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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
GruntledOne · 30/11/2015 08:08

Ifva child us taken to school by an adult then they won't be abducted on the way

So how many children over 10 are taken to school by an adult every day for the rest of their school lives, do you think, stairway?

PrettyBrightFireflies · 30/11/2015 08:11

I'm surprised at the lack of awareness on this thread about the role schools play in the safety and protection of DCs in the UK.

The legal responsibility on schools to follow up in the event of absence is well proven to protect them - far more from abuse or neglect at home than from the remote risk of abduction or accident while en route.

Is MN representative of how many parents enrol their DCs in the state school system without a clear idea of what they are committing to? Recent threads, including this one, give the impression that parents consider it a service they can pick and choose from!

CheesyNachos · 30/11/2015 08:12

Op, YABUnbelievablyU

treaclesoda · 30/11/2015 08:13

It's only flouting a basic safeguarding rule if that is the safeguarding rule where you live.

Where I live the the policy is that you send a note to school after the child's absence. We are asked to ring the school on the third day of absence but not before. Our school complies with all the safeguarding requirements where we live (and has been noted as excellent on its inspection report for its pastoral care)

I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to contact parents, or that the OP is being reasonable (I don't think she is) but the sweeping statement that any school not doing this is shocking, failing their pupils, breaking the law etc seems very extreme.

JumpandScore · 30/11/2015 08:13

Almost everyone on this thread is very well aware Fireflies. Only really one who isnt

Bunbaker · 30/11/2015 08:16

At DD's secondary school they have a register taken at the beginning of every lesson.

WhoTheFuckIsSimon · 30/11/2015 08:32

The teachers/staff won't be allowed to use common sense. I take it you don't work in the public sector? Common sense is very much frowned upon.

There is a policy for everything, you're not allowed to deviate from it. If you do you will be disciplined.

So you tick the boxes even if you know it's bollocks.

WhoTheFuckIsSimon · 30/11/2015 08:34

And I'm not saying it is bollocks in this case btw.

I can see that taking the word of x on what has happened to your dd isn't the best. If something, however unlikely, had happened to your dd can you imagine the headlines if the school said "oh some 9yo said she was sick so we did nothing?"

Ive always managed to ring school before registration, it takes ten seconds.

Enjolrass · 30/11/2015 08:36

If a child has already bean murdered then it is too late anyway.

Ah well then, that's fine then Confused

Excepts it's a well known fact that you have more chance of finding someone alive or at all, if you are aware they are missing quickly. Within 7 hours they could be on the other side of the country.

Is MN representative of how many parents enrol their DCs in the state school system without a clear idea of what they are committing to?

I am always shocked by how little some parents know about the school system.

I also wonder how many people just don't turn up to work when they are ill and not bother to let anyone know.

I am talking about people who are expected in at work not who work from him some days as and when they choose.

RhiWrites · 30/11/2015 08:40

As WaxyBean says employers do it too. If one of my team is unexpectedly absent I text to check if they're OK. (They're supposed to ring in and usually do.) we do this in case someone has had an accident en route.

Enjolrass · 30/11/2015 08:47

Thinking of it the other way round.

You child is always home by 4.30pm every day. One day it gets to 5pm and they aren't home. Who would you ring?

I would ring dds phone, if no answer ring the school.

Or do people wait 5 or 6 hours to find out where their child is?

Wouldn't people expect that if something had happened, which meant their child couldn't get home, that the school would call them and let them know?

kiwifluff25 · 30/11/2015 08:47

From the other perspective, the secretaries are under a lot of pressure to register all children on the system by a certain time. If we don't hear anything then a 'O' mark is given (rather than illness, appointment, just plain late etc). These are regarded as unauthorised absences and we have to pass these onto the local authority.

Which may seem OTT but we had a child whose parent who felt they shouldn't be ''stalked'' by us so would ignore all contact, that day the child turned out to have been wandering the streets all day and wasn't found until 5pm, having not even been registered as missing until she didn't come home after school (we stayed on past our paid hours as police and SS were involved and we wanted to make sure they were safe). An extreme but not that rare example (in 18 months had 3 missing persons with police involvement), but that and the former are the reasons why you get ''stalked'', it's for the ''greater good'' (for want of a better expression!).

Another reason is that if we don't hear anything, and (for example) the parents tell us why they were off a few days later, we have to backtrack through the whole flipping ancient system to overwrite the new data.

