Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be annoyed that the DSs' school is banning buggies from being brought inside?

92 replies

DinosChapman · 20/02/2007 15:33

Buggies are to be left in the shelter in the playground, and not brought into the school.

Presumably parents are meant to take their younger child or children out of the buggy and carry or walk them into the school.

Really impracticable, if you ask me. For example, DS3 is 2.7 so he can walk, but he will not get out of the buggy in situations where he feels uncomfortable, or doesn't know where he is. What is DH supposed to do, leave him out in the playground in the dark?

OP posts:
doddle · 20/02/2007 16:44

School is a large 3 story Victorian building, so classrooms do not have external doors.

At the end of the normal school day teacher's bring children to the playground.

However, we have an after school club and around 6 other clubs running every night after school. So between 3.45pm and 6pm parents have to come into school to collect their childen from these activities.

Hope you don't mind me answering that, Dino.

jampot · 20/02/2007 16:47

makes sense to me to leave it outside. Does dh have toactually go into the school to collect the other children? or wait in the playground?

Jimjams2 · 20/02/2007 16:58

dinos

I think this is the sort of situation where you need specail expemption. Parents aren't allowed to park in ds2's school car park. I sent in a note asking if I could when I pick up ds2 if have ds1 with me, and they said no problem.

They know your ds1 has an ASD, tell them about ds3 and ask for exemption. If the other parents tut, tough.

TrinityRhino:

"is he SN??

if not then he may not be able to talk much but probably understands ALOT more than you think"

Sadly this is not always the case with ASD. Wish it was. Aged 3 ds1's receptive language ability was 12-18 months, and people constantly over-estimated how much he understood. Aged 7 he still relies mainly on nouns to decode sentences, has very limited understanding of verbs, and zero of yes and no etc.

wheresthehamster · 20/02/2007 17:01

Thanks!

I thought you meant at the end of a normal day!

Could you not bring them in and leave them in the reception area?

As you say, not very pleasant if it's dark or raining.

daisy1999 · 20/02/2007 17:08

seems sensible, our school don't allow buggies in the school either, thought it would be standard

Original poster
DinosChapman · 20/02/2007 17:31

Apols for starting this here and not in Special Needs. I thought that many people, not just those with children with special needs, would struggle to take their small child into school at collection time, but obviously it's not regarded as a problem by most people.

I will make special arrangements for DS3; we are obviously well-known to the Senco already because of DS1.

OP posts:
TrinityRhino · 20/02/2007 17:35

sorry jimjams, dinos and anyone else who I may have offended

I have zero experience with SN children
so my comment about him understanding more then you would think was talking about a 'normal' (hate that word when talking like this, but can't remember the correct phrase) 2.7 yr old who just hadn't started talking alot yet.

like my 22 month old who has some words but understand SO much more than she can say

TrinityRhino · 20/02/2007 17:37

and by the way I think picking dd1 up is a HUGE annoying problem and I don't have any children with special needs just no proper parking, no buggy rule in school, no walking a certain way in the school grounds, no turniong up too early blah blah blah
I was crying by the time I got all three of them back in the car today

NuttyMuffins · 20/02/2007 17:52

Do you mean inside as in actually in the school building ?? Don't the kids go in and out on there own ?? Or am I missing something /

NuttyMuffins · 20/02/2007 17:53

their own

Blu · 20/02/2007 17:58

Perfectly reasonable of the school to ban buggies...perfectly reasonable of you to ask for an exception given your circumstances with DS3.
Good luck, hope it gets sorted!

Davros · 20/02/2007 18:45

Blu has said it! If you have a problem, wouldn't any other parents help you out by watchng DS3 or bringing out DS1?

dmo · 20/02/2007 18:52

i dont think prams should go into school

are you going to clean the carpets after the pram wheels have been all over the carpet

i dont even bring the pram into my home and i have wooden floors

Aloha · 20/02/2007 19:12

All those people who can't understand why you would take your pram inside...my ds goes to a big maze of a London Victorian school with 700 kids, loads of steps, long corridors and many different exits etc. I think it would be highly irresponsible of teachers to allow four year olds in reception - or even five or six year olds - to just wander out in the hope they might find their parents amid the melee of of other parents out there!
My ds's school doesn't allow buggies in normally, but I am sure they would make an exception if necessary. They would have to!

