To be very pissed off with school

[AlbertaAnnie]

First day back at school today - school is round the corner from my house. My son is year 6 and walks to school himself ( he’s done this all last year no issues). He went to school as normal this morning and at 9.30 I revived this text from the school.
“ CHILD1 has not turned up at school today, please could you call the school immediately to update us.”
This immediate made me panic and think the worst! He’s very responsible and wouldn’t skip school so all the worst case scenario’s we’re going through my head!
Rang school in a panic shoes on ready to run over! They asked me to hold while the called his class and he was there all along but had been missed off the register! They said he must have “snuck” in past the teacher! He didn’t sneak we just went to school as normal!
anyway I know people are human and errors can happen but surely they should check before causing such alarm! I’m shocked that this isn’t standard procedure and more shocked that if he had actually been missing it would have taken them 30 mins to inform me. Spoke to head teacher and she was awful and so insincere in her apology and just came across very defensive! I want to take it further as I’m unhappy about the whole situation.
AINU to feel so angry with the school or am I being ott? Thanks!

I wouldn't be annoyed about being phoned, but I think it's bad that he was in school 30 minutes without them being aware. Unlikely as it is, if there had been a fire and he hadn't managed to get out, no one would have known to go looking for him.

I think you are over reacting. 30 mins to inform you is pretty quick. Presumably procedure is register done, registers to office then admin sees who is missing and contacts parents. I could easily see that taking longer than 30 mins.
If you want to check they have arrived safely then get child to ring or text you or location thing on his phone or tag in his bag so you can see he’s in the school building.

I had this earlier in in the year with dd1.

Except it wasn't 30 mins I don't get the message til after 10 clock so at the time they messaged me shed been " missing" for over 2 hours.

When I rang to find out what was going on they made me wait until the lesson was over so they could check with the cross over register, befire they called.

Was very worrying as she had left that morning for school.

Had it again today as well message didbt come thru until half 11.

I'd rung in this morning at 8.15 to let them know she had a medical appointment.

I dropped her off at the school at 11.

Take it further? Don't be daft.

Secondary school though.

Sorry for the panic op I know its a scary few mins

It is extremely easy to accidentally click "absent" instead of "present". Human error that was recitifed relatively quickly. Perhaps the person before or after him on the roll was absent, or like others have said teacher didn't see / hear him.

Don't really know what you expect to happen by going further with it? As others have asked, who would you go to and what / who exactly are you complaining about?

I think you're minimizing the trauma associated with the school ringing a parent and telling them that their young child is missing!

Teachers do need to take care filling in the roll and double-check if a child is actually missing before recording them as absent.
Also, it really shouldn't be that easy to make a mistake when recording and, if it is, the logging system needs adjustment.

It's annoying and caused stress and upset but "seriously pissed off" is probably an exaggeration. I'd be seriously pissed off if they did it more than once in quick succession or regularly as I'd wonder how robust their procedures are, but just the once is human error.

This would concern me in case of fire. The child would not be looked for as marked as absent.

Yes I agree it turned out to be a non event thankfully 😅 although it didn’t feel like that to me when I revived the message saying he wasn’t there.

When I was at school, the teacher used to count the number of pupils in the room to check against the number of ticks on the register as a double check. Don't they do that kind of simple "sanity check" anymore?

Yes it would have been better if they had checked, but really, it's time to untwist your knickers OP.

Your probably right - it just felt like that at the time as I was already annoyed about it - iv calmed down now

I think you're minimizing the trauma associated with the school ringing a parent and telling them that their young child is missing!

I dont know where anyone else lives but round here there have been incidents of children being made to get into strangers cars, flashers, gangs if teenagers robbing/beating up kids walking home.

As much as we don't live our lives as if there's a baby snatcher around every corner because you'd never do anything otherwise, its not outside the realms of possibility some thing could have happened . 10 mins feels like an age when you have no idea where your child is as they arent where they should be.

I guess we all have different standards about what to get our knickers twisted about! This was one that definitely twisted mine 😅

Yes I think I was - my main issue would be that it should be a simple system to make sure the child is really absent before panicking parents - all the rooms have phones so easy to check in a small primary where there will likely not be many children absent who’s parents had forgotten to call

Ha, this reminds me of a phonecall DM got years ago. My two younger siblings were in school and I had just left so was in the room with her and could hear the conversation.

"Hello, is that Mrs X? I'm calling from XYZ hospital in the Sounds-Like-Some-Horrific-Injury-Unit"

My normally unflappable DM went completely white and had to sit down until the woman finally got to the end of her spiel - turned out it was about setting up an appointment for my sister to have some X-Rays, teeth out and other dental work for future braces as her situation was a bit complex. DM was convinced there had been an horrific disfiguring accident at school

This happened to us loads of times.

I’m amazed at how blasé some of these comments are.
You have every right as annoyed as you do. Even if your child didn’t hear his/her name being called out, the teacher still has eyes. And yes 30mins is a long time to inform you that your child was ‘missing’. As soon as registers are done they go straight to the reception team so shouldn’t take that amount of time to inform you.

I would take it to the chair of governors personally.

You want the school to change their 30 min system to fit in with the fact that you, as a minority, don't take your child to school yourself, to make sure he gets there safely. Sounds like the school have a great system for checking up on unnotified absences, rather than policing unaccompanied children. If you had taken child there yourself, you wouldn't have batter an eyelid at the text and known it was an error. Not trying to mean, just putting it into perspective.

I think you have every right to be annoyed. It's up to the office/Attendance Officer to double check by going to the classroom. Only then does a text go out.

My son is 11 and very responsible and the school is round the corner - almost all the kids in our area walk to school at that age and distance - we live in a small safe place I’m not in the minority at all here - it obviously must be different in your area.

Omg it is perfectly normal fir year 6s to walk to school.

Yr 5s too.

I think some posters are confusing the school notification system with the system to ensure a child is in school.

The system to ensure whether a primary child is in school is for the parent to see them in the door. The school text system is more to check why they haven't arrived if not prior notified and also as a side benefit can act as a fail safe for non arrivals.

Yes shocked in a small primary with phones available in all classrooms they didn’t check with a quick call before informing me he wasn’t there. The amount of children who would be absent without consent would be minimal in primary so the amount of extra checks would have taken very little effort and time to avoid this confusion and worry

sneaking would be intentional, no one 'sneaks' accidentally.