Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To request all the info my DC school holds on my children

9 replies

SARquery · 29/01/2018 23:24

This is a bit of a weird one and goes back about 4 years.

I’ve had 3 DC go through the same primary. There is only two there now but one is year 6.

The previous head had been there about 25 years and the new head only started in September. The previous head was a very strange woman. It’s hard to describe why but there was something decidedly “off” with her. She was loved by the children in all fairness. The parents not so much. The school is in a deprived area but takes kids from all over, it’s a weird mix of 50% local estate kids and then lots of others from around the town.

Anyway. I was on the board of governors and had been for a few years. We had a meeting one night to discuss some poor results the school had got and I was nominated to raise them with the head during the meeting. It was awful and she was visibly annoyed to be being questioned by a parent. After the meeting had finished I left and she followed me to the outside of the school where my car was parked. She then said: (and this is pretty much word for word)

“oh Mrs X I was meaning to have a word with you. Is there something going on at home at the moment? I said no everything was fine (nothing was going on at all). She then said “well I have some reports from the DCs teachers that the children have looked quite disheveled recently and we had to give DD breakfast the other day as she hadn’t eaten”

I was really shocked and kind of stumbled and said sorry what? She repeated what she’d said and then said “well I thought I’d better check, now we have made an informal note of the teachers concerns and it’s in a safeguarding file that we keep , don’t worry it isn’t shared with anyone but we keep them in case they can be used as part of a bigger picture/pattern”

I was absolutely stunned. Kids looked the same as they always did and tbh DS was wearing a new pack of polo shirts that week too.

I resigned from the governing body two weeks later and kept far away from her. Never heard another thing.

My AIBU is if I should do a request to find exactly what info they are holding about my family and if this note even exists? If this really happened why hadn’t she mentioned it before? DD swore blind she hadn’t eaten breakfast at school either...

I know it’s strange but it’s always bothered me and now she’s left I want to know. She was rather formidable and I didn’t want to whilst she was there.

OP posts:
KERALA1 · 29/01/2018 23:31

That's like a scene from a thriller op! Extremely creepy. Bet any money she was bluffing hoping to rattle you, sticking the knife in where it hurts most. There's no such report I can tell you that now.

DontMakeMeShushYou · 29/01/2018 23:35

Even if there was such a report, wouldn't information gathered for safeguarding purposes be exempt from FOI?

SARquery · 29/01/2018 23:37

KERALA1...she was a very strange lady. Cold is the best way I can describe her. This is hugely outing because it’s legendary amongst my friends but she once came up to me in front of a number of other parents and said “why do you keep patting that dolly it’s very strange behaviour”

I had my 1 month old DD in a sling and was running her back to get her to sleep. She genuinely thought I was carrying a doll around in a sling.

OP posts:
alotalotalot · 29/01/2018 23:41

I would ask just out of interest but would you get it all? Not sure.

GreenTulips · 29/01/2018 23:41

Well ask and see - at least you'd know

They have a duty to share the information

KERALA1 · 29/01/2018 23:42

That is bloody weird.

Maybe she is the 50 something professional woman my friend and I saw having dinner with a stuffed toy. She was properly talking to it and everything.

RainbowGlitterFairy · 29/01/2018 23:42

YANBU to want to check but I would explain to the school why you want to look, because if a parent asked me to see our safeguarding records I would wonder why/what they were looking for (and if its a child I've had no concerns about I might wonder what I had missed that the parents were expecting something to be there)

SARquery · 29/01/2018 23:46

I’m more than happy to explain to the new head why i would like to know

OP posts:
brokenbics · 29/01/2018 23:58

I'm a teacher and a parent and I would absolutely be requesting copies of all files held on record if I were in your position. It all sounds very odd and you are legally entitled to request any paperwork regarding your child. They may charge a small admin fee for photocopying etc but if the paperwork does not contain the information mentioned to you by the previous head then you may need to take it further. Good luck, hope you get to the bottom of it!

New posts on this thread. Refresh page