After school childcare - do I really have to have a mobile phone to collect my own child?

[MamaVV]

My DD attends after school care run by an outside provider but on school site in the school hall. The quality of care is fab and DD loves the activities.

The part that annoys me is that you can only collect your child by ringing a mobile number and telling one of the childcare workers that you are at the front gate. They then have to stop their work (not good practice) and walk to the front gate (prob a 3 min walk) to let the parent in.

If they are busy then they can’t come to the gate. If it’s noisy then they don’t hear the phone ringing. If your phone is flat then you are literally **ed until another parent happens to leave and hold the gate open to let you in (safeguarding issue??)

On one occasion I left my phone at home and was outside for 30 minutes waiting and I’ve often been late to collect second DD from childminder due to being made to wait so long! The road is dark in the evening and as a single woman standing on the pavement for an unknown amount of time, it’s less than ideal. I’ve emailed the company and their answer was very ‘computer says no’.

Do other childcare settings assume that everyone always has a working mobile phone on them?

No they should get a key fob operated or combination number lock to get to door. Ludicrous.

Ours has a wireless doorbell that cost about £5 from Wilko.

What’s wrong with a buzzer?

daft!

It sounds incredibly unprofessional!

How does this work? Is the code given to every parent? Surely that’s not safe either? We would have about 150 parents with access to the school site.

The whole system sounds ridiculous! YANBU

Ours has a buzzer on the external gate. Someone buzzed the gate open for you, then lets you in the door. The door is locked and can only be opened from the inside.

The ASC my DC used to go to had a buzzer, but more often than not the staff wouldn't hear it so you could be waiting ages. At least if you've physically spoken to someone on the phone you know they know you are there!
You can buy mobile phones extremely cheaply (I think we got 99p ones for the DC) so I don't think it's a big ask to expect people to have one if there really isn't another way to organise door entry.

That’s really odd. They either need to get a buzzer on the external gate (ds’s secondary has one of these) or leave the gate open but have a buzzer entry on the actual door to the building like most primary schools have.

Thought I may be getting very old! I mentioned that I thought it was discriminatory to assume that every parent always has a mobile phone with credit on it. We have lots of working class families who work really hard to make ends meet in our corner of the world.

I can’t charge my phone at work so it often runs out. Plus as the op says, some families may run out of credit.

That seems completely ridiculous.
They really need to find another way to do that. Leaving the children short an adult for up to 6 mins at a time also seems wrong, unless they have an extra adult at all times for this answering the gate role. I'd contact OFSTED since you have already tried them directly. See what they have to say about it.

ScottyDog > ofsted is my next step.

Just wondering how common the ‘mobile phone’ expectation is? My bloody phone goes flat often if I’ve had a busy day. I now carry a battery pack just for this purpose!

Soooo.... what happens when the network goes down? This happened to Vodafone in our area last year. Four days of zero service followed by another week of deeply unreliable.

Strange situation. They need a buzzer/camera system or something! Do they have a suggestion box where you can leave a comment?

That’s ridiculous. I’ve used settings in the past that had an intercom buzzer or video buzzer if the gate was away from the main door.

LizFi > nope, I emailEd them and they said they are struggling to recruit someone to be on gate duty from 5 - 6pm mon to fri at min wage. 🙄 they said parents have to wait as children take priority.

It is obviously a pain, but really, people would contact Ofsted over this? Bit of an over reaction.

The after school childcare at DC's school has a similar system. I was quite surprised too.

That does sound ridiculous.
At my dcs' school you walked (or drove) on to site and then rang the doorbell to get in. I don't understand how they can lock the whole site without having an intercom / door release system in place.
Must be an issue for staff to be out of the room for 6mins every single time a parent arrives.

The impossible girl > I guess if you consider that parents hold the gate open for the next adult who happens to be waiting outside. Anyone could waltz in and have free access to lots of children who are playing outside with minimal supervision. So that’s a worry.

But also, if they simply say ‘no’ to a reasonable parent complaint then where do you go other than ofsted?? Is there another childcare ombudsman?

They are a ‘charity’ and charge £330 a month per child for after school care so should be providing a quality service.

Playing outside with minimal supervision???

You have serious safeguarding concerns there and quite rightly should go to ofsted if they haven't taken you seriously. As others have suggested getting a bell is a cost effective way to solve the problem - oh and reminding parents not to let in other adults.

My kids school have a bell and until recently a staff member had to physically come to the door - it's not far, down a corridor and they can see the door from the entrance to the hall but it was time consuming as a member of staff would be up and down the hall letting parents in and out. They have recently gotten a remote control which is great, as you don't have to wait for them to reach you before they let you in.

How does the school control visitors entering the building?