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.

The school has informed the OP. It's just that the OP didn't see the message because of lack of signal at work.

Poor behaviour from the school. Safeguarding went out the window! You should make a formal complaint

Safeguarding was in place for children who had standard methods of pick up (i.e picked up directly from school, or walking home).

I agree, there was no safeguarding for ludicrous methods of pick up (child walks by herself to random spot in the village, without a phone or being told what to do in the event the OP was not at the agreed spot at the agreed time.

Poor behaviour from the OP. Can we make a formal complaints about the OP's (lack of) parenting

The school is definitely at fault here and you should ask them to make sure it doesn't happen again. But it's not the end of the world she waited for an hour. Don't blow it up into some enormous thing in your daughter's eyes. In the days before phones children often waited around or walked a long way home due to the inability to notify of delays and changes of plan. It's good to have these experiences and learn from them. Your daughter now knows she waited an hour and is fine. She will learn more from that experience than if everything goes to plan every time.

No, the school didn’t inform the OP. They asked parents to confirm they had received the message to let the school know they had actually managed to inform them. They did not follow up on non-replies. The OP had already made them aware of the lack of mobile signal which is why she gave them the emergency work landline and her sisters contact number - they phoned neither.

so no - not poor behaviour on the part of the OP.

Hmm, don’t really access work emails all day when I’m there. As I mentioned I teach. I teach in different classrooms a practical lesson where I wouldn’t see emails unless i went back to the same room my phone would be locked in. In my situation the phone call to the work main office actually worked well. We have hundreds of teaching assistants also in our school who have to find a spare computer to log in to to check their emails once a day as they don’t sit at computers either.

I guess if you work a job where you are sat by a phone/laptop all day and can be contacted then it’s different, but not everyone is. I’d imagine those working in retail or hospitals might have similar issues. Oh and my friend who works in a prison basically goes off grid whilst he’s there and wouldn’t receive texts, calls or emails until he has left work. Again his emergency work contact number would need to be used.

Sounds like a strong complaint to the school child protection co-ordinator is in order. Someone isn’t doing their job as they should be.

Yes, the school did inform the OP, by email. As you said, they just didn't follow up on non-replies.

So when the school told the OP's daughter that they had informed all parents of the cancellation, they were being factually correct.

I also teach full time in many different classrooms and I can still find a minute at the beginning of break and lunch to check both my phone and my emails. You must also be well aware that once. Child leaves site in the agreed way at the end of the day then they are no longer the school’s responsibility to
monitor. OP has set up a system full of holes and has no discovered a flaw on her system.

The solution is simple- give the child a means of contact. Tell her if you are more than 10 minutes late to walk back to school. Inform school again that they are ONLY contactable via work number. Have mobile number deleted off school system as it is completely pointless as a contact if it doesn’t work.

If I was a Year 6 teacher who knew a child walked from school to a pick up point and I’d made multiple attempts to contact a parent then I would let the kid go.

The school has messed up and should be held accountable to ensure that doesn’t happen again.

but equally you should have discussed with you DD what she should do if you don’t arrive. 1 hour is a very long time to wait and not take any action if she thought you were aware she was waiting.

You’re not unreasonable.

I can’t believe that some people who suggest your daughter should have gone back into the school etc. or that it’s ok not to do what they are expected to do because it’s a sunny day?!?

. You’ve provided them with the correct contact details for you during the working day. they should have used them. They should have ensured that you were aware, they do have that responsibility. Why on earth some believe the onus is on a child in this situation is beyond me.

no one other that you knows your situation, your child, what your child’s anxieties may be. Etc. so just ignore those who suggest your DD has any responsibility in this situation, because she doesn’t.

so just ignore those who suggest your DD has any responsibility in this situation, because she doesn’t

But OP could’ve been the reason for her waiting - car broke down, phone failed, rushed to hospital, delayed by traffic - what did OP put in place for such issues?

You and previous replied missed the point of my post on this part. I was simply stating that I have personally requested my child’s school contacts my school by telephone to speak to me or get a message to me if urgent communication is required. This has worked for me in the past. It is not an issue. People are making this out to be an issue!! Oh and I do check my emails at the beginning of lunch - not always break as not always time to get over to my laptop/phone, get a drink, go to loo and get back to class, however if someone emailed/phoned my personal number it even work email after lunch then I wouldn’t get the message til my lessons finish and kids have left -3:40pm. My child’s school finishes at 3:05pm except a Wednesday when it’s 2:05pm!! If school emailed me after lunch whilst I was teaching about my child not being able to stay for an after school club and being allowed to leave at 2/3pm when I had planned to meet them later then the message would not get to me in time if I was OP. However in my situation where they contact my school office and they track me down to pass the message on, I can then make further plans - leave early, get message to child with a new plan.

OP has asked the school to contact her on her work number in case of situations like emergency. The school have not followed through on this. They sent an email which also asked for the OP to respond to confirm they had received the information. OP never got the email and didn’t respond. School should have then followed this up. What was the actual point on the email asking for a response to confirm it was received in the first place?!? Seems a bit half hearted.

