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!

There are times when I wonder if this era of "contactability" is a good thing or not

Outing myself as an oldie When I was young in the 60s not everyone had even a landline phone, even though there were lots of SAHMs and mobile phones didn't exist

So if a child was ill, the school would have either had to send someone to the house unlikely or cope.

My mum went to Uni as soon as my younger db went to school. She most definitely would not have been able to be contacted during the day - even if the school were to contact the Uni, she might not have been in a tutorial or lecture, as she could have been at the library or en route to or from Uni.

Funnily enough, we survived and received a good education

things have improved since the good old days! I would much rather be contactable than not. I dread to think how much distress my three year old would have been in, had I not rushed straight to nursery when she split her chin open, passed out, and needed taking to hospital for stitches. It happened first thing in the morning and had I been unreachable, she'd have been driven there by a teacher she barely knew, and spent the next 6 hours sobbing in a corner on her own waiting for me.
Sometimes the 'good old days' weren't so good.

Depends how far away you are, autumn-they might have sent someone to fetch you.

When I was ill once at primary school, a teacher took me home.

I haven't read all the pages on this thread, so apologies if I've missed something, but I would say this is more and more prevalent. My DS has HFA so some (but not statemented) SN / additional needs. The only way I could get the school ALLOCATED to us to take my son was to gaurentee that I would always be 5 MINUTES of collecting him from school. As and when they needed me to.

His last day at school was Wednesday. I dropped him off at 8:58. They called me at 9:03 and when I didn't pick up that call, I got a text telling me to pick him up immediately. And that he would sit, alone, in reception until I got there. The text says he is ill, the VM I got does not, just that he didn't want to be at school.

He is supposed to go again tomorrow. I think we all know how that will go.

Trouble is, the schools are over subscribed and under funded.

If you think having a NT child in a state school is hard, try having one with non statemented SN.

But, OP - YANBU

adrastrea.

There are only teachers and TAs available in school if they are attending to a sick child, as some have voiced they should do, who do you suppose would be teaching the children?

I've just realised this is 100% barking as it means that half the families at the school must have two working cars AT all times!!???

Mines off to be serviced tomorrow. Primary (3miles) is ~ 40 mins walk at least, 20+ min on a bike. No way would a sick DD want to walk home.

No buses and the sort of rural area where I could be 30+ minutes on the phone finding a cab that's prepared to come out here.
Heaven knows how long one would take to get here.

Secondary school is 5+ miles and no way would I walk it or cycle it (very long hills).

Lots of the pupils live way further away still, especially the sixth formers, who's local schools are 11-16.

There are only teachers and TAs available in school
So no head teacher, deputy head, welfare officers, school secretaries, teachers with free periods and other staff then?

If a child has to be accompanied to hospital in a real emergency, who goes with them will be gone in all likelihood for a reasonable amount of time, regardless of whether parents take 10, 30 minutes or 60 minutes to reach hospital. God forbid this happens to a child in my son's class. Under those circumstances, given that the situation is probably extremely rare and traumatic for everyone, I don't think his entire education is going to be ruined for the sake of an hour or even half a day, even if it was his teacher who went with the child. I really wouldn't feel right begrudging that very small amount of time time while another child was being rushed into hospital.

How frequently does a child take ill in your child's class where you know the teacher has to care for that child that you think the half an hour difference between 30 minutes and 60 minutes would ruin her entire education?

adrastea.

Having 3 dcs who attended 8 primary/secondary schools. Having worked in, and visited many others including nurseries, I have never known a member of staff whatever their position free to look after sick children. They are left in the reception area or corridor for collection.
If, as some have suggested "the school should cope", I would like to know who they intend to do this.
I have never known a welfare officer in any school, and the other people you mention have roles which don't include nurse maid.
I have never known a member of staff leave their post to accompany children to the hospital in an emergency, so as not to leave their post. Perhaps you see that as the role of the care taker, lol.

