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.

My school has 1400 kids in it. Our school has more than one exit. There is no possible way of ensuring they are all safely sent off at the end of the day.

Yes, so does my DD's school and at the end of a normal on-site day, they don't check them out. Reception is open until 5 so if there are missed busses/delayed parents, etc then they are expected to have the sense to go to reception.

This is off-school-site stuff though.my DD's secondary school insist on returned permission slips and all pupils are checked off against a checklist before they're allowed to leave

In fairness to the OP, we don't know where the park was in relation to school, how close it is, how they got to the park, the DD obviously didn't know the area so I'm presuming not local

Similar for my DCs school - except we have 4 exits in nice weather (one is shut when the pitch is wet), one of which is the other side of a railway line. Another local school has a sports ground 1 1/2 miles away.
Never mind the private ones which use all kinds of sports grounds.

The lesson is read the note more carefully.
Did I tell you about the time I got the school finishing time wrong by 2 hours?

Maureen it was never mentioned . In theory I suppose they should have told my parents but nobody did. Even me.

I agree with those who have said that the letter should have been more clearly worded. At my children's school, letters about events like Sports Day and Speech Day always include boxes to tick to say how you want them to get afterwards. The choice is usually to let them walk straight home on their own from the event, walk back to school with the group, you can provide a lift for them and let the school know if you could take any extra people, or you can ask if they could have a lift with someone else. You have to specify clearly which you are doing. It's pretty much foolproof. I always used to write on them "X has permission to walk home with his brother Y" and vice versa so the adults knew not to let them go off without each other, so one of them didn't waste ages looking for someone who had already gone.

If I'd seen a letter worded like the one you got, I think I would have assumed it meant "the event at the park finishes at 3.35 so they will be back at school a bit later than usual" rather than "the event at the park finishes at 3.45 - please let us know how your child will be getting home".

So in these particular circumstances I think YANBU to think the mix-up is partly the school's fault for not making the arrangement clear, but YWBBU if you assumed that a 12-year-old couldn't ever deal with a situation like this independently. It was only because the unexpected happened that she couldn't cope. I would expect most 12-year-olds to be able to travel independently as long as everything went according to plan.

I think the school should have made the arrangements clearer in the letter. Saying something finishes at the track isn't clear- you wouldn't know if they would walk back to the school or be collected by parents at the track and you need details of where this track is as well.

I totally agree that this is a good warning lesson about how your 12 year old should handle unfamiliar situations,actually she ended up home safe so she must have done ok. So mobile or contact numbers on her person, knowing who to ask- another parent and so on.

It is not the school's fault though that she wandered off and nor do they have a duty of care to remain there for an hour afterwards in case she returned, but there is an issue over communication. These things happen though, I've misread school letters before now or even forgot to collect my children once!

People think that the letter isn't clear??
I despair!

They are at secondary school! They are not delivered to a parent like a parcel!
The letter was clear-the DD wandered off-assumed she had gone with a friend.
The moral of the story is that OP needs to read letters properly and her DD needs to know what to do when things go wrong.
It is not the schools fault.

it said that the "day is scheduled to finish at 3:45 at the track"

What could possibly be clearer than that?!

YABU - the school told you what would happen, and wouldn't be waiting around with lists of who is going where as at this age most go home by themselves.

She should not of left, you should have read the letter properly and you need to start giving her some independence.

The letter is perfectly clear: according to OP it said the "day is scheduled to finish at 3:45 at the track".

It tells you where and when the day will end.

There isn't any room to think that there will be a return to school or indeed anywhere else.

It's also an event for secondary school pupils, not primary children, and they are expected to use a certain amount of common sense.

As none of the other pupils seemed to have an issue, it sounds very much as if DD has to start paying more attention in school. And it would be good if she started being more independent, going places by herself.

The day is scheduled to finish at the track means the pupils will not be going back to school, in anybody's language. . What's ambiguous about that??

Perhaps the OP scanned the letter quickly and didn't check the details. Just assumed.
Like I said, it's a red flag to ensure that they both think and plan better for next time.

Well MN hasnt been flooded with messages from parents saying their 12 year olds got abandoned at the park. I am guessing that every other parent managed to read the letter and work out the arrangements.

That may be a clue as to whether the OP was being unreasonable, or not.

Perhaps the OP scanned the letter quickly and didn't check the details. Just assumed.

She now needs to assume that her DD is of an age where she takes the responsibility for herself-the school certainly will. They do not have lists and recognise parents. The DCs sort it out themselves and they tell staff if they have a problem.

Her daughter isn't at that stage yet, so the OP needs to put in some training and life-skills support to enable her daughter not to feel panicky and clueless when challenges arise.

Wonder if your daughter goes to my son's school. GC

He had sports day today at a track attached to a sports centre and I could think of a large park close to the track. It would be perfectly feasible that your daughter did not know that part of town, though very walkable.

I wouldn't expect a sports day to finish in the local park and I wouldn't be that happy about dd being by herself in out nearest park either (it is very large and it's scarily easy to get lost). I'm pretty sure dd's school would walk them all back so they could go home via their usual buses and trains.

She is 12 she wandered off didnt wait for you you didnt read the letter properly and thats the schols fault, a bit of personal responsibility op teach your 12 yr old to wait on you

Babying children of this age isn't doing them any favours and the OP has just learnt the hard way.

The sports day didn't finish in a park, whatever. It finished at 'the track', which, for all we know, was where the OP's dd usually had her games lessons. She ended up in a park when she followed a group of girls who were going home.

Many schools in London have their games lessons on a different site and students are expected to make their own way there in the lunch hour, sometimes on public transport, for their games afternoons. They don't need permission slips. Just imagine the logistical problems of checking every week to see if they've been returned. And what do you do with the ones who haven't returned their slips? Who's going to look after them when they have to stay in school?

Dismissing the students from the track makes sense so they don't have to retrace their tracks and the letter was for the parents' convenience so that those who usually collected their dcs didn't turn up to wait in the wrong place.

Ime, very few Yr 7's are routinely collected by their parents after the first week of secondary school. As it should be.

If the "track" was where the OP's dd normally has games lessons then it would be fair enough to finish the day there as pupils would be familiar with their surrounding. If it was some distance from the school and unfamiliar to the pupils then I don't think they should have finished there.

I don't collect my daughter from school and for that reason I expect her school day to finish at school (or very nearby).

"If it was some distance from the school and unfamiliar to the pupils then I don't think they should have finished there."

Really?! A 12 y/o cannot make their own way home from an unfamiliar site?

I think that YABU but it really depends on what arrangements usually are for this sort of thing. My daughter is 13 & helped at a local sporting event today. It was in the town we live in but in a totally unfamiliar place to her. They were told to make their own way there & home. No one checked how she got there & I found out that she was going by her telling me. No letter, no permission never mind asking how she would get there or back. This is very normal for her school.

Really?! A 12 y/o cannot make their own way home from an unfamiliar site?

Your interpretation of "unfamiliar" may be different to mine. I live in a large city and some of the children from dd's school live up to 30 miles away from the school. They don't know the city at all and it wouldn't be fair at the age of 12 to expect them to make their own way home from anywhere but the school.

But they were not asked to make their way home- the parents were given a clear letter -and if they didn't want them to make their own way home it was up to them to collect or lift share.