Topseyt · 30/11/2015 08:57

The school and work analogy is a good one.

However, plenty of parents do seem to consider school as a free childcare service which just happens to provide something called education on the side.

Wrong of course, but they exist, and they probably hardly see informing school of such matters as a reason for absence as at all important.

After all, you teachers out there are psychic, are you not? Wink Just as children often seem to think their parents are psychic. Confused

OP may be one of those.

hackmum · 30/11/2015 09:06

I can't really add anything as I'm with the consensus view. But imagine if you thought your child had gone to school, and then you'd gone to pick her up at 4.30 and she wasn't there. And you asked the teacher, and the teacher said, "Oh, I just assumed she was off sick." How would you feel?

Sounds to me like the school were on the ball. And of course you should always ring in if a child is off sick.

coffeetasteslikeshit · 30/11/2015 09:08

OP you have gone off the unreasonable scale, but I think you know that.

SheHasAWildHeart · 30/11/2015 09:13

I haven't read all the thread, mainly because it brings back bad memories, but DD's school managed to lose her outside the school and I knew nothing about this until I turned up at home-time. Even now a year later thinking about it upsets me. If they'd contacted me I'd have been there within minutes, but instead I had a scared, upset, tearful six-year old to deal with while the headteacher made pathetic excuses and I ended up taking DD out of the school. Safeguarding procedures should be to contact/notify parents if a child is not where they should be.

PaulAnkaTheDog · 30/11/2015 09:21

I've read this whole thread and I'm pretty gobsmacked at the OP's attitude tbh.

Why is it so difficult to understand that the school have a responsibility to you and your child? The point at which the child is in school they have a legal responsibility for the child. If they don't turn up and the school have no explanation as to why, then they need to contact the parent. Most parents (as can be seen here) accept this and welcome it. As for you harping on about brownies etc. those activities are a choice. They are totally irrelevant and have precisely zilch to do with how a school operates, so I'd really stop fixating on that.

LyndaNotLinda · 30/11/2015 09:23

Well next time you know to ring them before she starts school - like at 8.30 or something rather than calling them at your leisure.

That way you'll avoid them bothering you :)

Stormtreader · 30/11/2015 09:38

Its a lack of respect on your part towards the school. You wouldnt have a sick day from work but not call them until 10 because you didnt get around to it.
The tone of your posts sounds a little like you regard them as uppity childcare staff, and that youre annoyed that they presumed to call you on your lack of information without being appropriately deferential.

ChairoftheBored · 30/11/2015 09:42

Oh dear Lord.

Nothing really to add to this, given the huge sense posted by almost the entire internet on how terribly unreasonable you are being.

Why do people do this?

OP: AIBU?

The rest of the internet: Yes, and here's some really good reasons why, which you might not have known about

OP: No, I am not. It's elfinsafety gorn made I tell ya, besides I really wanted a discussion of the wider points...

Internet: *slumps in seat and bangs head on desk...

KERALA1 · 30/11/2015 09:43

This thread is reassuring in a way for any of us who have "clients" be that parents, or others we provide a service for.

The OP demonstrates that a minority of people are utterly unreasonable and whatever you do, however high the standard or professional you are, will not be good enough!

GoblinLittleOwl · 30/11/2015 10:28

I am surprised to read of schools that don't check on pupils' absences; I thought it was now a legal requirement. It was instituted because several children were abducted on their way to school and it was not discovered until the end of the school day.

It is time consuming and expensive (or was in pre-text days, and very annoying when parents deliberately withhold contact numbers. Trying to contact parents after school when the child had fallen and broken her teeth it was discovered that all contact numbers given were invalid; mobiles were switched off and neither parent appeared to be at work or at home. Both parents had Very Important Jobs and were not to be disturbed. So the child had to wait at after-school club in some pain until 5 o'clock.

Egosumquisum · 30/11/2015 10:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

arethereanyleftatall · 30/11/2015 11:21

Sirzy 'it's manners to phone them, just like you would if youcouldn't make an appointment'.
I imagine the op us exactly the type if person who doesn't bother phoning to cancel an appointment. After all, she's more important than everyone else. And has no manners.

Pipbin · 30/11/2015 12:56

If a child has already bean murdered then it is too late anyway

Oh well that's ok then. Just leave them in a ditch a bit longer it won't matter.

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