Should the Deputy Head have been allowed to do this?

[SandwhichGenerationGal]

DD has four year old twins. They attend nursery school 09.00-3.15.
Twin 1 was sent home early with a temperature. DD kept her off the next day and she developed diarrhoea. I was visiting but needed to leave at 2pm to go to work (I am a nurse). Suggested she call school and ask to collect twin 2 at 2pm so I could stay at home with twin 1 and new baby (I don’t drive and school half hour walk). DD rang school (gave reasons for wanting to collect early) and was told deputy head would need to give permission and would call back. She didn’t call so DD phoned again and was told she was in a meeting. DD then drove to the school and asked to collect twin 2. Was informed deputy head had refused permission. Suggested their dad could collect her at the normal time or she could go to after school club, (has never been before and doesn’t even know what it is). DD said neither option was acceptable. DSIL is a doctor and can’t just leave at a moments notice (of course he would if it was emergency) and twin 2 was unprepared for attending after school club for the first time). Deputy head refused point blank and DD had to come home. I ended up staying and was late for work.
When did schools become so obsessed with their attendance stats that they take priority over the child’s health and well being?
They are four FFS and not even legally required to be in school.
Was the deputy head within her rights to refuse this or is she just a power mad controlling jobsworth? DD didn’t even get into the school, it was all done over the intercom. I am livid.

No one, absolutely no one, can refuse you access to your own child without a court order. If they have a problem with child's attendance, they can deal with that through the proper channels, but they have no authority to prevent a parent taking their child. DD should have called the police.

The school can legally refuse to give the parent access to the premises to collect the child, and legally refuse to release a staff member to take the child to the parent. Hence in practice stopping the parent collecting the child.

I’d then be contacting the police if the school were preventing me from accessing my child.

The school's powers absolutely do take priority over yours in some situations. You cannot, for example, prevent the school from punishing your child.

A school that prevented a child from collecting a parent at lunchtime would be exceeding its powers. However, if you turn up part way through the afternoon and demand that the school had over your child, the school is entitled to refuse.

Agree.

This is simply wrong.

If a parent turns up at lunchtime to collect their child, the school must hand the child over. However, if a parent turns up part way through the afternoon and demands that the school hand over their child, the school is entitled to refuse.

Even if this was a nursery setting, I very much doubt the police would have got involved. The school is not committing a criminal offence.

The school's powers absolutely do take priority over yours in some situations. You cannot, for example, prevent the school from punishing your child.

You're not talking about punishing a child the school can’t refuse a request from a parent to have their child returned to them.

The legislation you referred to allows them to manage conduct in school - and hasn’t been tested in court in this area yet, it’s intended to legislate for kids while they’re in the care of the school, not to over ride a parents right to access to their child. Given the level of overreach by some schools and teachers I can imagine them stretching the powers under this legislation, which I guess at some point will end up in court, but on plain reading there’s nothing in the legislation that gives schools the right to hold onto your child without permission.

I’m in Scotland, so different legislative framework, if a teacher refused to return a child to a parent here without a legal order preventing them from doing so, they’d potentially face abduction charges. I can’t imagine the intention of the legislation you refer to was intended to allow schools to hold children against their parents wishes - that’s a potential minefield in many ways.

It'll be interesting to see how the case law develops when/if the legislation is tested.

Unless of course you can direct me to the section which says schools have the power to refuse to return children to their parents?

Haven't RTFT but agree that is beyond her remit and frankly probably illegal. If it happens again say you are calling the police, I bet she'll be straight down the classroom to get the child personally! I'm a school secretary and would never stop a parent, with parental responsibility, from taking their child home (unless there was a safeguarding issue and we were awaiting advice from social services)

Actually, I really think you should take this to the chair of governors as deputy head should not get away with this with no consequences. Their age is irrelevant, she can't even do this with a Year 6 child

They can't direct you to it because it doesn't exist. For whatever reason - ignorance, gfery or another agenda - they are completely misrepresenting the legal situation. A school cannot refuse to let a parent collect a DC at any time unless there is some social work/police/safeguarding reason.

Exactly that. @DaisyQuakeJohnson

I thought that would be the case @DaisyQuakeJohnson the section she pointed to earlier doesn’t allow schools to refuse to return kids to parents explicitly or implicitly. They have no legal powers to prevent you collecting your child at any point unless there’s an order in place.

I already have. School Standards and Framework Act 1998 Section 61 gives the head wide powers to make and enforce rules and other measures to, amongst other things, regulate the conduct of pupils. It does not need to specifically mention returning children to parents. The powers it gives are more than adequate to cover the situation.

