School not letting my child from the school

[Kutika]

I have read numerous discussions where people mention that schools cannot legally prevent a child from leaving, yet I find myself in this exact situation. The school is refusing to allow my child to leave, despite my clear instructions. I've sent an email, filed a complaint with the trust, and even contacted the police, but to my surprise, none of these actions have resolved the issue. I was told by the head teacher that the law does not apply to them. Any ideas on who to contact?

Well then, one of those two should walk 300 yards and pick the child up.🙄

Not necessarily if they are working.

They could nearly snatch a 16 year old too. Are you suggesting they shouldn't walk home either? Anyone could be abducted including you.

What do you think social services will do if they find out that the parent has said they can walk home, it's 300m and a parent is present at home and that the school knew this?

You don't know if anyone who knows what they are doing has signed anything off. OP says there is no written policy and the fact the other schools don't have it suggests someone is making up rules as they go a long and not understanding that parents are responsible for decisions on their child's safety outside school hours and premises. I actually had an issue with a teacher not letting Dd leave an event until a parent turned up despite the fact she was 18. They argued that it was school policy too.

Yes, if the school doesn't want to release the child as instructed in writing, they have to call the social services.

The school isn't really entitled to judge whether the child is able to go alone, no matter what they think they wanted to write into a policy they can't even find now.

Do you think the SS will find the parents being negligent when they consider their child capable of walking from school alone (the same way the child walks alone going to school)? Or will the SS gently ask the school to just release the child and not bother them with this utter non-issue?

"The school isn't really entitled to judge whether the child is able to go alone"

Right so if the child was 5 they are not entitled to make a judgement if the parents instruct are to go alone?

Or is it that we disagree with the judgement in this particular instance given the age of the child?

Surely you recognise that schools make these judgements all the time and incorporate them into rule of thumb policies that they get approved and inform parents about .... Some schools let kids walk home from year 4 some from middle of year 5 like this one..

But in this case it isn't a case of a parent running late so the school keeps the child safe inside until the parent arrives. In this case the parent has informed the school that they won't be coming to pick up their child, so the school knows they're not running late and will turn up eventually, they know the parent has given permission for their child to walk home alone, so at this point the school is choosing to detain the child.

The school could make a reasonable judgement call as to whether, if they called SS about this situation, SS would likely consider it a safeguarding issue or not. With a 5 year old the school could reasonably assume SS would consider it a safeguarding issue, and so they must call SS and report the issue. Not so much with a 9 year old unless there are other factors involved like SEN.

"they know the parent has given permission for their child to walk home alone, so at this point the school is choosing to detain the child."

In line with their legal responsibilities of duty of care and having informed the parent they will ultimately have to inform SS if the child is not collected.

You might think this is overcautious for a year 5 child but it is hardly the flagrant breach of the law and an outrageous case of kidnapping some posters including the op are making it out to be...

Get your DH to pick her up after he finishes work. It seems ridiculous to me if she's only got to go 300 metres and no road and you've given written consent.

The school could make a reasonable judgement call as to whether

So now you concede that they CAN (and indeed legally are required to make) judgement on parental decisions.....

You just disagree with the judgement.

On the face of it do might I but Mumsnet posters do not have the full background or information in this case

What do you think will happen if the school inform social services that the parent hasn't been to collect but on investigation the parent has said the child can walk home the 300 metres and they will be at home waiting?

They don't have an official policy. OP has asked to see it and nothing exists.

"What do you think will happen if the school inform social services"

As I've posted before I'd be surprised if ss were informed unless this happens regularly or they fail to pick up well after asc has finished.

Given the workload that SS are under I think they are unlikely to intervene on the parents behalf to allow the child to walk home before April. They would rightly expect the parent to make arrangements like other parents at the school or to make a more sensible appeal to the head or dsl to intervene on their behalf going forward.

Perhaps the OP will return to the thread updating us on how SS heroic overworked staff took a break from their workload with drug addicted parents, cse, CCE cases etc to correct this egregious abuse of power....

If the school thinks a particular child is at risk, they should take action on that particular child. A school does not need a blanket rule to say a child cannot walk home alone in Reception/Y1, because the number of parents who would think that was OK will be extremely small. The school should act to safeguard a child walking home alone at that age, or any child who is clearly not mature enough to walk home alone being allowed to, but the assumption should be that the parent knows their child well enough to decide.

The school will be the ones wasting the social services time if they are keeping the child at the school and phoning social services. If the school are the ones calling social services I think that social services will rightly tell the school they should let the child walk home unless they have a specific reason for thinking it would be less safe for this child to walk 300 meters to their parent's house compared with any other 9 year old.

"unless they have a specific reason for thinking it would be less safe for this child to walk 300 meters to their parent's house"

Which they evidently do as it is incorporated into their policy, with some justification I expect.

I don't think SS are in the habit of overruling schools policies on collecting children, but should be interested in parents who think it's too inconvenient to make arrangements for collecting their child from 300m away....

She said it was in a booklet she received in reception (ie when her DD joined the school)

". A school does not need a blanket rule to say a child cannot walk home alone in Reception/Y1"

And yet many posters on this thread have said their school lets kids walk home from say year 3 so it seems most do have a blanket rule of some description...

How do you know it is incorporated into the policy.?! According to OP, they haven't got a written policy and given this is a blanket rule they likely don't have a reason for thinking it is less safe for OP's child than any other 9 year old.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say SS are not in the habit of "overruling school policies" Do you mean that they won't advice on whether something is a safeguarding issue if the school phones. I very much doubt they will be the slightest bit interested in the fact that a parent thinks it's OK for their child to walk 300 meters home from school by themselves. Many parents think that is okay as evidenced by the fact that many 9 year olds are allowed to walk home from school by themselves/with friends.

In the good old days of course County could have a quiet word with the head but these days there is no proper oversight of schools

"How do you know it is incorporated into the policy.?!"

Secondary evidence admittedly but

The OP said they only allow year 5 to walk home unsupervised from April

It was also in a booklet she got sent when her child started.

I'm inclined to think the op overlooked the policy document on the school website while she was hysterically calling the police about her child being kidnapped and posting her outrage on Mumsnet.

"Many parents think that is okay as evidenced by the fact that many 9 year olds are allowed to walk home from school by themselves/with friends."

Maybe so but these posters apparently don't work at this school and can't advise why they has different rules which many think are overzealous but probably wasn't put in place for shits and giggles...

You've got this the wrong way round @Walkden, it's on the school to prove they have a good reason for thinking it is unsafe for this particular child to be allowed to walk home. The onus is not on the OP to prove it IS safe because the default position (as far as SS are concerned) will be to adhere to the parents' wishes vis-a-vis the child being allowed to walk. This is precisely why the OP said in an earlier post that she welcomes the involvement of SS.

The school's policies are neither here not there, frankly.