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.

Garrolous* is your son's school very rural or is it near shops or anything? I would just text him and tell him to go to nearest coffee shop and nurse a cup of tea until I could get there or he could get a bus.

I agree with you, OP. I don't think 11/12 year olds should be sent home without a staff member actually speaking to a parent/guardian to ensure they will be able to get into the house etc

Seriously? At my sons school there are 240 kids in each year - even if you were expecting just Year 7 and 8 to have these special phone calls they would have had to have made 480 calls - how would that work!?

Our school has a page in their homework diary where we have to document a contingency plan eg. wait at school, go home alone, go home with a friend etc. That way the children know what they should do in an emergency. I don't understand why they wouldn't tell a teacher that they had no key or no credit on their phone. The school would usually have a bunch of kids who would otherwise be stranded. The child's reluctance to speak up is a bigger issue than the school sending a text message for an unexpected closure.

There was a minor fire when DS2 was still at school, which resulted in them all being sent home. He phoned me before the school notified us. They got the school buses in that usually bring them home, just like they did when it was snowing heavily once and they were worried about getting them home at normal time.

when I was 8 my school was closed half way through the day because the air conditioning broke (not in the UK). i was sent home with my 6 year old sister and we sat on the doorstep for 3 hrs because mum wasn't out. we didn't come to any harm.

OP are you coming back?

Agree with the masses, if DS has SEN then they were BU to not ensure he had someone to meet him.

If he has no SEN, does he not have a key? a phone? why would be not tell them he'd be locked out in the rain?

Do you normally collect him from school so is it that you got there, empty school, panic?

If we'd been sent home at this age we'd have gone to MacDonalds then home and watched telly all afternoon. DD would have figured it out when he got home from work

I think you being ridiculously precious. I also think it does an 11/12 year old good to have a bit of responsibility, and use their common sense. As pp say, it could be text mum to let her know and sit in a cafe for an hour or so.

That's interesting manicinsomniac. My cousins son is one month older than dd but where she moved on to 11-18 secondary for year 7 he stayed at prep until start of year 9. He seems way younger than dd - much less independent. I think he's having now the whole adjustment/shift that dd had at 11 in part because the prep was lovely and cosy and small. He's really taking to it like a duck to water now though

Hmmm, very interesting. I've been thinking of it as more a change in the times thing (ie parents are more protective and therefore children less independent). But maybe it is a type of school issue.

Certainly, on the very, very rare occasion that our school sort of closes early (it doesn't close as we are a boarding school but, after the odd heavy snow fall, advisory evening early pick up emails/text have gone out) then all the children are kept in classrooms/activities/the hall until personally collected via a parent or a message from the office to say the parent is in the front hall. Whether they're age 7 or age 13.

Biscuits No, I guess not, when you put it like that. I do kind of like that they seem overall less 'adult' though. Our Year 3 and 4s seem like tiny children and I think they're sweet (I don't have to teach them much!) But yes, the huge, huge parental investment into every tiny detail of some of the older children's lives can be a bit worrying. I suppose.

OP says the kids were put on buses. I would expect schools to know their intake, and whether or not the kids are from miles away with no transport.

At secondary, without SN, you absolutely need a backup plan for situations like this. A key, a neighbour with a spare, phone numbers written in their planner should their phone be out of battery and their parents be 80 miles away.

If any child didn't have a key or means to get home they need to let their teacher know.

My DC are in a very, very rural school, ten miles away. The published gradual closure policy says DC on catchment and non- catchment school arranged transport will be sent home on transport. Children living local to school are kept until collected. Total impossibility to personally speak to 1800 parents.

It was bad enough in the infant school when it did have a gradual closure, trying to contact 180 parents, and that was really local. Totally amazing too how many parents don't update their phone number!

YABU. Every NT child should be able to cope home alone for a few hours in the daytime.

You might not like this but schools aren't baby sitters and are only responsible for your children whilst they are there.
If there is a reason for them to close you need other arrangements or trust that your child will be able to look after themselves and they have a key to get in.

noblegiraffe Our children aren't allowed to bring mobile phones to school. I thought that was normal but maybe not!

Town or country you talk to your child to let them know what to do in the event of school suddenly closing. To not have a plan is naive as you cannot assume the school will never close.

You say you're old fashioned to worry but this is exactly how it was done in the past! I remember in the 70s when it snowed one day so heavily...and our primary school sent all the kids home. My Mum and Dad were at work...I was about 8 or 9...I told the teacher my house would be shut up and she waited at the gate till' my little friend's Mum appeared and sent me home with them. No phonecalls or anything.

When my brother got home from secondary with the key, I toddled home again. At 12 your son and others should have access to a key. My DD is 12 and has her own key.

You sound over-anxious OP. If your DC is equipped with a key and a phone (essential from Y7) there's nothing to worry about.

I'm sure that the SEN students have different arrangements but you don't mention SEN, so I assume you're just overreacting a little. And I say that as someone who's a bit of a helicopter parent and pretty cautious.

Well, my DC of that at age does not have house keys because she's as scatty as hell and until she stops strewing/losing other stuff there is no way I'm so trusting her with keys yet (though her elder siblings were fine form much younger).

But I understand eat her to be capable of ringing to find out who (if anyone) is at home, where we are, if we can let her in etc. Or if not, of making a plan to go to a friend's house. Or to parade round the local shopping centre.

At ds's school any children with issues getting home would be allowed to stay in the library.

also, you had a text. if you knew that you couldn't get to them, they couldn't be trusted to make their own way home, couldn't hang out in town, hadn't got a key etc surely YOU could call them. It's not like you WEREN't notified and surely the odd parent calling to say no don't release him is quicker than trying to reach 100's of parents, some not answering so having to call again and again etc...

MsMarvel " fanboy system"

Not sure if I want that to be an autocorrect or not

He's 12, assuming no SEN there is absolutely no reason for the school to call you to check, they sent you a message, any problems you should call them. They couldn't keep children in with no power and are a school not childcare.

DS is 12, I work an hour and a half away, in a school, so would absolutely not be able to get home for him in school hours, he has his own key and a mobile, so he'd just let himself in or go into town with his friends but he knows to text me and let me know either when he gets home or to let me know where he's going/who with. He also knows he can bring mates home, but that they have to ask their parents (using his phone if needs be) and let them know there's no adult there.

Well, my DC of that at age does not have house keys because she's as scatty as hell and until she stops strewing/losing other stuff there is no way I'm so trusting her with keys yet

Does she have a phone? Get her a cover with a slot she can hide a key in.

My12 year old got sent home last week cause of Doris. Buses were arranged as usual, he's usually picked up from the bus stop as it's in a different village to were we live so he walked home and let himself in. I managed to get home about 20 mns later (but it was 40 minutes s since he got off the bus). They have to grow up sometime. the text did say they could stay at school (although by the time I got it he was on the bus).

Bloody hell, even my DS2 who does have SN (ASD) and an EHCP, had his own key from Y7 and a cheap PAYG mobile. He caught the school bus every day. He would have struggled if the bus had been cancelled but DS1 and DS3 would gave just caught a public bus halfway home and walked the rest of the way in Y7. In fact, DS3 did miss the school bus once in Y7 (due to chatting!) and just texted me that he was going to catch the D bus instead.

When I was at school, on snow days if school finished early the school bus couldn't make the hill so we walked the 4 miles home. We coped, parents weren't texted because it was before mobiles.