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.

My son walks home from school. He only walks with his friend. If he or his friend have an appointment, ill, etc and not at school that day, he tells his teacher and stays put until I collect him.

A few weeks ago, he was on an athletics day and the bus was late coming back to school. It meant his friend, who was not on the day out, had to ask for his mum to collect him and for me to make my way to school to collect my son. Yes, the school knew how to proceed because both boys know that if anything changes they have to inform the school. If not, the school will send them on their way. Would I be happy if he walked on his own? No. That’s why we discussed the rules and what to do in those situations.

You sign a form to ‘release’ the children after school. I’m not absolving the school of blame, but your child chose to walk out. She should know that mum wouldn’t be there at that time and speak to an adult to tell them so.

She should know that mum wouldn’t be there at that time and speak to an adult to tell them so.

the school told her they had informed her mother.

Yes, but go back and read the thread again, as most are also saying that your DD should have gone back into school - and it's on you to have told her to do this, and to follow up with her if she knew this and didn’t follow your instruction.

Ultimately, you're “furious” because you know you dropped the ball as well.

Outs did from Y5,

m surprised at the responses to be honest, and I work in primary school (albeit an infants which is obviously slight different). How will she be getting to secondary school?
It seemed to be a bit of a half-assed arrangement really, to just make her way to the village and wait for you and I think you need to take a bit of blame here, OP, sorry.
Anything could happen before you get there. You could have a car accident, get stuck in traffic, take ill, be called away on an emergency and she's left hanging around the village.
What if you HAD been in an accident, it could have been hours that she was waiting.

If she is going to be allowed to walk to the village from school she needs to have a way to contact you or someone else (i.e. a mobile phone like most Year 6s have at this stage of the year ready for Year 7 independence) , or if not, be coached that if you don't turn up after, say, 10 mins, then she must return to school and specifically tell them that you haven't turned up.
At that stage in Year 6 both mine were walking home alone and had a key to let themselves into the house.
For this reason they needed a mobile phone in case of emergency.
I also talked through different scenarios with them

eg "What would you do if you fell over or were unwell on the way home from school?"
"What would you do if you were followed by a strange person on the way home?"
"What would you do if you got home and couldn't find your key?"
"What would you do if you got in the house and found out it had been burgled?"

One of those scenarios was also to inform me of any changes of plan. He also knew he had to tell me if he was going anywhere else apart from straight home, eg if he wanted to go to his friend's house for an hour.

He knew that if he had any issues at all and he was nearer to school than home that he should go back to school and ask for help there.
And tht if he was nearer home then he should ask particular neighbours for help.
He had an old smartphone of mine and I installed Find My Iphone on it so could see where he was at any one time.
I used to check it if he was scheduled to stay in school for something to check that he hadn't forgotten to attend!

Please don't go into the school all guns blazing as they could wonder about YOUR safeguarding procedures for her in the event of any time she can't be picked up from the village for WHATEVER reason.
Although, I would still approach the school and ask them to ensure that in the event of a cancelled club they keep all children behind who they usually let go off site on their own unti they had spoken to parents and asked if it was ok for them to leave school as per usual arrangements.
They do have a duty to inform parents of club cancellations and that's what they did. They presumably have your permission for her to leave school to wait in the village to wait for you so they let her go.
The fact that your daughter didn't know what to do when you didn't turn up is down to you/her dad.
It sounds like your daughter's situation is fairly unique as most children at that stage have phones and aren't reliant on a parent picking them up from somewhere that isn't the school. Either they make their own way home and schools are aware of this, or they are collected by a parent at school.

What will probably happen if you speak to school about this is that they will not allow ANY pupils to go off site at the end of the school day if it's not specifically to make their own way straight home and they have a way of getting into the house. Maybe they will make parents sign something to that effect.

You are definitely not being unreasonable.
At our school once after school clubs are over, they usually finish at 4pm, then the children sit inside the foyer accompanied by a teacher and are only let go once a parent collects them. No matter what year they’re in.
If a parent fails to turn up then they are phoned and the child is kept inside until an adult collects them. A teacher is with them at all times.

