To think that a school cannot impose restrictions on what parents can do during the school day?

[crosstraineraddict]

A friend of mine was telling me about something that has happened at the school where her DCs go. Several times in the past few months, parents have gone out for the day to places over an hour away, to meet friends or go shopping or whatever, and their child has been ill at school, so they've been called and been over an hour getting to the school to pick up their child.

The parents have all apparently had a letter now stating that a parent must be within half an hour of the school at all times during the school day, and that they recommend that at least one parent works locally!

Am I alone in thinking this is bonkers and unfair, not to mention dictatorial!

YY sure that is true about phones. but even a one off trip to blue water could unluckily coincide with a sick DC.

I do think most parents are contactable (or have an alternate contact) within an hour, it's mostly the physical collection that may take more time.

Potato a contact to talk to quickly about options or someone who can physically be there?

Except English, our local supermarket has been built in a dip between hills and I have no phone signal when I'm there!

Doctrine.

I mean both really. However, a list of contacts would surely hold somebody who could quickly talk about options. I can't see any parent not wanting to make it to the hospital as soon as they could but may want a gp/ family friend to go in the meantime.
Its not impossible to find people to be contacts from school. I managed it and never lived within 250 miles of dcs gps when both me and dh worked. As I said up thread I am contact for several of dds friends from her old school. No I wouldn't want them all day but would collect from school until a parent arrived. In return we have free lifts to parties as I don't drive. I also cover bad weather closures as friends for dd to play with. A single parent I know is also emergency contact. Some schools in our area have a list of people requiring help and will match them with people offering help at the choice of the parent, obviously.

If schools didn't have an emergency contact, how would they get in touch with parents?
I meant an alternative (to the parents) emergency contact that was always within half an hour, which is what was suggested the schools might want.

Of course, the school needs to contact the parents in an emergency! But if they can't contact the parents immediately, or if the parents are more than an hour away, the school is has legal responsibility as if they were the parent for that child's well-being until the parents can get there.

That's annoying flow !

What it comes down to for me is that some things are unavoidable, for whatever reason, but the basic principle of being able to get to the school within half an hour where possible and not deliberately choosing to be a very long distance from school, when you are able to make the choice, seems eminently sensible and reasonable. Parents who say it is up to the school to look after their DC even if the DC are properly poorly are missing the point that this is really quite miserable for the DC, given the lack of facilities in real schools, in the real world, not an ideal one where they all have lovely cozy fully staffed sick bays and full time empathetic and caring school nurses...

IMO it is the job of parents to be sure somebody appropriate can be there for their child if at all possible, as soon as realistically possible rather than stand on the principle that the school can't tell them what to do with their time. The most important reason for this, aside from the fact school is just that - school, not an integrated education and all-round childcare/ nursing facility) is because it is the child left feeling miserable and ill wanting their parent/ well known, loved, trusted other caregiver.

TheEnglishWoman

Ditto, couldn't have phrased it better

Like morethan I have a friend/ neighbour who also has a DS in DD's class as an emergency contact for school - first me, then DH (who works a long way from school but could obviously make decisions / give permission for medication over the phone and and get in touch with other people by phone if for some reason I couldn't answer my phone), then DH's parents (who live an hour away but are retired and usually available) and then the friend who would be the one who would pick DD up if she missed the bus or the heating broke in winter or she had a minor ailment requiring her to be picked up from school, or something like that, and I was unable to do so promptly for some (hopefully unlikely) reason. I am the final contact for her son too, but less likely to be used as her son's grandparents live very locally. I think most people can find somebody like that, though not everyone of course, for various reasons...

My dd often gets injured/sick at school (she has migraines). Generally speaking the first aider checks her over and then she goes to the medical room and lies down until she gets picked up. Teachers put their heads around the door every now and then. This is what I remember from school and is in any case pretty much what happens at home when she is sick.

Most times when children are sick at school it's not in a dramatic fashion, so I'm not sure why such a drama needs to be made about it. Most children are not sick very often - I can't remember the last time when ds got sick at school. It would seem daft to feel that for the seven years he was at primary school one of us should be tethered to a half hour travel distance from school. Yes perhaps on two or three occasions over those seven years he might have to wait for an hour or so for us to pick him up when he'd prefer to be home in bed, but I'm afraid we can and have decided that we can live with that possibility.

TheEnglishWomanInTheAttic I'm not missing that point, but there is literally no-one I know who could definitely always make it to my son's school within half-an-hour. My mum is the nearest and would take about 40 minutes from her work in an emergency if she was able to leave work immediately and made very good time. So the school is welcome to ask for an alternative emergency contact, but I don't have one to give them that will be within 30 minutes or less than an hour away.

YY nooka - 99 days out of 100, a child won't get sick.

adrastea in your case it just isn't possible... I guess all it comes down to is that the "must" in the original letter is of course ridiculous, but "where reasonably possible" is a sensible replacement. As I said choosing to be a very long way away from school for unnecessary reasons, when you have no alternative emergency contact with whom your DC would be happy to go home and be looked after when ill is very different from having no alternative.

adrastra.

we too didn't have anybody but felt we had to find somebody for our own peace of mind. Your mum is a good contact and within an hour is better than many on here who think the school should look after their sick dc. Could you not approach a parent you trust. I know some contacts who are down for say mon, tues, others who can only cover friday. You can build it up like that. Maybe suggest your school holds a list. The schools I know who do this are governed by parents not the school, obviously for legal reasons. As long as its somebody you know and trust. If you can offer a day or even half a day in return for somebody else. The chances are you may never need them but its a relief to know they are there. Do you have a retired neighbour, sahm neighbour close you could ask?

Could you not approach a parent you trust.
The only parents I know well enough to ask all work themselves - and none within less than an hour, so no different to me.

