Kids sent home - safeguarding issue?

[PutTheBathOnPlease]

Got a text at 10.20 this morning to say secondary school have a power cut and kids will be sent home on buses at 11:30. My son is 12, I was 80 miles away for work. Other half was able to get home just after DS, but school had not asked either kids or parents whether an adult would be at home - they relied on one text message with 60 mins notice. I find it boggling that they sent home 11 and 12 yo kids, not knowing if they would be able to get into their homes let alone have an adult meet them. Maybe I'm old fashioned! But what if the text had failed to arrive? The consequences could be serious. Your thoughts please.

there!

there not their!

Your secondary aged child doesn't have a key?! confused How does he get in after school normally then? Surely you don't go and collect him?!

Err lots of parents collect their child from secondary school, it might be on the way, or there might not be a suitable bus. If the kids was expecting to be collected they might not have their key with them. I imagine a teenager would be able to sort something out (e.g. going to a friend's) but an immature 11 year old might not.

I do think that's quite bad TBH. At age 11 I didn't have a key as my dad worked from home and my mum a housewife so were always in. Had they gone out in the middle of the day and I'd been sent home I wouldn't have gotten in and I was not the type of child to ask the neighbour for the spare key.

in recent times I gve my dd a key to get in when we were a short distance from home and she scooted off, key in hand. A few yards on and I found the tag off the key chain, quite big, the size of a key, on the ground. I am pretty sure she had not noticed it fall off.

It just made me nervous about giving her a key yet as she is pretty scatty and she has said doesn't want a key or to come home to an empty house. As I have a much younger child (6) I am always home by the time she comes home.

Wow a powercut is an emergency?? My DDs school has had no power and the water pipes all frozen and it's still been open, it was only when they couldnt flush the loo they closed!

MapMyMum phew, thanks for that. I thought I was going mad in thinking a school could function in daylight without power.

This my point from another thread exactly. We overprotect and stop children learning to cope with adversity. Long term we reduce their ability to make decisions and create an anxious generation. So pleased most people think the idea of it being safeguarding is ridiculous.

Again Crumbs you may feel some actions are over protective because you are thinking of your kids, but you do not know what everyone else's kids are like.

I wonder if you have had contact with any kids who have had a lot of adversity. Kids cope differently, some well, some not so well. I am all in favour of teaching kids to cope with adversity. Who is teaching schools to cope with power cuts?

crumbs so very true! Resistance and independence are so important, but time and time again we see threads here with parents not fostering this in their DC. It's a shame really, and I wonder how these kidswill actually manage in the real world or work etc when mum and dad aren't there to do everything for them...

resilience not resistance! Bloody phone!

I have not given my secondary aged DC a key yet. Reading this thread is making me feel this decision is mad.

However I know why I made it. I'm usually in or not far away. I have my phone with me. Locker keys and other various items have got lost more than once and a house key would be just another thing to remember (along with the alarm code). I don't really fancy a house key being lost. Neighbours have not got a key either.

However my DC does have a phone and we have discussed using it for emergencies. In the meantime there is the library or friends. Saying this I would hope a school would discuss who is safe to go home with the pupils - get them to ring before leaving if they've not got a key.

I'm thinking perhaps giving my DC a key to the garage, wouldn't matter as much if that was lost, I don't think. They could wait there for me to get back in an emergency. We'd need a major tidy up first though as there is not much floor space at the moment! No solution is perfect really.

Whatthefreakinwhatnow just because a child doesn't have a key or feels anxious it doesn't mean that a parent is doing everything for them! You seem to be oblivious to the fact some kids are not as able to at 11 or 12 as others, doesn't mean they will also be so. Do you really think throwing them in at the deep end with an empty house, possibly in a power cut, will make them suddenly just as able as others?

I am not speaking for the OP, I am speaking for my own anxious, non-key owning daughter!

Anyway I must leave the thread for the time being, the lack of empathy is rather annoying.

no, I don't think throwing them in the deep end is a good idea at all.

what should happen is that from a much younger age you build up their independence so that by the time they are 11 or 12, they will cope just fine

Whatthefreak sometimes they are not ready to learn at a younger age. It might not be something that constitutes official SEN as it might be something that does not impact life in school. My child learnt to tie shoelaces later age than some for example. As much as we tried at an earlier age they were not ready. Organisational skills can be similar. Might be ok coping what they have to within school, might be working on the rest but not quite ready for door keys or staying at home alone for extended periods etc. Many fall into the 'grey areas' regarding skill sets - which is not always severe enough to constitute SNs or SENs.

Absolutely agree rock.