Original poster
DinosChapman · 20/02/2007 20:54

I genuinely thought that it would be a problem for lots of parents, whether they had special needs children or not. Obviously not, so we will make our own arrangements, and the rest can stagger around with a squirming tot under one arm and umpteen lunchboxes, coats, artworks etc under the other.

OP posts:
WideWebWitch · 20/02/2007 20:56

I'd be pissed off, what a PITA. What if your baby's asleep?
Schools of all bloody places should be able to bloody cope with people with prams/buggies ffs!

WideWebWitch · 20/02/2007 20:59

honestly, OFTEN people who collect children have OTHER children, younger ones. They can't just be abandoned at the gate, yr1/2/3 people won't be released without a parent there, this just seems like another thing to make life bloody hard for people with more than 1 child. When dd was small and I collected from school she'd often be asleep so had this rule been in place I'd have had to wake her or leave her, neither of which are ideal.

Bloody mad. Why do we make it so fking difficult for parents in the UK?!

WideWebWitch · 20/02/2007 21:00

And ds was at a huge school, it was MILES for dd to walk when she was 1.5! Or for me to carry her. What was I supposed to do, drag her?

WideWebWitch · 20/02/2007 21:04

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Original poster
DinosChapman · 20/02/2007 21:05

I would have thought so too, www...

OP posts:
gladbag · 20/02/2007 21:05

I worked in an old Victorian school. Three floors, 450 children etc, with the Nursery and Reception classes on the ground floor. We had an incident where the fire alarm went off at 3.25 (5 mins before school end) and getting the children out was an absolute nightmare as the whole ground floor corridor was blocked with parents and buggies waiting to collect. Some parents moved swiftly, but some didn't, and it really raised the safety issue. After that buggies were banned, and children were brought down to the playground to be collected.
I imagine that this is partly the reason why schools choose this rule. I do think that individual cases, especially involving SN should be considered though, so it might be worth raising it with the Head.

nappyaddict · 20/02/2007 21:06

no i think its stupid. my cousins are twins and i used to look after them quite a lot and also collect their elder brother from nursery. if this had been the case it would have got very difficult to carry both of them, not impossible but impractical.

Bozza · 20/02/2007 21:06

Well at our school it would make life impossible if buggies went in. Although I think exceptions should be made in dino's case, even one buggy would cause a major bottleneck there because it is so congested. DD who is 2.9 walks to school so I don't have this issue. But I have been known to leave her outside holding on to her friend's buggy (I can see through the window). We live in a village and I feel OK about it. Generally though she comes inside and plays in a shop they have set up in the communal area while I take DS in, in the morning, or queue up outside his door in the afternoon because she gets upset in the throng of people and generally gets wacked around the head by some 6yo with a book bag. She is what you might term a sensible child, I know this course of action would not be possible with my nephew.

purpleturtle · 20/02/2007 21:07

Our last newsletter reminded us not to bring buggies into school. Suggested we ask a friend to watch a child outside if necessary. Again, Victorian building, with 300 small children to eject at the end of the day. Only reception and a couple of Y1 classes are collected inside; the rest are brought to the playground by the teacher.

AFAIK it works pretty well. Obviously I accept that you have an exceptional situation, in which I think you are not being unreasonable, but in general, at our school, it would be unreasonable. IYSWIM

Aloha · 20/02/2007 21:07

Our school entrance is, oddly, at the back of the building. I would not have been happy at all to leave the buggy at the front of the school by the road. Nooo! At the back, lots of parents/childminders leave babies in prams while they dash in to pick up children. I tended to carry dd, but I live very, very close to the school.