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!

As many have already said, not everyone has a whole host of willing and able "alternative" contacts to give out to the school. And of course even if you do those people also have things to do, commitments etc. If, while your child is at school during normal school hours, they become ill, then all the school can expect parents to do is their reasonable best to get to the school, or ask another responsible adult to do so, as soon as possible ..... and for some people that might take quite some time for all sorts of genuine and unavoidable reasons. In the meantime, they call emergency services if it's an emergency, or place said child in quiet area if it's not so serious.

Conversely, a few years ago, my 11 year old son had an accident at scout camp - an accident for which an ambulance was called, where he was placed on a stretcher complete with head immobiliser thingy, and then flown by air ambulance to hospital - because it was suspected he may have injured his back. I knew nothing of this until 4 days later when they got home .... as the scout leaders took the pragmatic approach that rather than worry me unduly they would wait to see what the doctors at hospital said. Thankfully he was fine - so no-one called me at all. I must admit I was a bit taken aback when this all came to light but I think it was more the initial shock of my "baby" in an air ambulance (which he thoroughly enjoyed). When I calmed down I guess it was sensible not to worry me nor have me drive 3.5 hours to scout camp if I didn't need to. Yet it seems most schools these days want to get shot of slightly poorly kids as soon as possible ..... and that includes kids swinging the lead as I suspect my own have done on a few occasions. I suppose they have to be safe not sorry but at the same time they certainly shouldn't be berating parents who find it impossible to get there within 15 minutes.

School would love me.

DH works 90 minutes away and I work locally but am unavailable and uncontactable for most of the day. I don't take my mobile into the operating theatre with me and have never given the school a landline number for work.

In fact I've put on the contact form never to contact me unless they've tried everyone else on the list first and even then don't be suprised if they can't get me!

My mum is an emergency contact and she is ususally but not often fairly nearby. If she's on holiday school would have to wait 90 minutes for dh to get there.

"it is perfectly reasonable to send in a child who says they are feeling a bit off colour but being prepared to collect if they feel worse later in the day"

What does this mean? take a day off work and sit at home/by the school gates just incase?

You could work within a mile of the school and not be able to collect your child.

When I was a hospital manager DD's nursery was within a mile of the hospital. One day there was a huge pile up on the M5. DH was stuck three cars behind the pile up and I was duty managing the hospital.

There was no way we could get DD. DH was an hour and a half late picking her up. I got home in the wee small hours.

The nursery made so many calls to page me that switchboard were rude to them.

Back to the OP. Very badly worded letter. I do hope someone sends a response along the lines of those posted here.

Agree it's a stupid letter.

I would LOVE to be able to work closer to school/home, but even before the recession there weren't enough jobs in the (London commuter) suburb I live in.

I would LOVE to be able to name a whole host of emergency contacts, but having crazily oversubscribed schools and so a lottery of the allocated place means DS started school in an area where we don't know any other parents.

Even if I was a SAHM I wouldn't be permanently attached to my mobile AND within 10 mins of the school anyway.

If it's an emergency, the school need to deal with it and catch parents up when they can. If it's not an emergency, then ideally the child will be collected within an hour, but need to accept this is not always possible. If it's a forgotten PE kit or lunch then the school should provide spares/school dinner.

When DS was at nursery, I had signed a form so they could give calpol if he had a temperature. In practice this happened once, they called to say he had a temp so could I collect and to check I was happy for them to give calpol. I was and so by the time I arrived (an hour later) his temp had come down and he was much more comfortable. Surely something similar could be done in schools?

An hour and a half late to pick a child up at at the end of the day, and you think that it was ok for someone to be rude to the staff!

People who look after children often have their own children to pick up and can't wait around for that long, and they often won't be paid for that time. One person can't be left alone with the child for child protection reasons, so what did you expect them to do? If I had been in charge of that situation I'd have been forced to call social services long before an hour and a half.

Haloweeny, it means that most people acknowledge that it is often hard to tell whether a child is ill enough to be kept off school or not early in the morning, so if a parent is genuinely not sure if their child is ill or not, then it's ok to send them in as long as you are aware that they might need to be picked up if they deteriorate.

I wonder ... if one of the teachers at this school has kids at another school, does the HT let them drop everything instantly so they can collect their child within half an hour?