I agree OP should have something in place for if child arrives at meeting point and OP doesn’t - they could have an accident one day and child would not know what to do. But on the situation above there seems to have been errors on both parts.

Oh and if I was a year 6 teacher (I was once) and I knew a child walked to a meet up point I would also try and contact the parent. However if the parent didn’t pick up or acknowledge they had received the message I would actually have got the child to stay at school and leave at the time they would have expected to leave. I would have also contacted the other numbers on their emergency list to see if anyone else could collect child and take them to agreed meeting place at agreed time.

On the other hand I had a school threaten me with social services when I was 15 minutes late to collect from an after school club that closed at 5:30 and I didn’t get there til 5:45 due to traffic. I rang the office to try and tell them but the office staff leave at 4pm. I had no other way of getting a message to them. They, however should have tried ringing me to find out where I was and then should have tried to call the other numbers on my child’s emergency list. I could have had an accident (I didn’t but I was stuck behind one in traffic). In 9 years of school pick ups I’ve never been late!! I actually enquired with the head of social care at my LA who happened to be in a meeting I attended a week later and she said school were in the wrong there and all contacts should have been tried and social services wouldn’t have got involved.

So I strongly believe that where an arrangement has changed for a child, the parent needs to be contacted and spoken to. Even if that child usually walks home after school at 4pm and is now leaving at 3pm (we don’t know timings for this situation but just using as an example). Parent might have signed permission for the child to leave alone because they can be met however them leaving much earlier now means they can’t be met.

Covid cases are in the rise, there’s a good chance the school are understaffed, both school and OP are at fault, and to some degree the child, who could’ve done a number of things - gone to a shop and asked them to call OP or other family member, or even school when she wasn’t collected - even a police officer would’ve helped.

DS much younger went to a neighbors house and they rang me - they need to think for themselves sometimes. surely you’ve covered this OP?

The school is partly to blame but for goodness sake, get your DD a phone so she can contact you if her plans change and - equally importantly - you can contact her if you’re running late eg stuck in traffic. Easily sorted.

A few posters saying “it’s not the child’s fault”, haven’t seen anyone say it was, posters are highlighting how the child was ill-equipped by the parent and the pitfalls of an arrangement to meet neither at school (where the school would have continued to provide its duty of care) nor to go home, but with no means of contact to meet at a random spot on the side of the road. OP says the school approved this arrangement, but I would be interested to know if this is what was agreed formally in writing, versus that the child has permission to go home (meaning the parent has duty of care and is taking responsibility for the child being equipped to get themselves home - which would include they have means of contact, a house key and contingency planning in the event they do not meet within a set time frame). I would be upset my child had stood on the side of the road for an hour and would speak to the school about what happened but couldn’t be ‘furious’ with the school without looking at my parenting decisions. OP saw straight away the lack of phone was an issue but phones also go flat and the child is still on the side of a road and the parent is delayed in some way - so then what?

The school dropped the ball on not following up the fact that you didn’t confirm receipt of the email, and let your child out of school without you knowing.

BUT, honestly, human errors happen all the time, regardless of safeguarding policies or not, and if you have agreed for your child to be alone in a public place no longer under the school’s care, then you absolutely need make sure that your child has a way to contact someone if something unexpected happens, and also they need to know what to do in the event they cannot contact anyone.

The being alone and not knowing what to do / not being able to contact anyone is, I’m sorry to say, all on you. We’ve all been there before and it’s truly a rude awakening when we realise we’ve buggered up parenting, but be glad she’s ok and learn from it!

I think it’s not just your DD who’s getting a good dose of secondary school preparation 😉

Exactly the same thing happened to me. Years ago now. I was more than furious and marched straight to the headmistress office. After some pretty fierce exchanges the school incorporated my “suggestion” in their school policy. Very specific. I still shiver at the memory and what might….

And they are loco parents don’t forget

It is a safeguarding issue. The school asked for OP to confirm receipt. She didn’t and yet they allowed the child to leave unaware of whether her mother know the position. As I said before, contact the LADO. It’s likely they’ll provide words of advice to school - and also you. You do need to tighten up pick up arrangements.

I can’t believe that some people who suggest your daughter should have gone back into the school etc

Expecting a child in year 6 to go back into school if their adult isn’t there to collect them is a perfectly reasonable expectation. Or do you expect eleven and twelve year olds to be personally handed over to an authorised adult in the same way as a reception child?

That would be great preparation for secondary school next term, right?

No, the school had not informed the OP because the OP hadn’t got the email - and they would have known that if they had followed through on the second part of their email which was that parents had to confirm receipt.

Think of it this way. You send a meeting request to a key speaker and require attendance confirmation. If that person doesn’t respond you would check they’d received it by using another means to contact them (in this case, the work landline or her sister).

For someone who left their child without a phone or a contingency plan, I wouldn’t be feeling quite so pleased

The school is wrong but your daughter should have walked back into the school. Tell her this so she knows what to do if it happens again