To expect a teacher to at least check that year 7s were being picked up from an evening event at school?

[CromerSutra]

DD is in a play at her school, she is one of only 3 yr 7s in the play (the others are older, right up to sixth form). The rehersals end at 6.30. The school is a little way out of town and approx 2.5 miles from our house.
When I arrived to pick her up last night the children were all getting their bits ready to come home and the teachers disappeared. One yr 7 girl was left as her parents hadn't picked her up. I ended up finally getting in touch with her parents and giving her a lift but I was a bit shocked that when it was pitch black out and in a not well lit area the teachers did not even try to check that the younger children had been picked up. They are only 11.

I teach much younger children myself so obviously we work by very different rules but just wondered if this was the norm?

Yes, sorry I misread as Y6 when it is Y7.

But even so, it really depends on the area, how easy it is to get transport etc. My mum always picked me up if I had something that finished at that time as she just didn't want me/us hanging around at the bus stop as it wasn't a busy area with shops or anything, and just a main road with lots of cars going past. Neither would she ever let me walk or cycle home down a long country lane which would have been the quickest way, as she thought it was just too isolated- this was in late 80s/early 90s.

Also it's a transitional time for the kids, they will have got a lot more independent but get still get mixed up, forget their phones, forget to charge their phones. It's barely the end of the first term. TBH even if an adult can have a mix up with arrangements and be unable to get home, so I would always make sure they were ok even if it was a grown up.

At 12 (as I was 12 when I started secondary) I would get cat-called by middle aged men and it isn't necessarily safe for them. Unfortunately.

Thanks all (apart from Boney, that was unnecessarily snippy! There were no teachers in the room and I saw them leave the drama centre before checking that children were picked up, I am a teacher myself so NOT teacher bashing) I will mention it nicely.

I hear you Tinkly and that is certainly the case every day that Dd goes to and from school on her own, she has been walking to school since she was 9 and a half. I do think it's different for a 6.30 finish and what for most of the students would be a 2 mile plus walk along dark, pretty deserted streets. I think that's a bit much for an 11 year old personally.

I said several times that I appreciated the teachers commitment to the show I am a teacher myself and nowhere did I say I was going to the headteacher. Blimey.

Thanks tiggy, that's helpful. Seems teachers at high school all have slightly different procedures but that's possibly what they were expecting here. I really don't think it's ridiculously over protective to ask about it though.

So presumably as well as having a quiet word with the teacher, you're also going to have a word with the parents about their slack parenting?

Im a teacher of young children and yes the teacher should of stayed and checked although this isnt in the job contract its the moral thing to do.
I think you should maybe mention it to him

I would expect the procedure tiggy sets out but there's never any harm in asking.

At secondary school they are usually responsible for making their own way home. And the parents knew what time the event finished. I don't think this is unusual with after school events.

YABU
It is the student's responsibility to get home and/or the parent's responsibility to ensure their child is not left hanging around. Teacher's are not responsible for babysitting secondary school students until parents turn up.

I bet the teacher was in the loo, or locking up the building, or putting the equipment away, or setting something up for the next day. Very very unlikely she would have gone home, teachers care a lot about the students in their care. If you contact the school, she will get a bollocking, without being asked what happened, or it will be a shitty email to her, with her line manager cc'd in. She will then think "why do I bloody bother?"

I ask the students are you all getting picked up? And check they all know at the beginning of term for something like the play, clubs etc rehearsals will finish at 6:30, can you all get home ok? Come back in and get me if you need me, or have a problem. We wouldn't wait at the step to see each child off.

Where were her parents? They were just 'running late'? Why hadn't they rung the child to say there were running late? Why hadn't they arranged for you/someone else to get her? That's a parental responsibility in my opinion, not a teaching one.

I wouldn't have expected the teacher to necessarily check that all the children had been collected from an after school activity as they are usually just allowed to go outside and meet their lift/walk home. I would, however, expect a Yr 7 to be capable of going back into the school building and find a member of staff to say that their parents had not turned up to collect them and that they needed to use the phone.

For the final time Evil I am a teacher myself, I am not intending to lay into anyone.

If you're a teacher yourself, put yourself in THAT teacher's position when someone senior has a quiet word following a complaint from a parent. How would you feel if a parent of a child in your class complained because she didn't know where you were and another child (not theirs) hadn't been picked up YET. I notice in your OP that you only say this child was the last yr 7 to be collected not the last child. You need to drop this and not have a word with anyone. It's a non-issue but you are in danger of making it one.

Good point Evil
I think if you're going to clarify the procedures you should ask the teacher directly. S/he might be in for a load of grief from SMT otherwise.

Perhaps, OP, you should just leave it to the mother of the actual child who was affected. It's not really your issue, is it?

Actually, I know I said upthread that if I were the teacher in this position I'd appreciate a quiet 'heads up' that X's parents didn't pick her up & she was left stranded, but if it was a simple case of parents muddling the time/child having a flat phone then presumably it was a one off = no need to say owt to anyone.

DEFINITELY not via the office (for all the reasons Millie3030 & EvilTwins have given).

As a teacher who does lots of trips, activities, etc, I do think it's a basic principle that you hang around for long enough for any stranded year 7s to become apparent! Kids this age are always wandering around gormlessly with flat phone batteries...I'd want to cover my arse.

There are plenty of parents who'll go tonto at their precious being left unattended for 10 minutes because they forgot to pick up...& I dunno about the rest of us, but I wouldn't rely on my SLG to have my back tbh.

No intention of been "snippy", just posting my understanding of what you had posted so far.

When you say that you saw them leave the drama centre did they leave it completely, as in drive/walk away?

Was their mode of transport gone when you left the building?
Was the building still unlocked when you left?

Why blame the teachers? It is the parents responsibility to make arrangements for their children. I'm not a teacher but used to be a cubs leader and well remember hanging round in the cold and rain for the parents who turned up late. Always the same ones as well.

What seems odd to me isn't so much the teachers not checking that every child had been picked up, it's the teachers going home while there were still kids in the room they'd been using. Isn't it their responsibility to check windows closed / lights off / doors shut etc.?

skylark there's no evidence that they'd gone home.

Ok, I never said anywhere that I was going to the headteacher!!!! Why would I do that?! Fgs! I have been teaching for nearly 20 years myself in primary schools, I have worked at youth groups and on drama projects outside school and we have always Checked that the kids were getting home safely. I have, however, never been a parent to a secondary school child before that is why I posted.

Thank you to those who gave me the benefit of their experience without sneering.

I have not spoken to anyone at all about it because I wanted to see if I was BU. I accept that for many people my expectations are unreasonable and for others they are not. Boney, I have had various parents make the odd complaint to me or to my head about all sorts of things over the years and some of them were valid and some of them pissed me right off. That is part of our job.

In the entire time that my dd has been at infant and primary school I think I have complained twice and both times it was courteous and sensitively done.

All I basically said in the Op was that I was surprised and then I asked whether this was the norm because I genuinely didn't know.

Thanks again for the information. I really have nothing more to add.

Last week ds should have been collected at 6pm by DH. DH was stuck on motorway. DS didn't have his phone with him.... DH phoned me, I got worried imagining my poor little 11yo standing outside in the rain all by himself (only he isn't little any more and quite capable of sitting inside school to wait to be collected, and asked to borrow someone's phone to call me). Which is why secondary teachers don't worry about making sure every single child had been collected.