To not want to pick DS up from school?

[Bitchbe]

DS is at a school seven miles away and is almost 16. The school has a huge catchment due to where we live.

Depending on times it can be one bus or three! Normally it is one bus around school and work times that goes straight there. Outside of school times it depends on the time.

He has an interview at the college near home at 4.30pm after half term. School normally finishes at 4.15pm so obviously he will have to leave school earlier. Luckily if we are careful it would still be just one bus back for him at that time.

School have however said they have changed the rules on leaving school and now instead of meeting him at the college they want me to do two buses to traipse all the way to the school miles away to pick him up on the bus so he can leave early and traipse all the way back to the college near home. Due to the times I would have to go and connections it would take forever and i would have to leave work much earlier than planned.

Is this normal?
Does your school let children this old leave alone?
I'm going to go back to them but just checking if I'm unreasonable first!

School is unreasonable, IMO, but I think schools are responsible for children en route t9 and from home, it that doesn’t explain how he’s allowed to presumably travel to and from school on a daily basis. Ask them why that’s ok but leaving early alone isn’t? Odd.

When mine have been ill or dentist etc I've asked that they walk home

There's been no issue in doing this

Also they send letters of outside school hours - e.g. Clubs where we state if they can get themselves home or will be collected

Seems a bit strange

is the problem that they won't let him out early without you meeting him? Pretty absurd but if they won't budge it's only one afternoon of your life.

Dd is 17 and due to the specialist nature of the colleges she was applying for had to leave school early several times for college interviews around the country. One interview involved her leaving an hour early getting the train to near where I work then I drove her 40 mins to the 6th form school.

Several of her classmates had to take the whole day off school.

I didn’t ask permisssion I just informed them that she would be leaving.

And yes on all occasions she was allowed to leave school unaccompanied.

Ragged yes they won't let them out unaccompanied to leave early.
It won't be just one afternoon. The course is very competitive so he's had to apply to several colleges and some of them have more than one interview. He has five interviews in the next six weeks. One is at the college in the same town as school and is one without parents so I'm going to have to travel seven miles to remove him from school to drop him off at a college across the road

This seems to have occurred since they stopped the year 11,12 and 13s going off site at lunch time as they were always late back.

Surely a parental note is acceptable

This seems odd. Surely they've had this before with students going for interviews?

Call the school to confirm. If this isn’t just someone getting confused keep him off for the day. Daft but ensured he actually makes the interview.

We don't allow students out of school without parental collection between y7-11 unless home call up and specifically tell us they are allowed to and what the reason for absence is (e.g. here is a letter for orthodontist, Timmy needs to leave at 2pm to walk home in time).