To think school have over reacted

[worriedmum2022]

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?

I was asked about so many injuries when my DS was at nursery - he was (is still) very active and prone to taking risks and not looking where he was going.

Kids don't always give a clear picture of what happened either. My DS once told his key worker 'Mummy hit me with a bag', without adding that it was by accident, which was interesting (I swung round and accidentally smacked him in the face with my bag) . My favourite was 'Umm, we noticed that DS had a big bruise on his leg and he says his daddy grabbed him on the climbing-frame and pushed him off". What actually happened was that another child accidentally pushed DS, DH tried to catch DS as he fell, DS caught DH in the face with his muddy boot and broke his (DH's) nose and they both collapsed on the ground with DS on top of DH. DH definitely got the worst of it.

They have to ask and we've never yet been phoned by social services.

How long is all this data being kept by the schools? And who has access to it?

Whilst all these minor cuts and grazes are being dutifully logged, many real cases of child abuse are going undetected regardless.

George Orwell's society is well and truly upon us.

@JuergenSchwarzwald

If I notice an injury on a child and the parent hadn't mentioned it to me at drop off, I'm going to be asking that child about it. Do you think I should ignore it

a plaster isn't an "injury"! For goodness sake you can get a paper cut and need a plaster.

Totally different from a suspicious pattern of bruising.

Common sense needs to prevail here, otherwise teachers will be wasting time on stuff that takes them away from the important things.

yes you can put a plaster on a papercut but there is no knowing what is under a plaster....and every suspicious pattern starts somewhere. Do you not think that safeguarding is important....and how long does it take to say to a child "oh you have a plaster, how did you get that?"

It gets transferred to next school.

Many cases of child abuse are picked up by schools. It can be various bits of the jigsaw that finally give you the bigger picture

Unfortunately not all cases do get picked up. But having parents complaining about safeguarding reports or people being advised to keep their sticky beak out don’t help

I don't think they have over-reacted - your daughter has obviously reported it in a way that has caused some concerns, but as we all know kids sometimes like to exaggerate so find out exactly what your daughter has said before accusing the school of over-reacting.

If that is what your DD told the school then wouldn't you want that being considered for safeguarding even if there is a reasonable explanation and if there's been no other concerns then it seems likely no further action will occur? I would.

Hopefully as schools we are learning through the vast missed cases, report report report, it might be nothing but if one teacher has noticed this, another an explainable burn, another a bruise that had a reason, another coming in hungry but home had a reason, another missing clothing but mum had a reason, on their own it's nothing, together it starts a picture, especially after Arthur I hope all schools are getting better at reporting everything even if it's seems honest. Nothing will come of it op but it's a responsibility and not over the top of the school.

If she's reported it to the designated safeguarding lead she shouldn't actually have reported that to you. Imagine if your daughter really was being abused at home and she rang to say she had reported it! If she decided to call she should have just asked how it happened and left it at that. Seems weird that she would tell you!

Good practice in all but extreme cases to tell parents, unless really you have reason to think there’s an immediate risk and that the child isn’t safe to return home. It keeps communication open, retains the relationship with the school and means the parent doesn’t have social work contact out of nowhere.

I don’t think your husband understands what a DBS check actually covers - it’s for criminal records. It has nothing to do with any safeguarding notes. They don’t access that information.

I know it’s horrible when you feel like you’re being accused of something, but that’s really not what’s happening here. In your case, it’s something-and-nothing, but for another family it might be part of something bigger. This isn’t personal; the teacher isn’t making any judgements.

My brother’s daughter broke her leg when they was very little - just a freak accident that could happen to any small child in the blink of an eye. But he and his wife were questioned very robustly and extensively, and I think separately, about it when they took her to A&E. Which was obviously a horrible experience for them, but as my SIL said, in a way it was also reassuring to know that they are at least alert to the possibility. Because another toddler might desperately need that level of concern.

@MrsWinters

I’d be having a word with my child about fibbing to be honest

Did she fib?

@starfishmummy

So a child can't go to school with a plaster on without being interrogated??

You are meant to talk to the school and do a pre existing accident form - often abused children’s parents say ‘they got bumped at school’, it’s to make sure the child is protected.

It gets transferred to next school

And then where? Is it ever deleted? Are parents given details of the privacy policy?

How do they stop employees with no requirement to view the data getting access?

We are so lax monitoring how much data is being gathered on us and what it's being used for.

I think it will be okay once they know it was an accident, schools look out for this kind of thing. My DD has a prominent blood vessel across the top of the bridge of her nose between her eyes and if she gets hot it’s more obvious and can look like a bruise.

Not long after she had started at her new school they asked me about it one day when I picked her up. I explained what it was and they were fine about it. DD later told me that she had to go and see the headteacher about it and she told them it was a blood vessel.

