People who are late for school every day or almost every day.

[MrsJAlfredPrufrock]

Why don't you just get up 15 mins earlier?

Does it bother you?

It does seem to be the same people late day after day at my DCs school. They're setting their children up for a life of lateness to everything! however not sure the getting up earlier would help; someone I know is late for school every single day yet she gets up at 6am; she is just very disorganised and a poor timekeeper.

We're never late, but we do get there just in the nick of time!

It's a 3 minute walk - I can see the school from my house.

We get up at 6.00.

We always just feel like we have plenty of time. One minute it's 8.15 and we have all the time in the world. Then at 8.35 DD needs a poo and our best laid plans are destroyed!

Never happened when I worked full time though, I can tell you!!

I spend every morning muttering an embarrassed "morning" to all the parents walking towards me as we head up the road!

Why oh why!

You don't know what it is going on in everybody's life. I was sometimes late because dd would have panick attacks half-way to school. Difficult to gauge exactly how long it is going to take to drag a hysterical 10yo half a mile.

I still wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning stressing about the new day and having to deal with dd. Have been doing so for the last 6 or 7 years. The first thing I will do when dd leaves home is to have a lie-in.

YANBU. I am generally incredibly laid about most things back but persistent lateness drives me mad. At my DC's school, nobody lives more than a 10 minute walk away and yet there are kids (some of whom literally live opposite the school gates) who are always about 15 minutes late.If i can do it, so can they

I have a friend who is often late (and embarressed about being so). After a couple of chats with her I realise that she thinks about getting to school differently to me. She aims to get to school for 9 (when school starts) whereas I aim for 8.50 (when the doors open). Also she genuinely has a mental block about factoring in how long things take - so if she was leaving home at 8.55 and it was a 10 minute walk to school she would still think she was on time, until the clock literally ticked past 9 o'clock.

YANBU

There are two kinds of late families that I see...dawdlers who clearly couldn't give a shite (always the same people) and those who actually have the decency to hurry and look bothered about it.

Plittle do parents know that dd has SN and there has been an agreement between us and the headteacher of her MS school to bring her in at that time, as its less stressful for her, as everyone is more settled and parents have gone. Parents often see us going to school and give us 'the look' but its not as it seems.

Why does it bother you?

I used to see the same parent and DD sauntering along the road late EVERY day. It's not like they were even rushing and the Mum had an ipod on and was totally ignoring the DD. I used to annpy me as I felt for the DD who was only about 6 so clearly not responsible for the family timekeeping.

I used to try to keep my judgeypants off though as there may have been other issues that I wasn't aware of...

*annoy

When dd was a newborn my son was late for school several times. In fact our school has a queue of parents to sign the late book. Some of them had small babies, other mums were just disorganised.

I meant that dd is met by her TA at 9.05 and I am walking by parents who have already dropped off their dc and are on their way home, I live a few mins from school, and yes we do get disapproving looks.

I think it's piss poor parenting t be late every day.

YANBU to be a bit narked BUT...

My mum worked in primary schools for years. Several serial latecomers turned out to have all sorts of issues, including one pair of boys who had been put in care bloody miles away after spectacularly awful neglect by their mother. They were always late as their foster mum had two separate school runs 10 miles apart for the children in her care. (Mum ended up picking up and driving the boys to school every day for a year or so, she's a star.)

It bothers me because it disturbs the class when they come in late. At the school I work in, children come straight in, sort their belongings out then sit down to do a little bit of writing practice before the register is taken and they go off to assembly.

If a child is persistently late, they get a little less writing practice or reading time than everyone else in the class, and them being late distracts the children who are already settled.

You don't know why parents might be late every day. Due to dd SN I drop dd off to her TA at a later time than everybody else. I am not late to keep that time, but any parent who sees us going to school will think that we are constantly late as we do not drop dd off at the usual time of 8.45am

I am always late, I start of with good intentions, but I start the washing or empty the dishwasher. Does`nt bother me, there worse things than being late!

I know there are lots of reasons, but there is one little boy in DS2's class who arrives at 9.15-9.30 each morning. He is always stressy and upset when he arrives. His mum lives 5 minutes walk from the school.
I just can't see it being good for the child being that late every day.

There are always going to be exceptions to the rule.

What I think the OP is talking about are the amount of families who are continually late for no good reason...or at least a reason the school would see as a 'good' one.

I literally live a 3 minute walk to the school and yet some of my neighbours kids are late every bloody day and they never look bothered by it.

It's horrible for children to have to enter a class where all the kids have had instructions on what they should be doing...all the heads turning to look at them as they walk through the door.

Not to mention the fact the teacher then has to repeat the instructions to the late children as they enter one by one at various times.

My mother was like redskyatnight's friend, just no ability to organise time or work out how long things took (2 x small girls hair to brush and put in bunches took a long time, Mum always thought it would take about 20 seconds). We used to a do a school run with a very unpleasant woman who used to just drive away leaving us if we were late - part of me doesn't blame her though. Luckily, Mum worked full time so once we were at junior school and took the train to get there, she HAD to get us to the station in time or she would miss the only train that got her to work in any kind of decent time. That helped a lot, plus my sister and I got better at time keeping becasue we were so fed up with the stress and embarrassment of being late for everything. Interestingly, sis is incredibly punctual now for everything and is very sharp with me if I am late, whereas I probably have more of Mum's "I can just fit in one more job before I leave" mentality. It's a hard one to break. But being late is my top stressor, and so I am very careful not to be late, ever, for important things like school, work, appointments etc. It CAN be done, even when it's not your nature.

I'm sure lots of people have good reasons for being late but I doubt that every single "late every day" family has one. Some people are just disorganised surely?