To feel really upset that a mum sent her child to school ill again

[Yesitismeagain]

I work in a primary school. One boy (age 9) cried today because he felt so unwell. He was ill yesterday (temperature and feeling ill with it) and his parents were called early, but they didn't come till normal pick up.

Today he was back in, but was obviously very unwell from the start. The school phoned by 9.30am to come and get him. He was crying, shivering and just lying on the floor in the 'sick room' (a small room off the office).

By 2pm a parent still hadn't arrived. The office were told that the neither parent could come as they work.

Is it just me that this is neglect?

I told DD who is 15 not to go to school on Wednesday. She chose to go. Then I get a call from the school welfare asking if she come home. I said I'd pick her up and they told me she shouldn't have been in school, explained about the morning conversation. They told her to listen to me.

But I have had difficulty with parents collecting. One parent told a baby room member of staff to "give a double dose of calpol!" Which we refused and dad did eventually turn up.

In my experience of working 3 years pt, 15 years ft with 2 children the more senior you get, the easier it is to take time off for a sick child . My boss was of the 'as long as the work gets done I don't care when/how you do it' type. If I had to miss a meeting I would brief my deputy (on the phone from home if need be .)to attend . And I was always very organised, so relevant files etc could be found easily .No one is irreplaceable. I worked a lot nearer home/children's schools than DH(who travelled by train, I had the car) so it was always me. I never had a substitute 'lined up' I must admit ,as most of my friends were back at work once children at school . Having said that my DDs were , thank god, very healthy .
And yes I think if you have a low level job and /or an unsympathetic boss all the legislation in the world wont help
The extended family is getting rarer and rarer and back up can be very very difficult . But no one can stop you leaving work, and, in a court, sacking you for doing so would, I would hope, be regarded as unreasonable

Our school asks for contact detail for both parents ( home and work ) plus one other contact ( I use my mums number and her work number ). I know it must be hard if you work but surely this in considered when you have children? Children get ill and there are times when they need to be collected from school. I would hate to think that my child is poorly at school and I can't pick them up . It also unfair on the school to have to deal with a sick child and unfair on the people that are exposed to what ever illness it is.

I don't think this is an issue that just affects women. In my family set up, I work three hours away. My husband works from home. If my little boy is ill, it is DH that has to take the time off and go and pick him up from nursery because I can't physically get there in under three hours.

His boss is mostly not amused by him taking time off to pick up our son, but we have no other choice. I really believe it has contributed to him not progressing in his career because he's seen as slightly unreliable.

That said - I do think women get asked more often about this kind of situation at interviews than men do. No one interviewing my husband would dream of asking a) whether he had children b) if he bore the brunt of the childcare arrangements where as I know of women who are asked those things in interview regularly.

Fair point seff

I know it must be hard if you work but surely this in considered when you have children?

There's a big gap in terms of life events between deciding to start a family and the child starting school.
Jobs can change, relationships break down, extended family members die......I can't imagine there are many people who can accurately predict what their life will look like in 5 years time.

(And, of course, not all babies are planned!)

That is what I meant by not putting other people's children before my own, but obviously permanentlyexhausted thinks I highlight her idea of selfishness.

No, not at all. I think you highlighted my idea of selfishness, not necessarily that you were an example of it (although perhaps the nuances in my argument are just too subtle for Mumsnet). I wasn't making a personal attack on you.

I am not sure that no-one IS irreplaceable, Postchildren. I worked as an operating theatre nurse, and if I was the only qualified scrub nurse in that theatre (something that happened every day), it could be very difficult indeed to find another suitably qualified nurse to take over from me, if I was urgently needed to pick up a sick child.

There are very real safety issues involved - policy when I was working was that the scrub nurse who started a case should see it through to the end, unless there was a really good reason why she should scrub out (ie. she became ill, the case went on for a number of hours), because the scrub nurse knows what instruments they have on their trolley, including any extras, and even though a count of the swabs and sharps was done at a handover, mistakes were possible - and though this was unlikely, it was not a risk that would be taken lightly.

And that's just the scrub nurse - what about the surgeon? They can't step away from the table mid-operation, unless there is another surgeon, who knows the procedure, available to take over. Even if you wait until the end of the case, and then the surgeon leaves, what happens to the rest of the patients on the list. if no-one can take over? They get their operation cancelled and are sent home.

There are plenty of jobs where you can't just step away at a moment's notice. And with staffing levels so low, in so many jobs, it can be well-nigh impossible for someone to leave.

There is no single easy answer to the sort of situation the OP describes. I have the greatest of sympathy for the poorly child, who just wanted the comfort of their own home. I have sympathy also for parents who have to work, to pay the bills and put food on the table, and who cannot easily leave work. It's not like the parents were in the middle of a nice day out and refused to come home and pick their poorly child up. I suspect they were between a rock and a hard place.

@SDTG- emergency contacts. If you can't step away from work, and you have children, then you HAVE to have someone available- through prior planning, exchanging names and contacts with parents who are placed in similar situation etc, to be the emergency contact. In this scenario, the emergency contacts were also hugely at fault.

It doesn't matter where they were or why. They shrugged off the responsibility for a sick child onto the school.

Schools are not child care for sick children. Debating whose jobs are important and lack of back up care is neither here nor there. Ill children should not be in school. Full stop.

Heads need to get very firm about this before it becomes even more of a problem.

Can I give a different view point. My husband works abroad 50% of the year. I live far away from my family. My job is an hour away from where my child goes to school and I have a knobhead for a boss and despite being quite high up in my profession trying to get time off to collect my child on the very rare times she is sick is a nightmare. It is sad that children are sent to school when they are sick but sometimes people do not have any choice

But its your responsibility not the school's!

Presumably these people also send their children into school when it's closed because of snow or broken boiler? Because they have no choice

Eve light, would you leave work to pick up someone else's sick child?

By the way, whilst you have some protection in employment law to leave work to collect your own sick child, there's none if you are collecting someone else's.

This is very true - as my DDs stepparents have both discovered!

Any emergency contact arrangements made would therefore need to be with someone who never works during school hours.

Our hospital crèche closed early due to snow once, the consultant surgeon's 2 yr old was in there so the rest of the list had to be cancelled. It was my job to go and inform all the patients.

It was very unfortunate but I still don't believe surgeons should not be parents of young children.

Roland, neither of my children has had to be picked up early since they started school.

For most kids it's, what, once or twice a year?

It is sad that children are sent to school when they are sick but sometimes people do not have any choice

Of course they have a choice. They can choose to do the right thing for their child, their child's teacher and the other children in the school.

They can choose not to be shit parents.

Thanks mythical kings I appreciate you calling me a shit parent. I hope you never have a sick child with little or no support and have someone telling you that you are a rubbish parent

I agree it mounts up for the NHS but for an individual parent to decide to spend 7-8 years of their career as bank staff and presumably suffer future lack of progress for the sake of 1 day a year that it takes 3 hours to pick up rather than 1 or whatever doesn't seem like a good decision for anybody, including the overall economy.