Angry Mum vs School. Who is Being Unreasonable?

[strawberrisc]

9 year old sneaks onto school trip. Gets mild telling off at home then parents blast the school. Who IBU? www.facebook.com/922716137773390/posts/2145294778848847/

How does one pronounce 'L'Evea' ?

It's exactly the same noise as a torn in half CV hitting a waste paper bin.....

Also...how come the school didn't realise in the morning she wasn't at school? If she was the only one not going on the trip she would of either gone into another class or had the day off school! How did the not see her at registration?

What a little sod.

She actually looks quite pleased with herself in one of those photos.

By Year 5 she's old enough to know better.

Mother being totally unreasonable for calling her daughter "L'evea".. He brother is called R’emainer.

I do think it’s dreadfully unfair to have such expensive school trips in primary school although we went on two residentials in year 5 and 6 I’m sure cost similar. In secondary, you had the option to go on the extortionate ski trips but honestly barely anyone did so no one felt excluded. Primary children are too young to be made to feel this way.

The school are partly to blame though, they should have done a head count.

rudezebra that wins comment of the day for me 😂😂😂😂

saoirse (sorry if I've spelt it wrong), that's exactly what they do. On residential trips some fathers won't let their daughters go. DD's best friend isn't allowed to stay anywhere overnight. She's 11.

On our school trips we are assigned a specific number of children in the group. You register them, confirm the registration to the person heading up the trip.

The coach doors are not opened until each group has lined up for the coach in one long line and the adult stands next to the first person in their group. This ensures you can see the children. I have done year 1 so I had 6 children in my care.

The children are headcounted onto the bus. Seatbelts checked, another headcount and a final one before we leave. Done by different people so we know the numbers tally up.

There will be risk assessment plan covering all of this. I think it is appalling that she managed to even get on the bus.

rude wins the internet!

I would question my parenting if my child did something like that rather than blaming it all on the school.

Yes, the school failed in their headcount.

That alone wouldn't have necessarily have solved the problem though... if another child didn't get on (last minute loo trip) and she did, then they would have the right number of children. The mistake the school have made is not considering that a child might be so sneaky as to bring their own clothes and get on the bus. The checking procedures they had in place (register) quite rightly would have identified any missing children which is the main concern the school probably had in mind.

Obviously their procedures will be changed now to include a belt and braces approach to make sure it can't happen again.

I don't agree with 'running to the press' every time the slightest thing doesn't go your way (e.g. all the uniform stories that crop up this time of year) but there is a more serious issue here and it might highlight to schools a situation they haven't considered and help to prevent it happening again.

I do think the parents are wrong in saying it was totally the school's fault, thereby not accepting their child was responsible for her own actions. At 9, you should be able to understand that you cannot just decide that you want to join your mates in a trip and just tag along.

I think it does look like there was a safeguarding fail. Says the school has reminded about headcounts (or similar wording) so this suggests they didn't fully follow policy.

Having said that.. If my child had done this they would have been getting more than " a telling off and no more school trips " there would have been some serious consequences and they would include letters of apology to each teacher and HT involved. At home there would have been additional punishment too (screen time limited chores upped) to ensure that the child got JUST how serious this was.

Completely off the point, that Facebook page - Angry People in Local Newspapers - is quite addictive

The school.

Why did it take so long for staff (on the trip)to notice that she was on the bus?
Why did it take so long for staff (at school) to realise she wasn't in that day, and notify mum that she was absent?

@Allington Don't say that I am trying to resist

burblife some of us don't get the pupil premium, but still can't afford the trip. In our borough, if you receive WTC you don't get the pupil premium. The only reason DD gets to go on residentials is because I have an extremely generous aunt.

She actually looks quite pleased with herself in one of those photos.

All of the people making comments like this - you do know they're not live photos of the event, yes? That the photos are posed, arranged by the paper who wanted a particular vibe for the article? That any where the girl looks like butter wouldn't melt will have been instantly discarded? And that the decision to appear in the paper will have been her parents', not hers?

The article doesn't say how long it was before she was found, but it sounds like quite a while. She should've been in school - and presumably few enough children stayed back so she should've been easily missed.

How long would you be happy for your children's primary school to be unaware of their whereabouts?