Feel free to consult a lawyer in real life if you don't believe someone who gives a lot of legal advice on this forum.

If you remove them from the school permanently how will they punish them? Do you think the Head will come and hunt them down. It might be an extreme way to avoid a punishment but you could do it so you are wrong to say you can't prevent a school from punishing a child.

Regulating the conduct of pupils has nothing to do with a parent collecting a child early. The child is doing nothing wrong so their conduct doesn't come into it.

But that provision gives the school no power over parents.

Removing a child from the school permanently is a bit of an extreme reaction to objecting to a punishment. You will then have to home educate. But the fact there is a way round it doesn't alter my point. Whilst the child remains a pupil, they are entitled to issue detentions and other punishments regardless of the views of the parents.

"Regulating the conduct of pupils" = "a child may not leave the school other than at lunchtime or at the end of the day unless the head gives permission". The courts would support that unless permission is being refused unreasonably, e.g. the school will not release a child for a medical appointment. Regulating conduct is not just about the child doing something wrong.

The courts have been very clear in a number of cases that, where the school uses this section to put measures in place to regulate the conduct of pupils, that overrides the wishes of parents. After all, it would be pretty pointless the school putting measures in place if they could only apply them to pupils where the parents agreed.

Yes I said it was extreme but the point is you said you can't prevent a school from punishing your child but the fact is you can. You were wrong about that.

It is nothing to do with the child's conduct, the parent is asking for their child not the other way round.

Unreasonable is interesting, don't you think it is unreasonable to refuse to let the child go in the circumstances given? Which bit would be reasonable:

1. A 4 year old child who is expecting to be taken home is instead put into afterschool care without warning.


2. Sick child taken out to collect sibling.


3. Nurse having to miss start of their shift.

None of the above sounds reasonable to me.

But, yet again, the measures in question are measures controlling the conduct of pupils, not parents.

Update

DD emailed a complaint to the head. The head was waiting for DD at the school gate. Sounds as though she went on the defensive and, (in my opinion, lied). She said that the receptionist had not informed deputy head of the reasons DD wanted to remove twin 2. (DD HAD informed them by telephone and again when she arrived at the school). How would deputy head have made her decision without knowing the reason why? She went on to say that legally they do not have to release a child until after a session. She also said that despite DD pointing out (in her complaint) that her children had excellent attendance, she (the head), had looked up their records, and they actually don’t so a flag/block (or some such) was put on their records which informed deputy heads decision. (I believe their attendance falls just below the accepted level). Just to point out, they have never been off school for reasons other than illness which, when you are 4, a twin and in nursery catching every bug going is to be expected.
She did concede that she should not have been told to send twin 2 to after school club but suggested she think about enrolling them.
I think DD was blindsided by all this and was unable, in the moment to speak up. How I wish I had been with her! So that’s that.
DD and I are very different. I am ‘that parent’, DD is not. If it were me, I wouldn’t let it go, I would want deputy head to be held accountable for her unreasonable decision and would want to know why the head supported this. I would also be insisting on a response in writing so that I could give a considered reply.
This is all new to us but we have learnt so much thanks to your responses.
Thank you especially to prh47bridge

Ooh, that load of rubbish would make me dig in deeper. I would want to know more about this flag on the records. What sort of flag, what does it indicate, how long will it remain, who can see it, what is the policy about this flag etc. It would make me very uneasy about remaining at this school. What else are they recording on the child's records?

Bottom line is, power mad, inflexible, deputy head made the wrong decision and the head supported her.
I would have had so much respect if the head had put her hands up and apologised.

Having read your update, I'd be complaining to Ofsted and looking to move my child to a different school.

I suggest your daughter and you ask for a meeting, saying that regrettably she was not able to deal with the matter properly having been confronted by the head with no prior warning. Say that at the meeting you expect them to deal with points you made, e.g. about the allegation that they didn't know the reason, and also the fact that neither child legally has to be in school at all. Take detailed notes of the meeting and send your own minutes afterwards.

Yes, I think I would be inclined to follow it up, too. Your dd should ask for a copy of the school’s Complaints Policy and follow that. The school should apologise for its actions as they were patently unreasonable. Your dd should also request a copy of her dds’ attendance records to check for accuracy and see the actual attendance figures and how the absences have been recorded, plus a statement of what the school considers an acceptable attendance record in young children under statutory school age and how it justifies this, given covid and an increase post-lockdowns in other illnesses will have affected a great many children’s attendance figures in ways entirely out of their control. I would not be taking the headteacher’s word for it - the deputy was in the wrong and the receptionist should not be blamed for that.