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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think school have over reacted

284 replies

worriedmum2022 · 24/02/2022 09:24

So my girls are 7 and 9 and they were playing at home and got a bit rough, my husband separated them and one of them had hold of a game in a plastic box.

The girls were fighting over who had the box husband intervened the side of the box had split and youngest 7 year old daughter got a cut on her hand. Cleaned up, girls spoken too all sorted job done

Yesterday the headteacher of dd7 rang my husband at work to say she asked dd why she had a plaster on her hand and she said daddy snatched a box off me and it cut me

She has reported this as a safeguarding concern

I mean I get they have a duty of care but this just seems a total over-reaction

No previous issues or incidents with the school but my husband is worried sick as he works where he has to have a DBS and he's worried this will be on his record

Can anyone offer any advice on this type of thing?

OP posts:
lollipoprainbow · 06/03/2022 10:18

@Fedupsotired well I haven't been contacted by social services yet! This was a couple of weeks ago. I gave a full explanation and she was fine with it as far as I know.

Malibuismysecrethome · 06/03/2022 10:20

Some poster seem to be aggressively pursuing an agenda. As someone with life experience and friends in all walks of life it would be obvious to me, and many other, who are the children who need help and safeguarding. They are the hungry ones, ones presenting with non-accidental injuries, frozen watchfulness, bruising and other concerns. Children who have mothers or fathers with many different partners acting as their step parents.

Fedupsotired · 06/03/2022 10:20

@lollipoprainbow yes and most cases don't go to social services. To be honest I struggle to get them involved half the time I need support as they are so stretched

MunchyMonsters · 06/03/2022 10:21

None of this will be flagged up on a DBS.

mamabear715 · 06/03/2022 11:25

My late MIL was a social worker & told me NOTHING is ever off the record.

LovelyIssues · 06/03/2022 12:12

The school have absolutely done the right thing. It is a safeguarding concern. Providing all is innocent (which I'm sure it is!!) they'll just check what your partner says matches what your DC said and that will be the end of it. Remember it isn't always so innocent in other families and with the recent child deaths at the hands of their parents its so important schools etc follow up these things

LovelyIssues · 06/03/2022 12:14

@Pinkfluff76 we also live in a country where innocent children are murdered by the people who should be taking care of them. In this occasion it may seem extreme but it is a safeguarding concern and it'd reassuring to know the school are taking the correct protocols. If only others had.

LovelyIssues · 06/03/2022 12:16

@neverbeenskiing I agree. Social services are not called over something minor.

MMUmum · 06/03/2022 14:03

I would rather they ask than ignore, my dd had bruising to her legs and her teacher asked if her mummy and daddy were hurting her, she was able to.say quite clearly, 'no I knocked it on the bench when I was climbing' and it was left at that.
Has she reported to school safeguarding lead, or to local council safeguarding team, there is a difference. Safeguarding lead has a duty to note and report but can choose not to take it further.

BoffinMum · 06/03/2022 15:38

I used to be a teacher, and later a school governor safeguarding lead. I’ve also written a university’s safeguarding policy for education students, and had cause to make referrals in the past.

They should have investigated much more thoroughly and appropriately before referring. I can’t see how it could end up on a DBS given no criminal conviction could ever happen over a solitary cut to the hand on one occasion that did not need medical treatment beyond a plaster, and which upon proper investigation would sound like a normal family spat. There also might be an element of power play here - schools sometimes like to keep certain kind of parents on the back foot so they comply uncomplainingly with other things. It’s not particularly professional but just happens sometimes.

I’d have polite words with the HT and ask for a copy of the school safeguarding policy, plus the name of the safeguarding lead and have words with them as well. If they are equally silly about this you can either ignore it or you can threaten to refer them to SS next time your DD comes home from school with a slight injury. The former is the adult approach, the latter is petty but reorders the power relationship a bit, and while you will go on the difficult parent list, they’ll be rather nervous of being so trigger happy moving forwards.

And before anyone flames me, yes, you can be too careful and the kind of horrific abuse you read about in newspaper and on social media does not resemble this pattern at all.

BoffinMum · 06/03/2022 15:47

I would just add that on the occasions I have had to refer there were particular injury patterns that definitely needed medical attention, particular child behavioural responses, sometimes the child actually smelled of neglect, and usually there was occasional hypervigilance that was quite worrying. They were also all rather pale, lethargic from not sleeping well, and on the thin side.

Benjispruce5 · 06/03/2022 15:49

Op when you say there are no other incidents, you don’t actually know what is logged on the school’s safeguarding log. Your child or another child or staff member may have noticed something and it’s been logged as a potential issue. Then when something else is flagged up, it forms part of a jigsaw.This is about your child and their welfare so I would suggest you comply until you know more. If it turns out that it is just this one incident that they are acting on, I think that you will have grounds to complain as the social worker involvement is bizarre.