Yeah, the kid’s behavior was bad, but I don’t think it’s out of the realms of possibility for a naughty 9 year old (and possibly her mates who wanted her with them) to hatch a plan of shoving a change of clothes in a massive school rucksack and the parents not noticing in the morning rush. Running away on adventures is a common theme in kid’s shows and books, isn’t it?

If she was meant to be at school, not only should she not have been able to get on the bus, her absence should have been noticed at whichever part of the school she was meant to be at. What if she hadn’t run off on the trip, what if she’d been manipulated by an adult to do a runner and meet up with them somewhere?

So she has a daft sounding name, that’s not her fault, would the school shoulder more blame if she were called Charlotte?

People on this thread are unbelievable. ‘Toxic behaviour’ - really? Toxic behaviour is being abusive, manipulative or cruel. It is NOT a child chancing her arm at a trip she’s not meant to be on. And are you really all in total disbelief that a kid could get a pair of trousers and a jumper into her backpack without anyone noticing? She appears to be Schroedinger’s kid - simultaneously sneaky, devious and able to hoodwink her teachers into not noticing she was on the bus, and yet also totally blantant about hiding clothes in her rucksack so that there’s no way her parents could possibly not have noticed her doing so.

A 9YO is perfectly capable of knowing what they are doing. When are parents going to hold their children accountable for their actions instead of blaming everyone else 😳

@BellMcEnd made me laugh too!

@TittyGoLightly erm, I 'think' that was a joke re the brothers name Though, maybe not

Anyway, the girl looks very pleased with herself in the photo. Mum is almost doing a fm sadface. The last school trips I went on, I'm pretty sure they did the register and a teacher went up and down the aisles to do a hrad cou t. The head count happened at every services stop as well.

That's a fabulous "couldn't give a stuff" face on that 9 yr old. God help her mother in a few years

would the school shoulder more blame if she were called Charlotte?

Exactly. I am utterly appalled at the way people on here are talking about a nine year old child.

This is a real person - you can be cunts to anyone you like on here. We signed up to it. She didn't This little girl did a naughty thing at school and there are strangers on the internet calling her vile names, making fun of her name, vilifying her mother (who really should never have gone to the papers) , and generally being classless fucking bullies. Adults bullying a child - this is what Mumsnet is now? FFS!

Yes the child was devious but what were the school thinking?

Our DS went to a week's residential a few months ago. We had to drop him in the hall. We went with his luggage to the coach and got that stowed. Meanwhile back in the hall the kids were asked to stand in one area of the hall. Then they were called out to go and stand with their group leader (teachers going on the trip) - about 10 or 11 per teacher - and called again by that teacher to register them and to make sure they were with the right group.

Once all the children were registered they moved to the coach one group at a time and were counted onto the coach. When they were all on a final head count was taken by the head teacher who checked it with the teachers who were travelling.

When they got to a service station and needed the loo the kids were taken off in groups of five with a male and female teacher who stayed with them for the loo visit then went back to get the next group. Then they were counted again.

On the way back they stopped to get lunch at the service station. They were put into pairs to go and get their choice of lunch and had to accompany each other (so if one wanted a sandwich and the other McDs they both had to go to the sandwich bar and McDs). Then they were counted back onto the coach and a register taken.

What the hell could have happened if the coach stopped for a pee break and she'd got off? The numbers would have tallied and she'd be left at the services.

Plus you have to ask how the school didn't spot her missing? Our primary has a policy of ringing if a child missing registration and there's no word from the parents.

Bad all round and the parents certainly should not be entertained with the idea of compensation but the school seriously needs to look at its policies.

I don’t think any of the parents on here would actually be happy with the procedures at their children’s schools if they discovered that it could take the school hours and hours to notice that a child who was supposed to be in their care was missing. This girl was meant to be somewhere - how is it that nobody picked up on her absence and asked where she was?

I think it’s awful that a teacher could be in a lot of trouble for her bad behaviour. This will have wider implications for the children at the school as trips out probably won’t happen as much, as further afield due to the publicity. Unbelievable that this girl is standing there getting attention for this. This is the problem with entitled parents and entitled children, thinking they can do what they want.