Aibu to think headmistress is living in la la land?

[Maxandrubyrubyandmax]

Get out of a 30 min meeting at work 5missed calls on mobile and my secretary comes rushing over at same time land line calls. Headmistress from ds school. DS has run into post and banged his nose. Can I get there immediately. Apparently DS is fine but we have to pick him up. Explain I will be about 45 min as need to pack up and get train and walk to school. DH about an hour away. Quizzed about couldn't a grandparent pick up
DS (no the nearest is 2 hours away). Didn't we have friends? Yes but it's not 1955 so they all work? Other relatives? No they live miles away and yes they work. Set off to school. Head mistress rings DH goes through same questions. As no one has moved house in last 5min gets same answer. Get to school. DS sat chatting to school secretary happy as you like. Head mistress goes through same questions nope still no one hAs moved or given up job in last 45 min. But there must be someone says the head. Well no actually there isn't. But she wants someone who can be at school in 5 min. Start to get pissed off. No one I tell her. She then shakes her head and says I guess that's how it is these days then. Aibu to be pissed off and felt judged about the fact I have moved away from the family home, got a job and don't just drop off child and sit at home all day? If it had been urgent I would have jumped in a taxi

If he's that sick / injured, school should call an ambulance to take him to A&E. If he's not that sick / injured, they should administer first aid and accept that some of us parents actually do try to hold down jobs

The school doesn't have the spare staff to see to injuries or sick children - they should be in their classrooms teaching. That's why parents are asked for emergency numbers of someone who can get there quickly. Sometime the ambulance staff won't take a child unless there is someone with them - can't be a teacher, obviously, so who do you suggest?

My former head has had to contact social services for a duty social worker to take a child to hospital as parents "couldn't" leave work.

I don't know the school's circumstances but you would be amazed by the number of parents who just find every reason not to collect and look after their child because it is inconvenient. As a teacher I remember it happenng regularly and getting a range of excuses for why no one could collect an ill child (and we did not send them home unless we absolutely had to). Parents would send their child to school ill and then ignore all phone calls, messages and texts.
I once had a mum say about 10am 'Well I am about to go Christmas shopping so I can't really come. Can you just keep him for the rest of the day'. He was vomiting and chalk white and sitting with a sick bowl in an office by himself. His dad could not collect him and her mother was going shopping with her so could not have him. I said we could not keep him, we had no one to supervise him and he was ill. We were a school, not a childminder. She huffed and puffed and after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and saying could I put him in a taxi to the primary school because his brother was there and they had a medical room and he could stay there until the end of the day(I refused) she came to collect him and was very huffy.
Perhaps your Head deals with situations like that often and mistook you for a parent like that. Sounds like she over-reacted.

I am another one that gets at this kind of thing. I have now moved outside London and either DH or I cd to ocelotcub's school in half an hour or so. I have needed to do this once since we moved here when cub threw up. But the school were great and he was waiting in the sick room with the nurse. But in London? No sick room, no nurse and demanding we get there inside 20 mins. London commutes are on average an hour (mine was an hour and a half). Go figure. What are we meant to do, fly?

Regrettably there are headteachers who do think that everything revolves around the school. They have zero knowledge of the real world outside the school, having gone to school, then university and then back into school as a teacher.
There is a need, given the way that the law is now, for schools to contact parents when ever something happens at school but what the head teacher seems to have forgotten in this situation is that until the pupil actually leaves the school site they have responsibility locus parentis .Maybe sometimes if the real parent is not available for the next hour that the head teacher should take the action that would be deemed sensible. In this case should the pupil be taken to hospital or if he has recovered sent back to the classroom but with someone keeping an eye on them. Not panic the parents

I remember getting a similar call when the DT's were in primary. I interrupted the teacher to say that I was in the US and a 7 hour flight away. DH is a doctor and hadn't answered his phone as he was in the operating theatre. His phone diverts to his secretary and she was trying to ring the school to find out about the 'emergency ' when they were ringing me. It turned out to be nothing to call us about but the school couldn't accept that we weren't immediately available. In an emergency we would have dropped everything but we work and don't have family or non working friends locally.

Well is the teacher supposed to cope with maybe three more episodes and possibly worse before you arrive.

Not the teacher, obvs, but there is usually someone who can keep an eye on the child til the parent gets there, even if it is office staff. No parent can arrive in a nano second so schools need to have something in place.

And if parents can't be there instantly in the case of an emergency then the school will step in, if they have any sense. A boy in my class once accidentally sliced the top off his finger. Neither parent was physically able to get to the school instantly so my head teacher released me to go in the ambulance with him and the parents met us there. Nobody judged the parents for not instantly arriving at school.

The insurance/ambulance thing is utter nonsense - the school would be severely negligent if they fail to call an ambulance in a life threatening situation. I'd be furious if the school called me first. There is zero logical sense for that - the ambulance trust's insurance is the one that is relevant there once they are called and accept the call. Goodness me.

Having 3 teenage DC I have had this many times. I'm a divorced single parent and my job requires me to go to meetings all over the country. Parents both deceased. Ex is far too important to pick up his own children.