Well, we're not talking about nurseries which are totally different :) But anyway none of this answers the question I keep asking which is how could your child miss out on 'an education'?

must be how different councils spend their budgets. where we are there are welfare/medical people with a medical room.

when i went to school in the 70s' there was a medical lady and room.

Ds had the misfortune to break his leg at his primary school (what really shocked us was the number of people who suggested to us that we should sue the school ). Initially they just thought he had turned his ankle but rang home after about half an hour as he was still crying "which was unlike him".

Until dh could get down to the school (I was 400 miles away) ds was left in the 1st Aid room. I thought that all schools had to have one - ds' primary school was bursting at the seams ( roll up from 200 to 300+ in the 7 years he was there) and every single inch of the place was used for teaching (over the years, the library, computer room and noisy/quiet room were all turned into classrooms) with only the head teacher having a small office and the admin staff (2 of them) sharing a small area outside her office. The depute head didn't even have an office. Indeed, on occasion, if she needed to talk to you privately, you would be ushered into the first aid room.

He's just started at secondary school: last week he had his first "school" rugby game. At it, one of his friends had a freak accident, with a whole rugby stud making a hole in his calf (amazingly, missing all blood vessels so there was no bleeding) and an ambulance had to be called as we didn't want to move him (dh and I had gone to watch ds as he was playing at our own local rugby club). Kid's mum was on her way home from work but if she hadn't managed to get to the club in time, one of the teachers was fully prepared to go in the ambulance as the "responsible adult". No sense of irritation at the parent, just an acceptance of responsibility that she was the one that was there.

I wonder if part of it is developing a sense of partnership with the school - something we've been fortunate to experience at ds' primary school and are in the process of developing at the secondary - and which I don't get the impression the the head teacher in the OP has developed (you don't talk AT parents, you talk WITH them).

At dd's old primary school there was no head, deputy head, secretary, welfare office, etc for 99% of the time.

Head worked two days a week, no deputy, secretary worked a couple of hours most mornings. Rest of the time just three teachers and a couple of TAs so I don't think staff would accompany them to hospital. In fact on a residential school trip where they did have to take a kid to hospital they had to leave all the other kids with teachers from another school who they'd not met before as their policy says two teachers had to go to hospital and there were only two of them there.

Goodness that sounds like poor planning there I would have expected that all trips require a risk assessment and that emergency planning would have been a part of it. Although perhaps that was the plan as the children were supervised. I just hope that was a mutual arrangement made n advance rather than ad hoc.

I do think that there is a difference between accidents and illness. If a child has a serious accident during the time they are in the school's care then the school has a duty to respond appropriately. They cannot just wait for a parent to return to manage the situation and hope that it is within a reasonable period of time.

For illnesses I can't really see that there is a huge difference between waiting half an hour or an hour. In both cases it's unfortunate and I'm sure everyone would rather the child was not unwell or had not been sent to school that day.

adrastea.

A child would miss out on an education if their teacher/ T.A spent their time "coping with ill children", instead of teaching. There are people on this thread who believe it is the job of somebody within the school to look after ill dcs. Many schools do not have the staff you suggested in your post above. Sometimes there have been several children in school sick on the same day, it does tend to spread.

There are people on this thread who believe it is the job of somebody within the school to look after ill dcs.
Nobody thinks that. What people think is that it is the school's job to look after a child who takes ill or as ill at school until a parent or someone suitable is able to get there - which it is. Legally and morally.

Your statement that your child will miss out 'an education' if all children at a school didn't have emergency contacts always nearer than 30 minutes (which is what is being discussed) is a ridiculous exaggeration. There will always be children taken ill at school, so what is being discussed is that in some cases the situation that already happens at your child's school would be slightly extended.

I think any extension to teachers having to leave a class to "cope" with a sick child would be too much for me. I may be old fashioned but I believe teachers are there to educate.
The dcs miss so much teaching due to many other activities and at present equates to aprox an hour and a half work per day.
I'm so glad we are not part of this system.