4 year old DS went "missing" at home time-Long sorry....

[wakemewhenitsover]

Ok, I need a reality check. Am I overreacting or not?
I collect my Ds from the school gates every day and he is escorted by 2 teachers with about 9 other children. Yesterday I waited and it wasn't until the last 2 pupils when his teacher said "oh where's wakeme's child? He's probably slipped out of line and gone to a different gate, why don't you come into school and look for him?"
So I ran through and searched but he was not at the other gate, he was not in the other lines in the playground. I did eventually find him in the school front office and when he saw me he burst into tears because he got lost. His teacher came and it went like this;
Me: I'm not happy you didnt know where DS was
Teacher: (laughing) oh we have a great safety record here, nothing would have happened.
Me: I think you need to implement some policy to ensure that children can't just "wander off"
Teacher: Oh we do have a policy, and it is your Ds responsibility to stay in the line too...the teachers know if there's somebody in the line who shouldn't be there and would take them to the office.
Me: But if he's not supposed to be in that line would they even notice him or think it strange if he left the line? (assuming he was going to join the correct one)
Teacher: They wouldn't let him wander off, they always know who's in the line
Me: Well that didn't happen today!
Teacher: Oh, well he must have slipped by the other teacher...
Cue 2 other staff joining in with how great the schools safety policy was and generally dismissing me.
Grrrrr! What annoys me is the jokey manner in which they dealt with the situation. No apologies, just denial.
The school had volunteers in that day to help with the garden so there were lots of "helpers" (friends/relations) around the school.
Who would have questioned someone walking out with a child? (as there are always parents & children wandering around the school at home time).
What if he hadn't joined another line and panicked and went to toilet block which (unvetted) volunteers were free to use?
I know he was found ok but surely they need to acknowledge there is a problem?
How would you react?

Alwaysinwonder-In your case the school had handed over your DC to you.What happens after that is your responsibility!!

OP- why had your DS left the line?

my dd once walked home I arrived at the school she was not there. she had left the nursery with some other family leaving. the head already there walks up to me and says have you not collected her already? no I have not and you know that otherwise you would not be here. 4 other teachers were out looking for her. one was in a mess crying in the corner. she was found by a pregnant woman on my road who recognised her picked her up and carried her back to the school for us. she was 3. they have a very non-committal approach to it, we can not take blame for it, once they assumed blame they it can be used. I did however use the incident to make sure dd got pushed forward for a placement at at the asd unit attached to the school when they wrote her off as sld and incapable of learning and refused her a place.

This happened us too. DH arrived to collect DS who was 7 at the time from an afterschool activity (which took place on school grounds). DS was nowhere to be found, cue much panic. School was searched, DH went home to look for him (no sign), they called me at work - obviously I couldn't tell them anything. The male teacher who was in charge was in tears at this point and head teacher going crazy. DH went door-to-door on our street and found him at a friend's house happily playing football - he had left the school grounds at the same time as another family, walked home alone, found door locked and called to visit a friend, completely nonplussed and oblivious that people might be worried. The HT & teacher in charge phoned and grovelled and took full responsibility. DS is a bit of a dreamer and independent but prone to random acts of silliness so we could easily see how it happened.

I don't think you're over-reacting.

Without knowing the system, it's hard to tell how easily the lines can get mixed up, so if lots of children are milling about then your son might have got caught up in the wrong group. And yes, children should stay in line- but there's a big difference between the level of responsibility you can expect from a 4 year old compared to an 11 year old.

I wouldn't have been happy with a jokey reaction either - I'd have expected something along the lines of they understand why you're upset, what happened is xyz (or , we're not sure exactly how this happened but we'll look in to it and get back to you).

Everything was fine in the end, because your child did what he'd been told to do if he got lost. It may be that the system did work. But parents and children need to know what should happen at hometime if there is a problem, so I'd talk to the head about it so procedures can be checked.