Elsielouise13 · 06/03/2022 16:14

@NewcastleOrBust

They have to follow things up. It's part of their job. They wanted to know his side of the incident and it's completely normal. It will go on CPOMS and it will only be able to be seen by people who need to see it.

Personally I am glad to live somewhere where this happens. There are plenty of places where it doesn't.

CPOMS is not a national system. It’s just an on line application some schools choose.
Original poster
worriedmum2022 · 06/03/2022 19:04

@Benjispruce5

Op when you say there are no other incidents, you don’t actually know what is logged on the school’s safeguarding log. Your child or another child or staff member may have noticed something and it’s been logged as a potential issue. Then when something else is flagged up, it forms part of a jigsaw.This is about your child and their welfare so I would suggest you comply until you know more. If it turns out that it is just this one incident that they are acting on, I think that you will have grounds to complain as the social worker involvement is bizarre.
I've been to see the head they didn't say anything about previous concerns whatsoever I asked I'm at a total loss and it's extremely upsetting it's extremely stressful for us as parents and I hope nobody else has to go thru this it's been horrendous
OP posts:
Benjispruce5 · 06/03/2022 19:09

I understand OP but I work in primary and this just doesn’t happen over minor things that you describe. It’s really odd that this much response has been generated. Write everything down, remain calm and when investigations are over you can demand answers.

Original poster
worriedmum2022 · 06/03/2022 19:14

@Pinkfluff76

This really has made me see red on so many levels: Surely SS have a backlog since lockdowns but yet they’re so quick with this one. Why did the school let a 7 year old be interrogated for a hour? Did the school tell the parents about the SS visit to school? Who was in the meeting with the child? Why don’t they do their job properly so that abused kids don’t die of grievous multiple injuries instead of a plaster over a scratch?
My point exactly so while they're messing about with a plastic box incident someone could be in real danger!!
OP posts:
Malibuismysecrethome · 06/03/2022 19:19

^ completely agree with this post.

mamabear715 · 06/03/2022 19:20

Stressful? This is nothing.
I sincerely hope you can extricate yourself as fast as humanly possible, before 'meetings' etc as detailed in my previous post. Good luck.

Benjispruce5 · 06/03/2022 19:25

@Pinkfluff76 why indeed? This doesn’t happen normally. Schools have strict protocols to follow. Either there is more to this or both the school and SS have got it wrong.

Jellycatspyjamas · 06/03/2022 20:45

sometimes the child actually smelled of neglect

Neglect has a smell? I should maybe tell social workers to stop with all the complex assessments involved in assessing standard of care and just employ a sniff test.

My point exactly so while they're messing about with a plastic box incident someone could be in real danger!!

And your child could be one of them, the point is social services don’t know - there must have been something in what the school heard and what was passed on to social services that made them want to look further.

It could simply have been the type of referral made - in my area of work (child protection but different nation) there’s a referral pathway that would usually mean a check in with parents and, assuming all sounds ok, no further action. There’s a different referral pathway that means a social worker needs to meet with/see the child within a set time period. Social workers in my area don’t have discretion about this, if it comes in via the second pathway they need to see the child. Yes it can be stressful but it’s designed to stop children slipping through the net - because the person who made the referral chose that pathway for a reason. Very often cases are closed after the initial meeting but equally some parents struggle and it’s picked up earlier than might otherwise be the case.

Have you contacted social services and asked what the outcome of their conversation with your daughter was?

Malibuismysecrethome · 06/03/2022 23:00

Neglect does have a smell. It is unwashed clothes, not being bathed, wet, damp clothes, unwashed hair, neglected teeth, the pervading smell of cannabis on children’s clothing. SW’s should stop being so defensive and look harder at children who are being neglected.

slaybell · 06/03/2022 23:25

This does seem like overkill but the school has a policy and are doing right by following it. I'm sure SS will see nothing at all to follow up on.

I'm surprised we haven't been reported yet thanks to dd2's embellishment and enjoyment of storytelling. She told her nursery teacher I poked her in the eye with a needle once. Obviously there was no consistent injury cause it never happened, and they knew her pretty well by then so knew she was fibbing! She also bit her own arm once and told us her sister did it cause she was angry at her and wanted to get her into trouble.

SS are trained to see these kind of incidents from real abuse and neglect so I'm sure nothing will come of it and they are just following procedure.

BoffinMum · 07/03/2022 16:14

It really does, Jellycat. Once you've smelled it you can't forget it.

BoffinMum · 07/03/2022 16:16

Read this, Jellycat medium.com/@cambridgecarer/neglect-stinks-a02ba42b3f0a

bellac11 · 07/03/2022 20:17

You can smell it when someone opens the front door to you. You never forget it