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!

But if it's a primary school then someone wouldn't have to go round the whole school would they as the child would probably be in the same class all day?

Probably didn't help that the headteacher wasn't apologetic.

I do think these days lots of schools are under constraints for resources (people and time). So it's probably not as simple for them to check each time with the possibilities the child be in school somewhere. It's just easier for them to do it this way round. Unfortunately, you probably have to let it go.

i am happy now and I really am a positive person, this had me very worried at the time tho - 😌

That’s true - she was honestly so awful - very defensive and had a couldn’t care less attitude which really riled me up!

This happened to me, I received a text message and email to say DC was absent and I phoned the school and told them DC was dropped by me in morning and was in. They had indeed made an error, these things happen as worrying as they are. After all the admin/office staff are only human, careless as it is.

Ours is a small local primary it really sounds have taken long to check there are definitely phones to each class

@NeverDropYourMooncup oh her new school has and it was a total nightmare for them to get anything out of the old school. I know all well from the LA perspective.

I did get that heart drop moment though before I realised it was the old school. Rolled my eyes and sent a polite but blunt reply.

It’s a horrible feeling Op no matter how fleeting.

Slightly devil's advocate here; I wonder if the head teacher was a bit snotty with you because there was a SIMS malfunction that morning, and you were one of many (quite justifiably) worried parents who had received the same message, despite the children being safe in school. But fair enough, she shouldn't have taken her exasperation out on you.
As a former teacher, I can tell you that it's a great system when it works, but........on one notable occasion, the system would not let me in to take a register because "computer says no". I'd been on the staff for sixteen years by then.

I had this happen once. School Bursar phoned to check why DD2 wasn't in. When I said she had set off for school Bursar panicked almost as much as I did! She literally dropped the phone and ran (I could hear her footsteps). She came back to say DD was in class, wrong child had been ticked off in the register.

We joked that we both needed a cup of sweet tea after that shock!

it Would be nice to think it was reason like that and a one off but I think she’s just a bit of a dick tbh 😂😂

So the office staff have proved that the calls system they have in place actually works.The first thing our office staff do after registers close is phone all parents whose child hasn’t turned up. Then they go looking for the child if the parent either doesn’t answer or says they should be in school.
If they spent 10 minutes looking for a missing child then phoned the parents there would be hell to pay!

i definitely needed a sweet tea this morning 😅😅

Happened to me last year, though my child was in secondary school (yr8)
Though they didn't let me know until 2.30pm! They finish at 2.50!
Morning registration teacher just completely missed him & 2nd he was in an addition learning class & neither teacher thought to register him.

YABU, you're being so OTT. I had the exact same text when my eldest was in reception, obviously he was 4 years old at the time and so I had dropped him to the classroom door myself, but still panicked thinking had he gone missing! I rang and it was an admin error in terms of the phone number the text had gone to, apparently, must've been one digit different. These things happen.

It sounds like the school were just doing their job by ringing you to ask where your dc was. Yes there was a mistake in missing him off the register but these things happen. Just ask your ds to ensure he has been recorded on the register if he is worried they haven't heard him.

Well it didn’t really work as he was there so the system was incorrect and needs looking at…

I haven’t seen him yet but I’ll be speaking to him after school to make sure he pipes up loudly for the register from
now on

Ours is a small local primary it really sounds have taken long to check there are definitely phones to each class

But the teachers need to be teaching, not answering phone calls. On any given morning there may be multiple children whose parents have forgotten to let the school know they would be absent or late, and it would be disruptive to lessons to phone each class every morning. As this is the first time you've had that message incorrectly (in 6 years at the school), it is likely that you were just very unlucky to be on the receiving end of a human error.

I used to work in a school where mistakes in the register were so common we all got regular emails to as us to "check" if the child marked not present was actually not present before the texts got sent. In hindsight it was symptomatic of the fact that some staff couldn't or wouldn't do their jobs properly and slt were useless at insisting important things were done properly.

Yeah I think human error like in your situation is understandable- not blaming teacher or but having a better procedure would prevent my situation

Can’t imagine letting a 6 year old walk to school themselves, especially on first day back, and even if the school is just round the corner. At that age I would be walking round with my dc and seeing them into school.

School did nothing wrong here, honest mistake. What strikes me as unreasonable about your post is your reaction, but moreover not taking a 6 year old to school.

We moved in lockdown and the I found the previous school much better - this school does seem to be very systemically disorganised unfortunately- there have been other things which we have just let go but this error made me really panic

I had the same when did was 5, I dropped off then got the call. Absolute panic thinking she must have run back out without anyone noticing. They checked the class and it was a pupil above her in register, mistakes happen. The difference is they apologized properly

I get that it is mildly irritating, but all is well.

I never got this when mine were in primary school (ours is also a smallish, village school) but when they got to secondary school it did happen. It was always when the school bus was running late, with roadworks en route. Once or twice it also broke down and that had to be sorted out too. It would mean that they had usually missed morning registration and had to be signed in as late arrivals, with the automated texts and emails from school to parents sometimes still going out.

I took to messaging my children myself to ask what was happening before I called the school. In most cases the problem resolved itself without further action from me.

You did not need to escalate this to the headteacher this morning. Once you had told the administrator that he had set off for school as normal then they would have checked, found him, apologised for bothering you and that should have been all that there was to it. That was probably why she was short with you. Mistakes happen and it had already been resolved, so no need to over egg things.

my son is very responsible 11 year old - he’s confident and able to walk around the corner and loves his independence - that wasn’t the issue at all - don’t be so judgemental many many children that age walk to school. It’s the minority of children here who don’t and those are the ones who live further away and get dropped off….

I just saw you typed 6 year old - he’s 11 and in year 6