AIBU school lateness and office staff...

[Splandy]

My son was late for school yesterday. On days when my husband isn't at work until the afternoon, he does the morning drop off. I catch up on a bit of sleep until the baby wakes for his morning feed. Yesterday, my husband developed a migraine during the morning and woke me up, telling me I'd have to do the school run. I hadn't fed the baby, so had to rush everything, feed baby, prepare lunch etc. We were at least twenty minutes late. When we walked into the school reception, a member of staff was there and said 'why are you late, mom?'. I found it strange and paused for a moment before saying 'we overslept', as I really didn't want to go through the whole long winded explanation. I've never been asked this before. They just direct you to the lateness record where you can give a reason. I think it's quite rude to ask this in front of everybody, I have no idea who she is and may not want to discuss things in front of loads of other parents. There have been times when reasons for lateness were very personal. Telling her why I'm late doesn't change the fact that I am, and she doesn't note anything down as I still have to fill in the record. It felt like she was just being nosey. I noticed that a dad came in with his children after me and wasn't asked, though have no way of knowing whether he has an agreement to come in later than usual.

This morning, managed to get there late again. Was, again, unavoidable. Baby managed to throw up over three outfits, got poo up his back... All went wrong. We were less than a minute late. My son stood at the bottom of the playground and didn't run up to go in after the line of children. Their policy is that, once the door is closed, that's it. He's told me that children don't even get marked late when that happens because they hav not taken the register by the time they get in there. So I took him to the office, and this member of staff was there again. As we walked in, she put on an incredulous voice and said to my son 'oh, you're late again!' as though trying to make him feel bad about something over which he has no control. We were so 'late' that I walked back home with all of the other parents. She again turned to me and asked why I was late. It really bloody pissed me off. I think the tone of voice she was using was what really got to me. So I gave her a look and said 'because we are'. I probably looked pretty pissed off. She did a bit of an awkward laugh and I walked off to fill in the late record.

Am I being unreasonable? We've only been late this year once before this week, it has unfortunately happened two days in a row. I think publicly asking me why I'm late, which seemed intentionally done to embarrass me, is out of order. I hadn't showered or eaten breakfast or anything, I was out of breath from bloody running and generally feeling irritable. I really don't know whether I was unreasonable to give her an explanation.

Yes, I find the 'miss/sir' thing mildly annoying too tbh. I taught at an independent school for years and it didn't happen there. Teachers were called Mr, Mrs or Miss . It's particularly silly in a busy hall or corridor - a child says "Miss?" and six teachers turn around and say "Yes?" They do it when they are talking to you about other teachers too "But Miss said I could". I'm sorry, which of the many Misses would that be?! Maybe the teachers should start calling the kids "Boy" or "Girl" - after all, the teachers have far more students' names to remember than the students have teachers.

I am obsessive about being late, and DCs have never been late for school, nor me for work (in London!). But can completely see OP couldn't help it at all. However I would also explain/apologise for the reason for the lateness as soon as I walked in, isn't that normal?

Her tone seems to have been unnecessary, especially as you aren't regularly late.

As for the sanctimonious twats on this thread, seriously! Is it beyond your level of imagination or empathy to understand that if you leave X minutes as your buffer zone then it may just occasionally happen that your delay is X+2 minutes. Whatever your value of X. Obviously the longer you leave the lower the chance but there comes a point where it's silly. Getting to school an hour early would be silly for example but would mean your chance of delay was very, very small. If you were never late then all that means is that particular circumstance never happened to you and you were lucky.

Some people are disorganised and habitually late. That's not the same as having a number of things go wrong unexpectedly and going over your buffer zone of time

I understand how you feel. My assumption is that most children are never late and so more than once is seen as an issue. The late book at ny children's school is virtually empty (most people live within walking distance). Depends on the school though.

I'm not very organised but we haven't been late because we are able to plan to get there ten minutes early. This allows for the inevitable occasional delay and there are loads of parents there already then so the children play. I think of the gate opening as the latest time to get there, not the time to aim for, and that helps. I accept that wouldn't work for everyone though.

Your child has been late for school twice?
How do you live with yourself?
Most agencies seem to refer to mum as "mum" rather than by name. Don't take it personally.
Making sandwiches the night before saved my sanity (just saying) but it doesn't work with tomato in the filling.

We send all children to the office, with a parent, if late once the bell has gone - even if it's just a minute or so. It's part of the attendance policy and has been really tightened recently.

From a classroom point of view people coming in a late, even just a couple of minutes or so, is disruptive for the teacher and other children.

We have staff who take the details and yes, they do ask for a reason. This is then written on the electronic register, along with number of minutes late.

It's to build up a picture I guess - if someone is late by 4 or 5 minutes every single day then we want to know. We can try to support families in getting in on time or in other ways of required.

So although your lateness has only been twice on a row - how do school not know its not the start of something they need to monitor? They have to stay recording straight away in order to do this.

Maybe they've found that heir old system of just having the book isn't working efficiently, and they get better information by asking.