to assume that 12 year old kids cannot be left alone in park

[mum7]

I would love to hear what you think: after sports day, my 12 year old daughter was left by herself in a park she was not familiar with. Apparently, she followed a large group of girls and then realised that these children were going home with their parents or by themselves. When she went back to where the games had been, no one was there. I called the school, and they did not know where she was. I think by then all the teachers had left. I have now re-read the letter from the school and it said that the "day is scheduled to finish at 3:45 at the track", which I now realised meant that we had to collect the girls from the track and not the school. Am I unreasonable to expect the school not to let my daughter alone just because I am not there as expected? If I had been late to collect her from school, she would have felt safe and just waited for me. In the park, she started panicking.

'Arf @ gate duty'

'Gate duty? What is that?'

'It is NOT a supervision service and staff are not there to wait for parents. The students are expected to walk off home past us. If they choose, between them and their parents, to wait and be picked up, that is a private arrangement.'

maybe at your school..My Dc school is a grammar school and has only a minority of DC in walking distance the rest coming in on buses or by parents car.It is absolutely the schools responsibility to ensure students are safely dispatched and they would certainly pick up on a first year hanging about uncollected 20 minutes after the end of school.It is a shame so many teachers imagine 'loco parentis ' does not apply to them.

Your child is at secondary school, you are collecting her every day and when left alone at a park she started to panic? You need to pull your socks up a bit and get this young woman developing some independence and resilience. The letter was perfectly clear and this situation absolutely within the scope of a 12 yr old to safely manage.

The more I read on MN the more caring i realise my dcs secondary school is.Insisting on suncream for outdoor PE, watching for uncollected children at end of school, not letting them wander round town until they are in the 6th form.

So the staff should have had a checklist of all pupils, and ticked them off as they were collected, and demanded written permission from those who usually walk home?
A lot of schools would do this, others expect more independence.
I wonder how long it was between walking off and then looking around to find a teacher. For all the staff, equipment and the rest to have been packed and gone, it must have been more than a couple of minutes.

YABU. You forgot to pick her up.

A school that expects a 12 yr old child to take care of themselves in the British rural or urban landscape is NOT uncaring. What's dangerous here is the potential for a generation of kids to grow up taxied everywhere and unable to keep themselves safe and on task. I actually feel quite angry with the OP. we have such a huge responsibility as the parents of young women to raise those women to assert themselves, take care of themselves and not be dependant.

hellskitty - one person's caring is another person's smothering

Babying them is not the same as caring for them though is it? If teachers act "like a parent" surely they will wave the secondary school children off home at the end of the day, in much the same way that the majority of parents wave them off in the morning. No neglect in that.

On the face of it, YABU for all the above reasons

How did DD get home? I am sorry you both had a fright

OP, did you have to sign a letter to ackknowledged that this sports day was happening, because I think it's quite bad form of the school actually.

I totally get that most 12 year olds are capable and should be given the freedom to get home on their own, BUT how did the school communicate this whole day out to the parents. As the trip co-ordinator at my secondary school, every single away day, be it just one hour during a lesson or a week away, HAS to be treated as a school trip.

Therefore, parents should have been given a consent form to agree to their child leaving school premises during the day and including a statement about whether or not they could be left to make their own way home or not. The school does actually have a responsibiliy to all the students.

What if there was a vunerable child in that group, with a relative that was not allowed near them and they spotted them at the venue? What if there was a student who was not mentally old enough to get themselves home?

It should have been made very clear on the letter, with a tick box about the journey home, not just saying 'it finishes at 3.45.'

How did she not know where the park was? Did the teachers blindfold her on the way?

Maybe this has taught your DD to pay a bit more attention to where she is and what she should be doing.

Cannot see any way in which this is the school's fault.

No they shouldn't have left her but she walked off. She's 12 , you need to give her some freedom to gain independence. I could have traveled miles at. 12 and was quite street wise.

All a misunderstanding because you didn't follow the instructions. At 12 yrs just discuss what she should do if something similar happens again.

hellskitty I expect if she had been hanging about uncollected someone would have checked on her. She wasn't. She wandered off then came back later. I know that when I am on bus duty outside my school I have no idea whether children I see walking off in to town normally do that or normally wait for a parent, but as they are Secondary age I let them. I have taken a child to the office fairly recently because her lift hadn't arrived. I also run after school clubs and always wait on site until everyone has left - again I don't ask how they are leaving. In the situation described by the OP I would have done exactly what the school staff did.

Therefore, parents should have been given a consent form to agree to their child leaving school premises during the day and including a statement about whether or not they could be left to make their own way home or not

That is exactly what our secondary does.

We sign consent forms to say they have permission to leave site.

We also sign to say whether they can make their own way home from the event, will be collected from the event or should be taken back to school.

The staff have a check list, and pupils are checked out at the end of the event.

Our school does know the going home arrangements. The children are not allowed to take part without all permission slips signed and returned

'The school informed you of the arrangements. You didn't read the letter properly. How is that the school's fault?'

Just becoz.
That said, I'd like to charge parents who don't turn up on time without a reasonable excuse. Having stood there on many a dark night, with a tired and rather worried child and a useless phone number. Once it was almost an hour, after a carol service.

Pressed post too soon, meant to add

Pupils aren't allowed to wander off/leave site until they've been ticked off the checklist. They're all stopped and their going home arrangements checked on the list.

Even events where parents also attend, they're not allowed to leave until they're checked off the list

I suppose I find it odd if it wasn't also mentioned at school and the letter was the only communication.
Not that I think that that would then put the school in the wrong.

Permission slips for 2ndry to go off site for sports day?
Good grief!

If it's held off school site, yes, permission slips are sent out

When mine were 12 they were allowed to catch the bus in to town and go to the cinema on their own! They were allowed to the park, near our house, when they were about 7 or 8, and were walking to school from Yr5!

I don't think it is the school's fault that you misunderstood the letter, but I think she should definitely have a mobile phone so she can contact you.

How on earth do you have the time/man power to do that, Stinkle? How many pupils do you have? It seems totally impractical and unnecessary to me! DO you do it every day? And if not what criteria make this checking procedure kick in?
Our parents sign a generic 'off site permission' at the start of the year for simple trips out not involving transport or coast and which are a normal part of the curriculum. I think this sports day would be covered by that. Our Sponsored walk has separate permission slips and pupils are checked on and off the actual walk - this is complicated enough and they have a staggered release and naturally staggered return. Nobody checks them out when they leave school, though, just as nobody does on an ordinary day...

It was probably scary for the child involved, and the OP is both annoyed and looking for someone to blame because she didn't double-check what was happening. We've all been there at some point in our parenting.
Schools do vary in the levels of control and monitoring of pupils, it's one of the things that makes supply teaching a minefield and that I check very carefully. I'd rather a child and parent were pissed off by my zeal than get it in the neck for negligence as defined by that school.