I think many people on this thread are seeing this issue purely in terms of parenting, without taking into account individual circumstances and children. We could argue all day about what children or even adults should be able to do.

Realistically in any large group of people some won't fit into that box, and a compassionate, pragmatic policy takes that into account - even if that's just by clearly warning people about the limits of what a school could do in these circumstances.

There was a fire at a primary school near me last year. Initially they evacuated onto the playing fields. When it became evident it was more serious than they first thought, staff walked the children for about half a mile to the next closest primary school (in outer London so not too far to go!).

Children were held in that school hall until collected. But they arrived at 11am, some weren't collected till the end of the school day. Hosting school has no kitchen on site and couldn't feed them. Some of the TAs went to the local supermarket and explained what was happening, the supermarket donated enough bags of crisps and packaged sandwiches to feed the children. They didn't starve! And the supermarket got a lot of good feeling and publicity locally.

Interesting thread to read, my oldest is currently year 5 so we haven't dealt with house keys or emergency procedures as she's not permitted to leave school without an adult collecting her yet.

I totally agree Italian.
All kids are different, all situations are different. Round my way, parents generally decide that when their dc hit 9 or 10 they are ready to be out on their own/walking home from school etc. This is totally fine for lots of children, but just reaching a certain age does not automatically make you ready for certain levels of independence, and some of the kids I have to break suddenly to avoid running over as they wander in front of my car illustrate that!
Some children, no matter how much you train them, are going to take longer to attain the capabilities they will need as adults than others.
Some kids just need a bit more training in dealing with potential situations.
And the level of independence we had as kids, in my case 30+ years ago, is not comparable. We used to be able to play rounders in the street. There were barely any cars. There were phone boxes. There were neighbours we knew well who were home. Times have changed. And actually, I remember being sent home early about age 9 and having to run out the front door and up to the phone box because someone was breaking in the back door, so wasn't keen to be in the house alone after that!

Of course independence is a gradual learning process, but independence means more than just coping alone. Some children can't wash dishes but can ride their bike on the roads. My kid can wash dishes and do laundry but doesn't want to be in the house alone for more than 20 minutes.
I was out on my own, taking buses and all sorts aged 6/7, but couldn't cook at all until I was 18.
There are a number of things you want your kids to be able to do which prepare them for life, but honestly, some children have very little inate common sense, and it just takes longer!

Also I think early school life is much more pressured than it used to be. I simply had more time at home for learning independence skills as I did not get the copious amount of homework they seem to get now! There really is not that much room to de everything all at once.

What "what should happen is that from a much younger age you build up their independence so that by the time they are 11 or 12, they will cope just fine"

Some of the 'issues' are emerging now, like depression. Things I had not expected or anticipated. I am not sure what the little emotion is meant to express here. Do you think parents with more challenging kids want to keep them shy and retiring and less able to cope in social and other situations? I can only speak for myself, we do not.

Totally agree Rock and merrymouse great posts.

Rock* "...the copious amount of homework..." Plus social media and internet or whatever for kids is almost impossible to manage. I wish we had delayed ds going on the PC but now it is so hard to control and regulate, he is so sneaky and gets so upset when taken off the PC. DD got a phone for high school and now is stuck to it. We are doing all the usual things 'no phones at table' 'switch off at a certain time' but it is hard. I think kids today are quite savy about some stuff and clueless about other things. It is so hard to constantly measure ones own, at times, quirky kids against what is expected of the 'average' child, when your own child just is not the average child.

RueDeWakening nice to hear. I bet that supermarket got a lot of Kudos for helping out.

IfNotNowThenWhenever Oh my goodness someone was breaking into your house while alone at age 9. My goodness. How awful. I lived in London and my relatives were burgled about 5 times! I think I'd not want to be home alone after that! I hope you were OK. [hugs]

When hearing secondary school appeals, I'm struck by the number of parents who say their child can't possibly go to the allocated school because it would mean getting a bus.

The problem is the circumstances will be different for everyone so they have to go with the most vulnerable...so they texted, and if you had a problem you could have called them. A child should also be taught to speak up and say something if they are worried.

I wouldn't want my 11yr old dd being let out home like that, she is taken to and from school as she is quite small for her age and looks vulnerable alone, which she would be on the 25minute walk home and no friends nearby to walk with. BUT I would expect (and know) that she knows this so would arrange to call us so we could make arrangements if such a problem happened.

My 12 year old hasn't got a key. She can't be trusted. Just in the past week she tried to steal of us 3 times. She asked her younger siblings if she could sell their pens and other things in school.
I would come home to an empty house.
If I got a text I woulkd have to make arrangements for her to go home with a friend or take the bus to her nans.