You wouldn't believe the amount of time I have spent chasing consent forms that haven't been returned or trying to sort out incomplete forms. I did it in my evenings, because the office is so over-stretched with other necessary work.
I would gather the the school didn't have time to chase a third of the classes consent and personally I can see why they might make a stand. It's a bit like the parent you make a special allowance for once by staying to 6.30pm on a Friday because dad can only do that meeting instead of Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday set parents evening, then they expect it every term and other parents join in, then it becomes "oh he now catches a later train, the appointment will need to be 7.30pm". (whoops - rant over)
Finally, like it or not, schools have to follow the school visits policy. You need signed consent. In the blame culture of today we have to dot every i and cross every t. What seems like "common sense" to parents ( and us teachers) can't be used as an excuse for not following a policy. Incomplete consent can not be assumed to be consent.

[southofthethames]

Now that is crazy of them - you signed the slip and put your number, and he had brought his wellies and drink. Surely they would realise that if a parent categorically did not want their child to go, they would have made certain to cross the "no" bit....and they wouldn't be dressed for it. I have to say for 10 kids, you can definitely get someone in the office to ring - with a scolding if needs be, for not filling out the slip properly, but it is wrong to punish the child. Definitely go see the head. YANBU. I agree it's the parent's fault - but the poor child!!! (That never happened when I was in school in a class of 34 - the secretary always rang the parent if in doubt. BUT - the slips always went out at least TWO WEEKS before the outing. Never less than a week.)

Er, mumnotmachine, I think you also owe your little boy a treat of some sort - maybe an outing somewhere fun, to make up for being left out of the outing!

[StayingNearlyHeadlessNicksGirl]

Discrete - you would pull your child out of a school, just because he didn't get to go on a nature walk? What a ridiculous overreaction! The OP's son was upset and disappointed - not traumatised for life. He is not going to fail his A levels because he didn't get to go on a nature walk.

[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 ...

[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.

[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.

[StayingNearlyHeadlessNicksGirl]

That is a massive assumption you are making, discrete.

[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 :(

[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.

[discrete]

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

[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.

[robingood19]

yes, Mumsnet does reveal some pettyness in schools.

[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.

[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.

[gorionine]

Hulababy I think your idea makes a lot of sense and maybe I will point this to point this to 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??"

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.