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

[MrsJAlfredPrufrock]

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

And some are just selfish and think of school as either an inconvenience or a free baby sitting service to be used at their leisure.

Being constantly late can stress a child out and put them off school forever.

my mother was is late for everything. I hated it when she took us to school by car as that meant we would be late.
I prefered to cycle to school rain or shine from y2 to avoid the stares of my classmates and I was able to do some quick fix homework before class started

DS is up at 6 & has a 30 min walk in good weather.

Always late - better than DS starting the day with a melt down, which would deffo disrupt & upset the entire class for much, much longer than it takes his TA to get him settled on a normal day. Working with the school to sort out transitions as he finds the end of the day a struggle too (a tantrum EVERY pick up recently).

However I'm not discussing it with every judgeypants NT Mum I meet, ed tribunal etc last year took too much out of me & I no longer give a damn what others think, as I KNOW most of them wouldn't last 24 hours if they had sole care of DS.

"Them that matter don't mind and them that mind don't matter" in the words of my Gran.

I can see both sides. I am never late because I have this thing about being late, I can't stand to be even a few minutes late. I'm either early or on time, for absolutely everything! Yet my sister is the exact opposite. She was nearly an hour late for my wedding, half an hour late for each of my children's christenings and now if we meet, I always arrange it half an hour earlier than I intend to arrive and that seems to work.

I think I understand though. It's only when you are getting ready to go to school that one of the children realises their shoes are missing; cue a massive hunt for their school shoes. Then the other discovers she has PE and needs to get her kit. Then the housekeys have vanished from the key rack meaning you can't lock the door when you go out, etc.

I am very organised now and the kids are under strict orders to get EVERYTHING ready the night before, but even that doesn't always work and I've had dd check her school organiser just before we go out and realise that she is doing cooking and needs the ingredients.

I think if you aren't an organised person then mornings are the time when everything goes pear-shaped and the more kids you have, the more things go wrong. So I do sympathise whilst using their flustered and irritated look in the morning as a reminder to myself to keep on top of being organised.

Op have you tried to find out if there are problems and if you can get these people help or assistance?

As a poster further up the thread states, the persistent lateness is usually down to some type of problem and it may be that their is a solution

Ooh dd is 3 I dread school.

She's often awake a lot in the night with her eczema and if I wake her early she's generally a bit stroppy and doesn't concentrate on things. Sometimes we're 10 mins late for playgroup because I let her have an extra half hour that her body needs to a) recover the eczema and b) get her enough sleep to be able to manage the day.

...and I really dislike lateness too.

I find it hard to comprehend too. Not the parents who hurry in the the playground just as the bell is ringing, nor the ones who are late perhaps once a term, but those who are always without fail 10 mins late. How do you manage to be that crap at time-keeping? It's unfair on the children themselves. I was in the office one morning when one of the perpetual latecomers came in to get her child's name put in the register - receptionist asked her why she was late she just shrugged and said 'Just because....' So dismissive and rude.

OK fair point that getting up 15 mins earlier might not solve the problem for everyone. I walk to school with my two littlies. After I've dropped them off and gassed to a few people for far too long in the playground, I walk home and I see the same 3 families on their way to school, already 5-10 mins late. The same families. Every. Day. (or thereabouts)

my ex is always late - his problem is he sets out to late and then blames the traffic and it has never dawned on him that it is his fault and not the traffic.

My dd's solution is to tell him that she needs to be at such and such 20 - 30 minutes earlier than needed, so she is made late by him. He turns up 20-30 minutes late and all is well.

Possibly if school had volunteers to stand in the play ground and school opened 30 minutes earlier for playing, then it wouldn't matter if the pupils where late as they would have 30 minutes to be late.

I am not saying schools should have volunteers and no animals where hurt in this post or real names of people are coincidence

OK fair point that getting up 15 mins earlier might not solve the problem for everyone. I walk to school with my two littlies. After I've dropped them off and gassed to a few people for far too long in the playground, I walk home and I see the same 3 families on their way to school, already 5-10 mins late. The same families. Every. Day. (or thereabouts)

do the ones whose kids are late frequently also get to work late, either now or when they didnt have kids? Do you care you get to work late? if so why? do you not think your kids feel equally bad when they get to school late

Why do you care when OTHER people get their kids to school, is my feeling on this...

Those same families may well be thinking - gosh I wish I had time to stand gossiping on the school run every morning but due to all sorts of things we don't know about they don't

Why do you care when OTHER people get their kids to school, is my feeling on this...

because the child coming in late disturbs all the OTHER children

Op have you tried to find out if there are problems and if you can get these people help or assistance?

lol at this. Er maybe some are just plain lazy and cant be arsed.

YANBU, if I can get 4 dc six and under dressed and sorted for school/nursery and myself too, so can most people. Lateness is a real problem at the kids school, its always in the newsletters. I obviously dont mean people that are late on occasion, its the persistant ones.

Why do you care what time other people get to school? We get there just in time...we are never early, we're never late. I couldnt give a shiny shite what time other people get there, why would I?

I get up at 6:45am. I get the DC up at 7:30am. We have to leave the house no later than 8:40am. Uniforms are left out the night before, packed lunches made up while they are eating breakfast. Or that's what happens on my nights off, anyway.

The thing is if dd2 kicks off, she kicks off. Getting up 15 minutes earlier is not going to help. Twattish getting up 15 minutes earlier might help, but that's not gonna happen anytime soon. It would be most useful if he could organise uniforms the night before on the nights I am working and remember where the dc have taken off their shoes and coats and where they threw their packed lunches, but that's not gonna happen either. And it would be fucking brilliant if I didn't have to work until midnight 4 nights a week and had time to organise things myself and get a decent amount of sleep, but we can't afford that.

But thank you for your help. I did not realise that getting up 15 minutes earlier was the answer to all my problems, I'll try that tomorrow.

I will confess to being later with DS2 than I was with DD and DS1. Because we live further away and the traffic is dreadful and DS2 is...well he's DS2 and bloody hardwork [hmm.But even so we never get to school after the bell rings and he has never been late for registration. THankfully DS1 and DD have to get themselves to school now so any lack of puntuality is their problem in the first instance, not mine.

unreasonableannie - I expect your correct, just like some people never think to offer help to others, we are all different

Mostly its people who are disorganised, I see the same people every day (my friends ) and I know that they are disorganised people, I know that if they say they'll come at 2pm, it could be 2.10, 2.20, its just how they are.

Agree some people will have problems & its up to the school to question persistent lateness.

My DS is only late if we have some sort of problem that day (good example up thread, needing a poo at 8.35am!) or if DP is taking him (always late, except for work).

I work in a school and late children affect all the other kids. Late register, late getting started on the work.

Failing any issue that affects your kids being late it is rude and disruptive to the kids that get there on time.

Everyone who has children goes through the "I can't find my Mrs Pink Cat book and I NEED it for show and tell" moments in the morning. But you get yourself organised the night before so you have a spare 5 minutes to deal with such emergencies.
Lay out clothes the night before, not just the children's.

Check shoes and coat are where they should be and not muddy/wet etc.

Write up the reading record.
Pack any school lunches and place them in the fridge, ready to pick up and go.

Pack the school bag.
DON'T switch on the telly in the morning.

everlong Wed 25-Jan-12 10:22:28
"No we don't their circumstances but there can't be a some crisis that has made them late every single day, surely."

If there is a genuine problem -like a child going into meltdown in the morning - it is likely to be there every day. Of course this won't be most people. It may be a tiny percentage. Maybe one out of all the parents who come late to your school. But the problem is, you won't know which one.

I don't wear a placard taped to my forehead.