To wonder where the school get off?!

[Gossipmonster]

School have sent home a letter outlining new rule tightening around lateness, uniform etc for September. Fair enough (although I can see the skinny trouser ban being a PITA for all parents of girls).

They also state that if your child is off sick they need to be looked after by yourself or another adult - and spot checks will be made. WFT? I (will) have a 16, 14 and 12 yr old (youngest maybe fair enough), work full time and am on my own.

So evey time one of them is ill I am expected to take a day off work?

I think this is ridiculous esp when observing the 48 rule with V and D.

Do the school have a right to stipulate this? .

I'm a bit at Laurie - I just got back from an evening with my book group, having left my 14yo in charge of my 10yo for two or three hours. Would you report that to child protection?

Schools may report children being home alone to ss - doesn't mean that they will follow it up. Teenagers with additional needs at be followed up though if its thought they require an adult.
I leave my ds who is in year 7 for a few hours home alone when ill and he's fine - we check in with each other. As someone else has said we wouldn't have jobs if we took time off all the time !

To be fair they (Social Care) might not necessarily take action about things but the calls are logged and help build a bigger picture if other people are calling in about the same families but different issues. So I take my comments back.

I worked for Social care (& with foster children) and we never had blanket rules re home alone. All done by individual children ( though the majority would be older than children outside the system ).
I've worked with a lot of 16 year old living independently which could be v difficult if they went directly from 24h supervision to virtually no supervision.

I wouldn't report it - not my responsibility.

I just said what I was allowed to do.

At the schools I know it's not usual that children are left home alone because of drugs or alcohol but instead children getting themselves up in the morning (cos parents have gone to work) is a CP issue, as they're left home asleep.

It's the children being left asleep apparently that's the problem.

Sorry it's because it's in case that it fits a pattern of neglect of a child.

That's why schools report if a child is alone in the morning before school.

In cases of teenagers left for any length of time eg when parent nips out to get medication or food, feeling obliged to answer the door could actively put them at risk.

Hell's teeth, my younger 2 are left to take themselves off to school. During school holidays they are routinely left asleep in their pits beds. They will be absolutely thrilled to be woken up just so that I can say goodbye.

Flip me sideways Is this why my neighbour asked me if I could babysit her 14 year old son for one hour last year? Since when are teenagers not allowed to stay at home and even, shock-horror, answer the door, by themselves? Madness. Utter madness. Probably only existing on MN.

OP that letter is badly-worded and I'd ignore it.

In the absence of wrap around childcare for teenagers, there must be an awful lot of parents being reported for allowing their children to be home alone .

The law on leaving your child home alone.

My 15 year old regularly gets herself up and out to school as I leave for work at 7. She's been doing this for over a year. I'm shocked that anyone would consider this neglect.

My son along with his friends has finished his GCSEs so they no longer need to go into school, presumably all their parents should be staying home to look after them?

I think it's interesting that the nspcc say 'no child under 16 to be left overnight'

Maybe that's why it could be contributing to a pattern of neglect as when does 'overnight' start - if you're on shifts and leaving at 5/6/7am is that really morning?

What seems more neglectful is the attitude of "It's not my responsibility"

Surely it's anyone and everyone's responsibility to draw attention to a GENUINE concern for a child's welfare? And I do not mean a concern that little Johnny had to pour his own milk on his Shreddies this morning.

Seriously AndHarry, if you lived where I used to live, you wouldn't answer the door either. Even during the day. Especially during the day when nobody else was around. It all depends.

In fact I often wonder how nice it must be to simply ignore the bell as is often suggested on MN. In my area staying quiet is an invitation to someone trying to break in so yes, it needs an adult to manage something as apparently easy as a knock on the door and does put children at risk.

16 year old isn't a child though are they? They are a young adult.

I am aware that I contradicted myself there What I was trying to say is that it takes a certain level of judgement and experience to answer or not answer the door in many areas depending on circumstance. Teenagers are not generally known for their ability to accurately weigh up risk. Hence out of control parties at best.

Anyway OP, you as the parent of your DC are best-placed to determine risk level given their maturity and your particular circumstances so I do think the school is BU.

Plus I work in a school (and dh works in a different one) and children who are home alone and the school finds out are reported through SS

What a waste of time and utterly ridiculous.

Or are you talking primary age?

At ten I was at home alone for an hour before school and an hour and a half after it. From the start of secondary school if I was ill, I was home alone the whole day (eight till five thirty). If I'd ever been properly dangerously ill I would have been in hospital (like when I had severe asthma attacks); otherwise it was assumed I could drag myself around enough to be okay, which I was.

I think the school is having a giraffe and their statement about what's legal is incorrect. Guessing along with others they've misworded it, but they need to be careful about that as obviously there will be others like you now panicking about leaving fourteen year olds home alone.

I'll believe it's legally required when I see the actual law they're trying to base this horseshit on.

Laurie, if I had had to take time off every time my one of my teens had another virus infection, I would have been sacked within months. Dd has medical problems meaning she catches everything.

A 14-16yoyo can perfectly well be ill enough (stomach upset, flu, chickenpox- yes, dd had it twice) to need to stay at home from school but be well capable of looking after themselves. In fact, an NT 16yo isn't that different from an adult in that respect.

I am sure dh would love to stay at home and look after me when I'm ill. Why wouldn't he? But I don't think his employers would be very sympathetic.

Nobody around here has childminders for children of secondary school age so the expectation is that they will be alone for part of the day even at the best of times. If they started reporting that they would be reporting pretty well every child in the local secondaries.

In fact, I once had a SW ask me why dd was still going to the childminder's in Yr 7, suggesting that maybe I was overprotective of her.