To not have apologised for being 1 minute late for preschool

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My DD, is in preschool which is part of a bigger school.

She's not in reception yet, she starts reception next year.

I had a nightmare morning today and long story short, DD was about one minute late. I didn't apologise to the teachers, but kind of felt like they wanted me to.

It's a weird one because I would have probably apologised if we were properly late, but because it was borderline I didn't.

Still I got a bit of a vibe from them, but even though I got then vibe, I didn't apologise.

Would you have apologised ? I suspect I need to put my hard hat on for these replies...

I guess it depends on what behaviour you want to model for your kids.

I think you've been a bit unlucky here. I've been 1 minute late before for different things and people haven't batted an eyelid but sometimes they have...just depends on the circumstance - in this instance they must have been more aware of the time. In future if it happens again you'll just have to apologize - know your audience.

To the people saying they would have just apologized straight away - perhaps the OP didn't want to draw attention to the fact that she was a minute late and thought it might go un-noticed being as it was so negligible.

Borderline late?
That's a new one.
I thought you were either late or on time.
What if you're 2 min late? Is that properly late?

I don't get people who are so begrudging with apologies, as if it literally costs you money to say 'sorry'

I say it all the time, particularly in work to customers. 99% of time it's not like it's a legal admission of guilt or I'm self flagellating in remorse. it's just to ease social interaction.

For the cost to you (literally nothing) versus the possible benefit (not pissing off the people who care for probably the most important thing in your life, and who are (given most pre-school classes won't have multiple teachers so they would have been TAs, very underpaid), why wouldn't you just say it. You don't even have to mean it!

I'm baffled.

1 minute? Really? Would they even have noticed?

At my nursery we're often 5-10 minutes late on a morning and the staff couldn't care less.

It's far more of an issue if you're late picking up, because the staff want to go home!

We get a 15 minute window after which gates are locked and you need to go into the main school. Why would you not apologise they presumably saw you coming and didn't shut their gate which keeps them from settling other children who at this stage of a school year find things hard and staff are stretched?

I was thinking the same thing.

I spend a lot of time with an elderly relative who has dementia. I happen to know that her watch is 4 minutes ahead of mine. So when she asks me what the time is (about a million times an hour) I add 4 minutes on to the time my watch says so that it matches hers.

I always apologise on the very rare occasion that I'm late. It takes nothing from me & it's respectful to others time even if you think it doesn't matter to them.

Our nursery was eve really strict about times. I was 2 minutes late once in 9 years. Still said sorry.