You need to complain. You need to ask why you weren’t contacted on your work number as this is what you’ve requested should there be an emergency/change of plan.

Ignore other comments about the fact your child should have known better or realised you weren’t coming. From your post it seems the school have told her that you’ve been told she’s leaving early and therefore an assumption that you would be collecting her early.

My daughter’s school allow permission to leave school alone from y5 as long as written consent has been given. In this case though there needs to be some clear communication about this as school may just assume that as she leaves alone she heads home and not that she waits for a lift from the next village. You might need to explain this to the school.

My primary age daughter has been taking her phone to school since she started y5 in September. Well, when she remembers. I encouraged it so that she can get in the habit of having it with her for when she does start walking home alone. She takes it with her when she plays out away from the street with her friends.

Neither of my children (eldest is y8) carry money on them though. My eldest did used to carry her bank card but we had issues with ‘friends’ talking her into going home via the shop and buying them sweets. She’s autistic and happily did this as she thought it was being kind, til I checked her bank account and saw how much she spent!

My eldest walks home alone some days and gets a lift from me some days. She often rings me on the days she has to walk home (because I’m at work and her sister is in wrap around) just to check in, tell me if she’s staying out with friends etc. She would have panicked if she had been told I knew she was leaving early and assumed i’d then be coming for a lift and I wasn’t there.

She needs a phone so she can call you and you can track her, and you need to change your provider so that you can receive calls, emails and texts at work.

Every problem is an opportunity to learn; the school, you and your daughter. Just like you want the school to look at what went wrong, you also need to think about the weakness in your school collection arrangements too.

If school hadn’t made contact with you & hadn’t received a reply to the e-mail form you your child should not have been let off school premises! This is a major safeguarding error & needs to be raised with school immediately. I would have called them as soon as i got to the usual meeting place, someone would have still been in school, & asked to speak to the head!

Some places of work don’t allow you to have your phone on you. OP has said that she has requested the school ring her work number for situations where she needs to be contacted. I’m a teacher and we aren’t allowed phones in the classroom. I also teach across lots of classrooms so it’s locked away in a locker and I check it between lessons and at break/lunch. However when my daughter’s school needed to contact me urgently they rang my school office who then had access to my timetable and then called me in that classroom so I could then call the school back asap, which I did.

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'm sorry but I'm not seeing the harm here, except from inconvenience from YOU not providing him with a house key to let himself into the house. The school is absolutely right in this situation. It would be expected that children in Year 6 almost in Year 7 will have a key to let themselves into the house. What is the reason that your son doesn't have this arrangement?

Parents on the continent would find your attitude hilarious, they really would.

Agree it falls between both the school’s communication and lack of contingency in your halfway house arrangement, which only proves as she’s just about to start secondary school, you haven’t equipped her to be able to think through and manage situations that may arise.
It’s not great she stood there for an hour, but has probably shown you what to put in place. Did you never have any discussion of “if Y happens or I am not there within 10 minutes, then X?” For example, have her memorise your numbers, or go to a certain public place, like a specific shop. I understand u might not want her to have a smartphone, but not why you hadn’t a provided a basic Nokia type. Pre mobiles we were brought up to know postal address and home phone number by the time we started primary school (and taught the same, except mobile number). I was either collected or went home to be expected by a certain time and always had money to make a call if I needed to and various contingency plans.
She would be better prepared waiting for you at the school and to start practice school runs with you over the summer to prepare her for secondary.

The school clearly dropped the ball here, as they normally phone you about things like this and did not this time, so yes, you should let them know something went wrong with their safeguarding arrangements on this occasion. However, I also agree with @CurlyhairedAssassin - you have also dropped the ball here. If you are concerned about safeguarding your child, then you should have better arrangements than leaving her hanging around the village not knowing what the hell to do if you don’t turn up to collect her.

