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!

having a better procedure would prevent my situation

I'm not sure that a system which prevents your situation would be better overall. It is upsetting and of course very stressful when you incorrectly receive the "missing child" message. But there is a balance between worrying parents unnecessarily and taking a longer time to identify actually missing children. Your school seems to be erring on the side of identifying missing children more quickly, and I'd find that reassuring (overall).

Secondary schools tend to take longer to contact parents because the risk profile is different. Children who are "missing" from school are more likely to simply be late, skipping a lesson etc and are less likely to be harmed on the way in to school, so there would be far more unnecessarily worried parents. Hence most waiting for a second register to be taken before contacting home.

No. It is a Year 6 child, not a 6 year old.

Year 6 children are aged 10 to 11 and will transfer to secondary school in a year's time. They are not 6 year old infants.

@WilsonMilson year 6 (so 10/11) not 6 years old

@AlbertaAnnie I think the difference between your experience and mine is the attitude/response from the school. The school wasn't a small one but the Bursar all the pupils by name. I once went in to take some pictures for a school publication. She knew exactly which children couldn't be photographed and gently steered them out of shot so subtly that they didn't realise it was happening.

Would you rather they DIDN'T call you to check?

Calm the F down.

Our primary school has done this three times. One time the class had gone on a school trip and the school called and told me he definately hadn't got on the coach and wasn't in school. It took them 20mins to get hold of the teacher and call me back to say he had actually gone on the trip. 🤨

They also "lost" him during school pick up once.

I raised it as a safeguarding concern because they clearly weren't registering children correctly and if there was a fire etc there wouldn't be a record of them at school. They didn't seem to take much notice. He's moved school now.

YABU. Whats the big deal?

We had something similar a few years ago. Partner received similar message. Messaged my son to ask wtf he was. Son replied sat in his lesson. Partner had a laugh, messaged the school back and told them to go and check the lesson. They apologized straight away and no harm done.

YADNBU if they had accepted their mistake you might have been a bit miffed by the panic but would have let it go.

It rankles cos they were arses about it. They should have accepted responsibility apologised. They are worse than kids by deflecting blame to your child.

Schools should not 'assume' children are unwell and parents forget to call.

They need to show they are chasing up on day of absence as a safe guarding issue.
They will call to check parents are aware of absence .
If the call is not answered they again have to show what they did. At my husband's school they drive round to homes on the 1st day of absence if they cannot speak with a parent on the phone.

If they can't get an answer at the door then they HAVE to inform police .

This ensures that no child drops through the net.

Obviously within 30 mins would be difficult for a large school unless they have automated registers and most primaries don't.

As a foster carer I have procedures to follow if a child hasn't turned up to school. When they called me for last FC to say they weren't in, I did have an initial worry , they're not that type of kid. I asked them to recheck before I contacted social services /police. He was in the class .

Oh year 6 - oops that will teach me to read the opening post properly. Forget that then, year 6 more than capable of walking to school themselves. Still think it was just an honest mistake by school, and while anxiety provoking, it was sorted out quickly.

Yes to all of this! That’s it exactly!

😂 happens to the best of us!

It's really frightening when you get that text message, I received a few over the years.
But unless the school is regularly messing the registration up or texting the wrong parents then you need to let it go. They made mistake and all is well.

No I would rather they checked properly before calling….

It really was - my heart was in my mouth until they confirmed he was there safe and well!

Thank you for the message, glad you were all ok - it’s alright to say it ended well but it still a shock at the time - especially if you have never received a message like that 😘

I'm not sure that a system which prevents your situation would be better overall. It is upsetting and of course very stressful when you incorrectly receive the "missing child" message. But there is a balance between worrying parents unnecessarily and taking a longer time to identify actually missing children.

I* *agree, but in this and many cases mentioned above it seems the teacher just needs to be a bit more careful when filling out the register. To double-check that any children they record as absent are indeed missing from the room shouldn't take up too much time? It's when another admin person has to go around checking that time would be wasted. A bit more care could save a lot of trouble.

Maybe OP's school rarely gets things wrong, but some teachers upthread have said mistakes happen very easily. They shouldn't happen easily and something is wrong if they do.

If it is a small school the admin person may have a number of duties. There will be a time that they have to notify parents. If there is only one person in the office they may have got caught up with something else so not had time to check whether the child was in school before the automated text went out

I would rather a text went out (even if it resulted in me getting a few grey hairs) than they didn't get round to doing it until an hour later and there was an issue with a child

Yes I agree, no system is perfect and mistakes to happen but these ones are easily sorted out it seems

I am a school secretary and youd be surprised how often teachers cock up the register. If it's someone who we would normally hear from I physically go to their classroom and check.

Ok, but surely it is also your kids responsibility to make his presence known at register?

Kids are late all the time, 30 minutes is not that long at all.

They have to get kids in, wait a reasonable time for kids running a bit late, take register, submit register then register needs to be checked then each missing child (sickness, appointments, slept in, stuck in traffic etc...) needs to be chased up.

There are 8 year groups in my DS school with approx 30 kids per class so 240 kids to varify... your kid isnt the only one and 30 minutes is very fast to turn that around.

If your worried then dont send your kid alone, in all the years my oldest (now a teen at another school) attended only 1 kid walked themselves too and from school alone, the parents had to give the school permission (or children are not allowed to leave school without an approved gardian) so that the school has no responsability for what happens on the parents (lack of) watch.

Well I’m sure he normally does - this hasn’t happens before so I’m assuming he’s always made his presence known somehow

Yes, it worries you first time.

You can become almost immune to it when it more often happens throughout secondary school, as a couple of us have said. I took to usually just messaging my children myself whenever I received these, and finding that the problem had normally already been resolved. Only rarely was action needed, and that would be something as simple as just phoning school to point out that the bus was routinely turning up late every morning etc.

It is something you may have to get used to. It means that the system works as intended in most cases.

Yes the school know is well very rare for my kids to be ill and never been late….

Mine are never late - same system here that we have to give permission for them to walk alone from year 5 but in my area that is the norm - almost all his class walk with the exception of a few who live too far and their parents drop them off so not unusual or irresponsible in my opinion for him to safely walk round the corner ( no busy roads) my sons school is smaller than the one you have described and they wound need to check all kids just the unauthorised absentees which would be a small number and quickly done given there are phones in each classroom