"hen it's ok to send them in as long as you are aware that they might need to be picked up if they deteriorate"

so same as every other day then, they are still "allowed" to go to work right?

Well ,at the risk of being deleted, this just cannot be true, can it?

IME they are more likely to send a child home "at the drop of a hat" if they know you are around to pick them up...

Scrablet it might be. Our daycare has asked that someone is available to collect within an hour- we live In a commuter town, if we could guarantee such a person they'd be doing our childcare! Admittedly that is private but some people can be a bit odd!

The head sounds like an arse and needs to join the real world.

It's helpful to have someone close by, obviously that's not always possible and as long as a parent or carer is contactable then it's not usually a problem. Just make your best effort to get there as soon as. I would point out though that we don't give calpol and 'resting in a comfy place' might mean a kip in the story corner or being sat on a hard chair in the office. If your child is chucking up then a couple of hours of that isn't pleasant for them or us.

I had a conversation with the old witch of a headmistress at the DSs old school when it once took me 1.5 hours to get back from work to collect DS2. She suggested that I find more local work! I was tempted to tell her that as a specialist lawyer I can't just work anywhere but given she was stupid enough to say that in the first place I really didn't see the point.

And just to add the same head also said if in future we didn't collect either DS within an hour in future she would have to inform Social Services.

I therefore believe every word of the op. But for the fact she has now retired I would think it was DSs old school!

outraged at the risk of dripfeeding the reason switchboard were rude to them (which I never said I condoned) was because they called every five minutes for an hour. It got so bad that I couldn't take liaison calls from the ambulance service.

We weren't the only ones caught up in it. All parents were charged £75 for being late. I imagine that more than covered salaries. Sometimes you just can't walk out of work.

I take registration details for my ds' Minis Rugby club. As well as parents' details I also have an emergency contact details and GP's details.

But as I point out to them, if it's that much of an emergency, we wouldn't be going via the GP anyway, we would be going direct to hospital.

In fact, a kid at ds' school had an accident yesterday at the rugby club and DID have to go to hospital and get 22 stitches in his leg!

I love all these "forced to call social services" comments. Have you ever tried to call a duty social worker out? They have better things to do.

I can see both sides of this situation, I work at a pre-school and might well be needed to maintain the adult to child ratio and not be able to leave if DS was taken ill at school, I am also a single parent and although I have friends who could collect they might not always be available either. Equally I am extremely unwell tonight and will lose a day's pay tomorrow due to a parent (single parent SAHM so not always the working ones!) sending in a child with a gastric bug and not telling us until I had changed 2 horrible nappies! We do definitely have an issue with working parents chancing it thinking they will be OK, but also with parents whose children are a little "challenging" who don't seem keen to look after them themselves and will send them in even they are poorly. I have more sympathy with the working parents as I know how many employers can be very difficult about time off to look after sick children. The school phrased the letter very badly and it is totally unreasonable to expect parents to remain within a certain distance of the school during the day.

the school probably could have supplied a list of trusted Ofsted listed local childminders on request for parents without the local contacts needed to have someone near at all times.

Helenagrace, I don't think you have to worry about drip feeding when you didn't write the OP.

I appreciate the circumstances you were in and that you couldn't just walk out of work, but the fact that you didn't have anyone else nearby that they could call is what caused the problem. Putting it in personal terms, your job shouldn't mean that I can't leave work to collect my own children.

It is not right that a childcare worker should either have to face their own child being collected late (and be subject to the charge) or have to leave a colleague in a vulnerable position. But if that had happened at my old workplace, those would have been the choices. That's why social services would have been called.

In my case we did have an emergency contact, our then CM. On the day DS was ill she was attending a memorial service for her DD. I did explain this to the school but it fell on deaf ears...

This was the same school who also insisted I should be contactable AT ALL TIMES by mobile. When I explained I am sometimes in court or on conference calls they asked If a colleague could answer my mobile and interrupt me!

Edgar no childminder would accept that role in case it took them over their numbers or they had to take in a sick child that would infect their regular mindees.

I have heared this of this before. I suppose the school only wants to have somebody they can contact in an emergency.

Is there any truth in the rumour, promulgated by my child's school, that social services must be called if the parent is not contactable within 20 minutes of the school's first attempt at contact?

I think it is if the parent is an hour late for regular pick up and can't be contacted.