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AIBU?

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Original poster

stalked by school!

385 replies

Brioche201 · 29/11/2015 22:10

Last Friday DD was off sick. I start work at 9.30 so got her up and dressed and dropped her round at my parents.When I got to work there was an email on my work email address (which I have NOT given out to them as a contact address), an emaul on my personal email, messages on my mobile and home number and DH's mobile! All before 9.15 wanting to enquire as to DDs whereabouts!! Now DD gets a lift to school every day with another child from the same village (we are 4 miles away from school) so pretty obvious that she hasn't befallen an accident on the way.Infact the secretary would have asked the other child if DD was coming
I am thinking of complaining to the school, as I think it was pretty rude to try to contact me by so many different means especially my work email wanting to know her 'whereabouts'.WTF !!

OP posts:
Narp · 30/11/2015 06:21

That's right OP, you just keep talking with your fingers in your ears....

IguanaTail · 30/11/2015 06:21

Reminds me of:

stalked by school!
ArmchairTraveller · 30/11/2015 06:25

I was teaching in Sussex when this happened www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/may/29/ameliagentleman.nickhopkins
A lot of procedures change as the consequence of events. This abduction meant that we all started to be extra-cautious in checking exactly where children were, rather than just thinking 'Oh good, one less to teach'
Truanting isn't the only fear.
OP, you are being foolish.

ShowMeTheWonder · 30/11/2015 06:34

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Groovee · 30/11/2015 06:55

Our LAstarted ringing or texting all parents after a 3 year old was beside his mother who had died for 2 weeks without being checked up on. A boy in a neighbouring authority didn't turn up for school and was found murdered later that day.

As a brownie leader I email parents from the venue if they don't turn up. Most of my parents will email prior to me arriving at brownies when I check the email. I only phone when we are on a trip.

As for being stalked, having been stalked for 3 years by a neighbour, a school attempting to get hold of you as per their safeguarding policy is NOT stalking!

wanderings · 30/11/2015 06:57

This is a real eye opener for me. We don't have to inform the school if the child is off sick, just send them a note afterwards, when the child comes back to school.

I remember it being that way when I was at school in the late 80's and early 90's. Things have moved on since then; people are far more contactable than they used to be; it's rare for people not to have mobile phones/email now. Also, through no fault of the school, everything that happens to children is now the school's fault, far more than it used to be. (When I was 7 years old, some of my peers used to walk to school alone! Those days are long gone.)

Having said that, I do remember a different kind of school doggedness when I was ill at primary school. The school "dinner ladies" who looked after sick children refused point blank to contact my dad rather than my mum, even when I myself told them that my dad was much nearer, and could be called at work, but my mum couldn't (she was a teacher herself!). The written instructions (in the dinner lady's hand) from my parents clearly stated that "mother can only be contacted with great difficulty", but my school would have none of it. I had to stay in "sick bay" until the end of the day.

HSMMaCM · 30/11/2015 07:06

DD's primary never contacted me, because id always left a message at 8:30. I would have been shocked if she hadn't arrived and they didn't contact me. Her secondary school did send me an absence text, generated by the school computer when she missed afternoon registration. There was a good reason for it, but I'm glad to see the system was working.

HSMMaCM · 30/11/2015 07:06

She's in sixth form now and has to phone in herself by 8:30.

Enjolrass · 30/11/2015 07:09

This thread is fairly ridiculous.

The school is stalking you? Because they got in touch because your child wasn't there?

They didn't do anything wrong... You did.

I am really shocked and quite sceptical that a secondary doesn't check up on pupils who haven't turned in and who wait two weeks to ind out why they were off.

Most schools I know do the text email, if you haven't reported it. And you have to fill in their planner to say why they were off for them to take in.

So if the OPs older child doesn't turn up at school she wouldn't know until 4pm?

NotMeNotYouNotAnyone · 30/11/2015 07:09

Yabvu

You could've avoided all this by calling before school started to say she won't be in.

