To be furious with daughters school.

[Incognitomum11]

Year 6 daughter. I came to pick her up yesterday from after school club to find that they had cancelled the club and my daughter had stood waiting for me for an hour, by the side of the road, all alone.

she walks from school and I pick her up from the small village on her request, to give her some independence in preparation for secondary soon.
I have a new job and have specifically given the school instructions to contact me on my work number because I have zero reception or internet at work.

BUT the school hadn’t even attempted to contact the parents to say the after school club had been cancelled.
they had only sent an email.

When I later looked at the email it clearly says “Please can you reply to this email to confirm you have received it.”
and normally they phone to check if they dont hear back.

but they hadn’t, they had told her I had been made aware and let her leave at usual time.

AIBU to be furious with them?

I know some of you may think that year 6 she should be able to deal with this but she had no phone and no money.

and in future, yea I will make sure she has a phone with her to school.

If you had no reception at work maybe they tried to phone you when you didn't answer the email.
If protocols at the school are to let the students go home alone then maybe that's what happened.
If you're fostering independence then your daughter needs to know how to telephone someone in unforseen circumstances
I'd mention it to the school that you can't access either email and have no phone reception. Maybe another adult's details should be the point of contact in case she's sick at school and they need to call someone.

Why didn't she go back into school?

Are people missing that Op's dd walks from school into the next village to be collected?
With no reason not to believe the teacher when she said her mum had been informed, she obviously walked as usual and waited at the meeting point, probably assuming her mum was running a bit late, but was on her way.

I would be livid !!

That is shocking

But then she needs a back up plan not to just stand there. With no phone turning around and going back to school makes much more sense.

Is this a childcare after school club or an activity based club and is it run by the school? There used to be private after school child care providers at a few schools I’ve worked at and the contract was between them and the parents, they also collected children from school. Surely if this is the case the onus is on the child care provider to let you know the club is cancelled. I’ve never known a child care provider not to collect from school due to safeguarding policies.

YANBU

That's pretty awful

I'm in Scotland and the school my kids go to stop checking for parents after Primary 2.
Primary 1 and 2 kids are let out at the gate when the teacher sees a parent. The rest of the school pretty much stampede out and almost everyone walks or cycles home alone/with friends feel that age.
About 20% get collected by a car in the school parents car park area but everyone else just walks/cycles home, most without an adult.

That’s disgraceful, and a safeguarding issue. Report to the designated safeguarding lead at the school.

It’s bad and yes I would drop a note to the school.
But my Y6 would have told school you weren’t coming for an hour, or gone back into school when you didn’t come to collect, rather than stand there for an hour.

It's a fuck up, they should have ensured a parents were aware.

But worth agreeing some sensible things your daughter could have done:

• gone back to school
• gone to a friends house who lives in the village, where there would have been a phone she could use/adult who could help.

I'm a bit surprised the school let her walk out when she doesnt live locally. At our school y5/6 can walk if the teacher agrees - it's based on there being an adult at home etc.

I’ve never known a child care provider not to collect from school due to safeguarding policies.

It might not be a childcare provider. It could be a dance class or sports club.

The year 6s where I live, the ones who do the local dance school just walk there themselves, especially in summer term.

I don't think you can blame the school if she has permission to leave the premises alone.

Would you have answered the phone if you didn't see the email? Do you not get email notifications?

I agree it isn’t ideal but there should have been other safety nets in place, as things like these happen. It wasn’t the schools sole responsibility. They made a mistake but yourself and your daughter made many more.

• You should discuss beforehand if something like this happens, what she is to do
• At Year 6, she should be capable of understanding she must return to the school or talk to a trusted adult
• That she has a phone, portable charger, emergency contacts, emergency bus money and a house key.

This isn’t the end of the world, these things happen to us all. Just another lesson learned.

I think if you choose to go hard on the school, you have to be hard on yourself too

Group text messages can be sent, a phone call better if practical. YANBU. I agree with others that your DD should have remained at school.

Some people really need to read the OP again.

The school messed up here, I’d definitely be speaking to them. Hope your daughter is ok.

She's year 6 not year 1.

She has the ability to use her legs and her mouth. She should know what to do, and if she doesn't then I actually think thats parental failure to teach her independence and responsibility.

In less than 3 months time what will she be doing to get to and from school? If all she knows is being picked up and dropped off, you are infantilising her. Its not in her interests to still be dependent to that degree. I get that might be the default transport due to your location, but she still needs to know know how to cope in a situation like this, and really you should be thinking about this now. What is your plan B?

At that age the expectation is that children are capable of managing a situation like this without the aid of school.

For that reason I do think you are being unreasonable, as I think you and your daughter need to take a degree of responsibility at this point due to her age. 'Being furious with the school' is definitely taking it too far. It would be an appriopriate response for a younger child, but I do take some issue with your attitude for a child just about to go to high school. Its definitely less black and white.

Get her a phone.

She should have gone back to the school though.

Would the school contact parents if that club was cancelled? This is purely out of interest as the schools I worked in wouldn’t have told parents a dance class etc was cancelled. The way they saw it was clubs not run by the school had a contract with the parent and had nothing to do with the school. This came after one child in P5 who was supposed to walk to a club never arrived. It transpired they’d decided to go to a park with a friend and the parent blamed the school.

I think a lot depends on which type of club it was as the OP seems to have gone immediately to blaming the school.

I can understand why she didn't return to school. Let's assume it's a ten minute walk into village. Then if you're waiting for a lift you'd give it say 20 mins in case mum was stuck in traffic. By then it's likely that the school was shut so not worth walking the ten minutes back.

The school fucked up by telling dd you knew she was finishing early.

I would buy her a cheap Android phone that can be used for calls or texts but you're justified in feeling annoyed and let down by the school.

YANBU . I was a teacher myself and think that this is totally unacceptable. I would email the Headteacher to complain. The school is lacking in its duty of care in this instance.

@TwasAGoodYear

Not at all. The OP is completely reliant on the school to follow a strict set of instructions should X happen. In reality that not how life works, mistakes are made, there needed to be contingency plans put in place.

It’s not the schools sole responsibility. An argument could be made that the OP contacts the school on the day of the club to make sure it’s still running. Why should the onus be on the the school.

The school clearly made a mistake but the OP has made some major misjudgements here too.

That is bad and I would be straight into the school. Similar happened to my DS in year 6. We lived round the corner from the school and I finally relented ( yes I am a neurotic mum) to let him walk home by himself. He had after school club and like your DD’s it was cancelled. The school didn’t let the parents know at all!!! I was at the shops and when I got home my DS was sitting on the doorstop. He had sat there for 40 mins. I went into school next day and they said as they are year 6 they should be fine. !!! I spoke to headmaster and the policy was changed to be contacted. My DS took his phone from that day on even though the school forbid them.

Really really shit not everybody has emails linked to their phone.

They need to keep the children in the school if their parents have not replied to the email.

The trouble is they are often prevented from doing so. My DD took herself to and from school from year 5, but was not allowed a phone or money in school. So what was she supposed to do?

I agree school should have been more on it with the cancellation, but if you’ve given permission for her to walk out and she didn’t go back, what were they supposed to do? If she waited at school I’m sure they’d have phoned you.

Also, though, you ought to have discussed a plan for her to follow if you didn’t arrive as a condition of her being able to walk. Which would be to go back to school and ask for help. Ten year olds are only learning to be independent, and need obvious support at first and she was possibly worried and didn’t know what to do. In the circumstances, waiting there wasn’t a terrible option. She could probably reason that it was just a mix up and not your usual time.