It gives me the rage when I get out of a meeting to find ten calls from the school and then discover DC2, who is the anxious type, had a bad tummy again. They have been told ad infinitum that it is nerves, I even got the doctor to confirm it. What exactly am I supposed to do - go on the dole in case i might get a call from school?

I'm afraid sometimes it is not possible to drop everything and be at school in ten minutes and schools need to expect that.

It's completely different here. I've moved into a large mixed estate and nearly everyone has grandparents/aunties they can put down. I didn't so used a fellow mum. Id be surprised if most people at our school couldn't have someone there within 30mins. Not London though and lots of people work locally.

I'm just shocked at the appauling grammar and spelling of that teacher. As a person burdened with sausage fingers and a phone whose auto-correct feature has a mind of its own - pretty much every other post of mine has some sort of a slip. But that post was just fucking ridicilous.

I'm just shocked at the appauling grammar and spelling of that teacher. As a person burdened with sausage fingers and a phone whose auto-correct feature has a mind of its own - pretty much every other post of mine has some sort of a slip. But that post was just fucking ridicilous

Oh the irony!

I agree it's unrealistic to expect everyone to be available within minutes and this particular head sounded heavy handed in this particular instance..but I am a pearl clutching secretary who has to make these calls. I only call when I am really worried and I feel the school is not in a position to provide appropriate care. I really like the children and genuinely put their welfare first. Over half the people I call can get a friend or relative to come quicker than they can so its reasonable to ask. (Not reasonable to push or judge if someone doesnt have these options) 45 minutes is pretty quick imo

Trollspoop, I take it those were deliberate errors in your post?

Seriously though, this sort of thing is something that some schools still have to get their heads around. Parents DO have to work. They often have no family support network living conveniently just around the corner either.

When I was young my mum didn't work and we lived in the next street to the school. If I was injured she could have been there in 2 minutes - unless she was out shopping, or at a friend's house, or had gone into town or was in the garden and couldn't hear the phone. With no mobile phones I think people were actually not that contactable.

I had similar but just blatantly sexist. I was at work and knew my phone was ringing but couldn't answer it as was operating (am middle grade surgeon). Ring back between cases to find its ds school. He's thrown up can I collect? I ask if they've tried my husband who is first contact and was told they didn't want to bother him. Well, seeing as he's a sahp and literally five minutes down the road he's a better bet than me who has dr as my title and work 1h30 away! Ffs.

I am constantly astonished how many people are around everyday to collect their children from school.

It's not the parents who say 'I'm on my way, but it will take me an hour' that are the problem, but the ones who claim to be far too busy to pick up at all. I'm sick this week because mummy and daddy decided to send their daughter to school last week coughing and spluttering all over the classroom, and when called to tell them to pick up their child, said that they were busy and she would have to stay at school then refused to answer their phones for the rest of the day. So I'm on my first week of school holiday coughing and spluttering, as are probably most of the rest of my class.

What I find so ironic (speaking as a TA) is that the people calling you and expecting you to instantly drop everything are almost always working parents who can't just walk out of work with a snap of the fingers. Why they expect other people to do it is beyond me.

Even Sahp have a life away from the home too. I'm often 40mins away from school doing errands or swimming I could not just get there in five mins.

(I'm not actually a sahp im self employed but I have a lot of free days as my work is seasonal.)

I remember a parent who wouldn't pick up when I thought her daughter had broken an arm. The poor girl needed surgery the next day. We made sure an ambulance was called every time after that whenever we suspected anything more than a cut / bruise.

I have had similar from DS's school. DH didn't pick up as he was teaching and I didn't pick up as was in a meeting with clients. Got out of meeting to v irate voicemails and missed calls. Said I would get there asap but would be about 1.25 hrs (live in London, trains run every 30 mins then bus needed at other end) and was told not good enough. No family locally and all our friends work. Wtf else could I have done. Anyway, ended up getting in a cab as I was so worried only to find DS having a lovely chat with one of the staff and nothing seriously wrong at all (cut lip in playground, wanted to stay a school). 😕

at one point dc's aunt was a whole ocean away. dad a couple of cities away grandparents incapable due to illness/age friend without transport to collect.

We're the same in terms of 2 parents who work. Our nearest relative is 90 minutes away. Our relatives are either working or elderly. There is nobody who could collect quicker than 40 minutes.
Fortunately we do work at home a lot.

Contrast that with XSIL who refused to supply DN' s school with a contact number for work. She was a TA

I think HT was U. Most of us struggle to drop everything unless it is a genuine emergency, which this doesn't seem to have been.

I sliced my finger badly while at school in the (ahem!) 70s . My DM was also a teacher and couldn't come immediately, so the janny stuck a couple of steristrip stitches on it, gave me a sweetie, and I went back to class. Mum took me to the doctor after school and he said janny had done a fine job and left it as it was. Fast forward, and my ds split his lip after an accident at school. They called me and I got there within 20 mins, took him back to my work and glued it myself (I'm a vet!) Thought about sending him back to school but felt i might be judged!