Enjolrass · 30/11/2015 07:09

Oh and as for taking the word of an 11 year old for absence is ridiculous.

Bunbaker · 30/11/2015 07:20

"I'm quite surprised at these responses. My dd has been in school for three years and whenever she's bee out sick from school i have never called the school to say she wouldn't be in confused
I send in a note to the teacher the next day to explain why dd was absent. Once the teacher takes the roll then he or she knows the child is absent and can ask questions the next day?"

I take it that you aren't in the UK. After incidences of child abductions and abuse in the home these precautions were introduced to schools.

Call it the nanny state if you will, but I bet some of those children had wished that the nanny state had existed when they needed it.

ShowMe is right that schools have to satisfy ofsted because attendance and safeguarding are of high priority.

OP YABVVVU. Time to admit it don't you think?

hobnobsaremyfavourite · 30/11/2015 07:23

All schools are expected to have a first day response system in place when it come to absence
It's certainly something Estyn look at when inspecting here in Wales and would imagine Ofsted are the same.

londonrach · 30/11/2015 07:31

You did phone the school and let them know she wasnt coming in. If you didnt yabu as they need to check in case sometging has happened on the way.

treaclesoda · 30/11/2015 07:39

Bunbaker I am in the UK and my dcs school doesn't contact parents either. It's not the policy here. I'm not in England though.

Sirzy · 30/11/2015 07:47

She only ohoned after starting work at 9.30 though by which time the staff will already be checking registers to see who is off and check why if it hasn't been reported

rollonthesummer · 30/11/2015 07:47

I send in a note to the teacher the next day to explain why dd was absent. Once the teacher takes the roll then he or she knows the child is absent and can ask questions the next day?

What?? Your school is flouting basic safeguarding rules. Which lea is it in?

IwishIwasinNewYork · 30/11/2015 07:49

Oh my gosh OP you really are so unreasonable.

It's making me quite cross.

It's fantastic that the school jumped on the situation so early.

Also you do know that school secretaries are madly busy in the mornings so many of them blitz the absence phone calls like crazy before 9am in case they forget and will have to get them done by an agreed time.

It would be ragic if they forgot to follow up on one child and something bad had happened.

It really doesn't matter if the other child is sensible or if it's a small school.

The school is doing what it's supposed to do in the way it's supposed to do it!

azerty · 30/11/2015 07:51

The practice of calling parents started after our two girls were kidnapped. It was in the news for the 3 days it took to find them and the main story was how irresponsible we were as a school that parents did not know the children were not there until the evening. This led to a nationwide change in the way schools had to handle absences. It takes a lot of time to chase up absences and is for safeguarding reasons, not for the sake of annoying you as you imply.

stairway · 30/11/2015 07:57

Its a sign of the times we live it. I doubt it has saved any children tbh. If a child has already bean murdered then it is too late anyway. Ifva child us taken to school by an adult then they won't be abducted on the way!
Its just rules to make busybodies happy IMO.
The school receptionist in a nightmare at my son's school always gives the third degree when you ring in reporting absence. I wonder if they even use a lie detector!

stairway · 30/11/2015 07:59
  • been
NaughtToThreeSadOnions · 30/11/2015 07:59

rollonsummer they may not be in any LA, as in not in the UK. I know from my godchildren that a lot of Irish schools the note the next day is way the school asked to be informed of absence.

Sirzy · 30/11/2015 08:02

How about the fact it's polite to let the school know a child won't be in? Surely it comes into the basic manners side of things?

You wouldn't just not turn up to work would you? Or not turn up to an appointment? (There gain so many people do that too!)

If you are expected somewhere and can't make it then manners say you let them know as soon as you can.

Goingtobeawesome · 30/11/2015 08:03

My children's secondary schools would definitely ring if no message left by 9:30. It's not just primary school children that are ill, go missing, get kidnapped Hmm.

You are extremely ridiculous, OP.

Frusso · 30/11/2015 08:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

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