Make sure your side's comments on the issue are added to the report so whoever sees it in due course does not just see a very one sided picture of it all. I would take off the plaster and take a photo of the tiny tiny cut too and force the school to keep that picture with the notes too so it is all there in one place.

Kids that are often getting abused don’t come in covered in bruises and saying their parents hurt them - it’s small incidents that can easily go unnoticed but actually if you add them all up it starts becoming more clear.

This.

The only reason my childhood abuse was picked up was because of a very diligent teacher who started keeping notes. She clocked that the number of times I had a different story to my parents was quite a lot.
She had been told by another teacher that one of ny siblings was a pain for stealing things from other kids. After noticing I was always hungry she asked that other teacher who only then clicked that my brother was always stealing food or stuff to keep warm.

Good note keeping, and instinct, meant I sat in the heads office when I was 7 and the story tumbled out and we lived with Grandparents from then. I was the youngest of four. Nobody had picked up on all the little incidents with the others abd made the connection.

An insignificant plaster to one child could be the final puzzle piece for another.

Everyone time a child dies there’s always the question of “why didn’t somebody do something”. This is doing something.

@CaptaNoctem

It gets transferred to next school

And then where? Is it ever deleted? Are parents given details of the privacy policy?

How do they stop employees with no requirement to view the data getting access?

We are so lax monitoring how much data is being gathered on us and what it's being used for.

It's extremely hard to view anything that you should not on CPOMS. It's hard to access in the first place Every time you look at anything it is recorded by the software. You can see who has looked at what and when. Not everyone in a school can look at information about a child. You can't just go browsing through it looking for gossip.

I had a call from the health visitor when my DC broke an arm at 2 years old playing superman by nose diving down the stairs with his arm out

Mine broke her leg at 2 years old, she doesn't walk so not likely to be easily written off as a typical toddler fall. I hadn't even noticed it was broken and sent her to nursery, apparently with a broken leg. Nobody called.

When she was 5, we had her at A&E for a suspected broken leg as she wouldn't put weight on it, but there wasn't a problem, and 3 months later we were back there for a suspected broken wrist when she launched herself off the sofa. I was sure we'd get a call but nobody ever did.

It will only affect dbs if your daughter reports it as assault and he is convicted in court of assault

I’ve taken kids to A and E with bumps and a burn and every time I get call from health visitor

You have explained as you have here that will be end of matter

For safeguarding purposes GDPR does not prevent the sharing of information for the purposes of keeping children safe

Exactly what @NewcastleOrBust said. Only DSL's can look at past recorded incidents, not just any member of staff. There are also audit logs that record everything from when you logged in, your IP address and what information you have accessed. It gets transferred between schools but when you leave education it is archived.

@JuergenSchwarzwald

If I notice an injury on a child and the parent hadn't mentioned it to me at drop off, I'm going to be asking that child about it. Do you think I should ignore it

a plaster isn't an "injury"! For goodness sake you can get a paper cut and need a plaster.

Totally different from a suspicious pattern of bruising.

Common sense needs to prevail here, otherwise teachers will be wasting time on stuff that takes them away from the important things.

How do you know if the plaster is covering a paper cut or a cigarette burn if you don’t bother asking anyone?

Completely normal treatment of anything that could be a safeguarding concern - the school will record and follow up to show due diligence. Your clarification will be recorded and everything should be fine. It’s so important to record even small things in case a pattern emerges.

Well things have progressed

Dd came home today and a social worker has been to the school and put her thru an hour of questioning doing this "3 houses method" and basically - from what I can gather has upset her and tried to intimate she is in an "unhappy house" which is so far removed it's ridiculous

School phoned me and told me and I have said "so what happens next" and they said that the social worker will
Be in touch

I'm absolutely astounded

Dd said to me that the lady was "asking her lots of questions" and asked if Mummy went out a lot or daddy and so we smoke, do we have lots of visitors, what does she like to eat

Loads of what would seem very bizarre questions

Has anyone ever had this - what happens next???

if you're that ticked of by this I would contact the DFE to see what their stance on this is, Personally i think it was a bit over the top because children tend to gets cuts and bruises all the time, clearly there wasnt a pattern they were seeing, it was just a one off, obviously i appreciate the safeguarding issue but again there wasn't a pattern or a history or any reason for concern

Having just read your update OP, id probably be making a formal complaint, You sound like a great parent that's been caught in the system when you shouldn't be, this sounds almost like a witch hunt for domestic violence with a hint of authoritarianism, My brother worked in social and frankly they're arrogant they think they can spot this kind of thing a mile away but they cant and one thing i noticed is they're very judgemental, they will look at a case and see it in black and white, in your case the injury if we can call it that was an accident nothing more but they'll take what the school say as the word of god and disregard you and your husband, Most likely nothing will come from this but they'll probable keep it on record and as i said id start making formal complaints and get everything they tell you in writing and keep good records