How can something like that a child responsibility?!

Absolutely not ok - I would be furious too.

My cousin's little boy, 6, goes to a village school and there is a school bus.
He told the supervisor that his Mum said he could walk home - and they drove off and left him without checking or anything.

When she went to collect him from the bus stop, she was obviously horrified that he wasn't there. Called the school, who confirmed that he wasn't there either.

Thankfully one of the other parents found him before anything happened - along a tiny country road.

Words were had.

be*

OP, your arrangement to pick up your daughter is clearly ludicrous. You've manufactured a situation that was bound to blow up in this way sooner or later, either through a last minute after school club cancellation or traffic) accident preventing you from getting to the meeting place on time.

You need to take (most of the) responsibility. The school isn't realistically going to manually pick up the phone and call all 30 parent's phones (not to mention that you provided another new work number which just adds extra work for them).

If you insist on having such a stupid arrangement to pick up your daughter, that unintentionally makes the school's safeguards redundant, then you need to take a lot more responsibility. A school, especially a state school, be cannot be expected to cater for every parent's unique picking up arrangement. Picking up your daughter from a random spot in the village (but not from the school itself) is so ludicrous that i'm sure that nobody at the school is fully aware that that is in fact the arrangement you have with your daughter. I'm pretty sure that they'd be hard pressed to find any year 6 in the country with such a ludicrous arrangement.

Of course the school messed up by not calling all parents. But they would reasonably not have expected any fall out to occur, as there would have been safeguards in place for all children with sensible pick up arrangements (i.e. picked up from school or walk home).

But you messed up by having such a ludicrous pick up arrangement with no safeguards in place whatsoever. If anyone deserves blame, you deserve most of it

@Holakaleidoscope its some school's policy to allow years 5-6 to go home on their own.

Thats said, in my school we check in with our pupils what the arrangements are and wouldnt allow them to stand outside school alone!!!

Yep, I've been a parent of 2 year 6 children only a few years back. And Ive been a primary school admin person. So i know how both work. And I know how things have changed in the space of a few years and how much parents expect schools to take responsibility for, well, EVERYTHING to do with their child. For some parents, everything is the school's fault.

It’s not a safeguarding issue. School is only responsible until the end of the school day. Once a child has left site in the manner agreed by the parent and school then they are the responsibility of their parent.

OP- you are letting your 11 year old wander around without any means of contacting you if something untoward happens. By your own admission you are difficult to contact. They sent you an e-Mail and possibly tried to call you (you’d never know since you have no signal at work). It is up to you to make yourself contactable not for them to try four different methods to get to you.

My child did not have a key in y6. I paid for her to stay in wrap around at the school so that she was always collected and not left home alone. I did try and leaver her once or twice to nip to the shops but she hated it. She is an august birthday though and autistic (no learning disability). Mind you, we were mid pandemic and wrap around was cancelled quite a lot so I had to make arrangements with my work to be able to leave and pick both children up. She missed out on the summer term and getting to practice walking as she was home learning when I was off work. She got a key in y7 and we had to do loads of trial walks over the summer break, and in the winter walks straight home on the days I’m at work and let’s herself in. Now it’s summer though she hangs at the park with some friends next to the primary school her sister attends and waits for a lift. She’s y8 and still hates going home alone. She will text me or ring to ask me to let her know when I get to the primary so she can come over for a lift. She comes home if it rains.

my youngest is y5. She won’t get a key next year in y6 either. She will also stay at paid wrap around on the days I work. I will start getting her used to walking home on her own on days I’m not working but I’ll probably do this in the summer term and will offer to meet her at certain points til she’s confident.

Why not just provide them with your work email address? Not everything has to be done by phone.

It is a safeguarding issue - the school cancelled the after school and told the child they’d told the parent. The parent thought they were at after school club - so for that period of time the OP was unaware of their child’s location as a result of the school’s failure to communicate properly.

Safeguarding absolutely! You need a written apology at the very least.