If you can offer a day or even half a day in return for somebody else.
Er, but I work :)

If the school held a list, bear in mind my son is only in reception, then another random parent would be a complete stranger to my son and would be someone I didn't know.

Do you have a retired neighbour, sahm neighbour close you could ask?
Nope. I have a number of retired neighbours, but I don't know any of them nearly well enough to be OK with asking or with leaving my son with them and my son (who I have shared 50/50 custody with) certainly would be more distressed with someone he didn't.

We both work in central London. School in zone 4 - ie an hour away. When DS1 split his head open it took me an hour to get there - if he had needed to go to hospital urgently someone from school would have had to go - totally ridic. But they would also call my mother in law who might be able to get there quicker. YANBU but fair for school to ask for extra emergency contact who might be more local.

I think it's a bit weird effectively befriending someone purely for the purpose of building up a bank of emergency contacts.

Schools would do better to divest themselves of the outdated notion that it's always possible to have a parent, grandparent, etc within immediate reach, and contingency plan. I'm sure sick children would be less distressed if they had a sick room to rest quietly in while waiting to be collected, than having to sit on a hard chair in the corridor with everyone walking past (what used to happen in my children's old school)

I worked 5 minutes drive away from my son's nursery yet when he vomited and they called I was the only trained member of staff on the department and was told I couldn't leave until I had cover.

It took a hour

I could have left but I knew I'd have been in hot water at work and it seemed that he was actually ok, just had vomited.

That said - my son (now in juniors!) had a really difficult morning last week and I cancelled a shopping trip that would have taken me out of the area just in case.

Sounds to me that school have had an issue with this and are trying to resolve it

Toddler DD is at a private day nursery. When she started, I was asked to fill in a special emergency sheet which involved providing mine & DP's mobile numbers plus one other emergency contact number. The emergency contact number had to be a local phone code so they knew that that person could get to nursery within 20 mins. I was quite proud of the back up plan I cobbled together using various friends who'd gone back to work part time but was told that having a different emergency contact for each day was too complicated so they just took the first person despite the fact that, on the other two days, she will be at least an hour away. And they insisted on having my mobile number despite the fact that we have limited coverage at home so, on the day I work from home, the landline is the way to get hold of me. Sigh. Luckily the day DD cut her head open at nursery was the day I was working from home but was at the surgery waiting for an appt with the GP when my phone went so had reception.

Maybe its an area thing. Parents round here are all friendly and don't find it weird at all. As parents are friendly so are dcs and as they mostly play together and have play dates, parties, attend clubs and activities together aren't strangers to one another.
I'd hate to live in a place that wasn't like this and it was considered weird to befriend people with a common interest. However, there are some parents I know who I wouldn't want as a contact but I wouldn't approach them or put name on their list.
I am so glad my dd is not at school missing out on an education because the people who are supposed to be teaching her are busy looking after somebody elses sick child, because they feel it weird to be friendly.

It's not weird to be friendly, it's lovely. But it just isn't how many areas work any more. In areas with high turnover like London you often just don't get to know your neighbours. Everyone goes to work and then in their spare time they don't tend to socialise locally. Having friends that live an hour or so away is very normal, and many fewer people live close to family any more.

If you are a working parent you don't tend to get to know the parents of your children's school friends, because you don't meet them very often. Certainly not well enough to ask them to be an emergency contact as that's a fairly large favour IMO.

I do think it is a good idea to have someone able to get the school within an hour. When dh and I both were both working away, we chose to employ a nanny so that she could collect ds if necessary. Now we have made a positive decision not to work away on the same day.I do not think asking for a local contact is unreasonable. FWIW I am worrying about going to a freinds for lunch next week (approx 1hr 15 from school) on a day.when dh is also away

Potato it's not just cos it's weird to be friendly. Plenty of people who are SAHPs have a younger child at home. Would they really want to go and pick up a vomiting child and risk infecting their toddlers?

In my street there are two retired couples - one where the man is sick and looked after by his wife and one the other way round. Why would they risk catching D&V for the sake of people they know well enough to say hi to but not much more? The neighbours to whom we are closer, because we are a bit closer in age, surprise surprise, also work.

I do appreciate that it is a problem for schools but it still seems more efficient if the government would budget into school funding that there is a staff member with an allowance of hours to keep an eye on sick kids - there must be a way of estimating that in a school of 200, each child will have, say, 1 or 2 instances of needing to go home sick a year, so say 30-40% of one person's hours will be required for this. Observe the actual pattern over a year and adjust for local variations.

I just asked dd what happens to sick children at school, she says they sit in the welfare room with the 'welfare helpers' who also work in the photocopy room next door.

I have been in the welfare room and its reasonably comfy. I'm glad that the school has one, it is used for first aid if a child is hurt (conveniant to have first aid supplies and a sink in one place) and has a mini fridge and stuff to keep medication for children who need it in. (I think this is for long term medical needs, im pretty sure they dont take kids on antibiotics etc. in but have never asked)

Because we didn't get into our local school, even if I didn't work it would take me more than 30 mins to get there (don't drive).

morethanpotatoprints How would any child miss out on 'an education' in the situation where another sick child was fetched after 60 minutes rather 30, or where a seriously injured or unwell child had to be accompanied to hospital? It would never be your child's class teacher doing it, so how would your child miss any lesson time, much less a 'an education'?

nooka Exactly. I did know our neighbours, but for different reasons were all people who could't be named as a contact. My son goes to an after school club at the nursery where he's gone for several years. He knows everyone there, but if he was ill, they wouldn't be able to take him either. We do have someone who could fetch him after school or in the evening from after school club if neither his dad or I could get there by when they closed (that has happened once).