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?

You don’t seem to understand what lawful means. That’s fine, we have courts to sort that out so you don’t need to worry about it.

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

Right going around in circles here again.

The default position is to adhere to parents wishes unless of course there are safeguarding concerns.

Most posters admit that a parent who wished for a 4 year old to walk home alone would not be adhered to ( for obvious safeguarding reasons)

They disagree in this case because of the age of the child and it seems to me that the school is not adhering to the wishes here either ( but for less obvious reasons)

The school is allowed their own policy. They can change it to year 6 if they want. Stop being lazy and wall the 300 yards and get your child.
And the school is right. You have no rights once your kid is in school, you can't just think they are allowed to walk oit when they want ot because you say so.

Sounds like an awful place to bring up children if schools feel the need to take these precautions. I’m glad my children have freedom.

The default position is to adhere to parents wishes unless of course there are safeguarding concerns.

Agreed. But those safeguarding concerns have to be detailed and relevant to this particular child. They can't just say 'we have safeguarding concerns' or 'those are our rules'. If SS get involved, the school's HT will be asked what those safeguarding concerns are. If they can't provide a specific concern, then SS will tell them that absent such evidence, they should allow the child to walk.

Are you friends with any parent in the same class?

My child used to be met out the classroom by another mum to keep school happy. Then would leave her and walk to my place of work on her own. Easy solution. Everyone happy.

"If they can't provide a specific concern, then SS will tell them that absent such evidence, they should allow the child to walk"

We can all wait for the OP's update then to find out what action SS take......

OP isn't being lazy. She is working. I did the same thing and while Dd went to after school club until year 5, she was so happy when i said she didn't have to go anymore and could walk home.

They are allowed to leave at the end of the school day. If the school have safe guarding concerns they should inform the police or social services and follow their advice.

There are many instances where we let schools know about potential safeguarding dangers which are not publicly disclosed to parents and carers, which have the potential to cause distress or harm.

Which is why the school should be happy to report the OP to SS and even the police so they can share their concerns with them plus get additional back up on their stance.

Btw due to the people I know who work and have worked in schools I know school heads can overstep and under step when it comes to safeguarding. It should not take a member of staff who due to their voluntary position elsewhere having to remind the head that they have a legal duty to report that schools actions/inactions if they don't follow their legal duties.

This child walks to school alone and the school doesn't have any objections to that.
If there were specific dangers making walking home alone unadvisable, wouldn't parents be informed so they could re-evaluate the way to school?

No there aren't.

If there is a danger locally, the school/police inform parents. It would be relevant to all children walking to or from school.

"You have no rights once your kid is in school" Wow, just wow. That's a radical idea.

Absolute nonsense @birdingbear of course parents still have rights when their children are in school. Schools are not exempt from the law of the landf. In any case the child in question isnt in school, theyre at an After School Club - the clue is in the name. The After School Club is outside school hours and has no right to detain a child whose parents have not requested nor consented to the childs attendance.

The risk of a child being abducted is significantly less than the risk of them being killed in a car accident.

The children most at risk of being harmed on the way home from school are those driven home regularly. So if a school implements a safeguarding policy to not allow any parent to drive their child home we'd all be fine with that I'd assume.

Yes it is, while they are in school the school is de facto caring.

However, this parent doesn't want the school to provide care she wants them to allow her child to walk home after the school day has finished so your statement is doubly wrong.

Easy enough to deal with that if the school has a defined rule in place. They can just say no to parents asking for "leniency".

Curious do these schools with policies about when they allow children to walk home independently from school also have policies about when children can walk to school independently?

I disagree with you!

I had a conversation like this with a school on tuesday - parents were not informed. Increased vigilance from school staff was identified as the right approach.

You can't cite your own unlawful policy as justification for breaking the law. If that were the case, we could all get away with theft by saying that we have a policy which states that we are allowed to take whatever we like without paying.

I got reported to SS for allowing my Y5 10 year old ds catch the bus to school on his own. The bus stop was right outside where we lived & the bus stop he got off was right outside school, he always had his phone with him & rang me when he got off the bus at school. I even had to put it in writing that he was able to come out of school to get in the car where I was parked at the school gates. He started getting the bus when my Fibromyalgia was bad & I needed extra time to get mobile in a morning & that was the reason I waited in the car for him in the afternoon, if he had waited for me to get mobile, he wouldn't have got to school for when the bell went.

I don’t think the school or after school club are breaking any laws, though. They probably haven’t used any force. Even false imprisonment, as a crime, would need them to have criminal intent (which is different from just being wrong about whether it’s okay for her to walk home or not) and that would be hard to show. I think it’s highly unlikely there is anything illegal in what the school is doing.

OP isn’t endangering her child by wanting her to walk home alone, so social services aren’t going to be interested in pursuing her if the school calls and neither are the police.

It’s a bit of stand off. Neither of them are breaking the law, so this becomes a civil dispute between the OP/her child and the school and after school club.

The school have no authority to require OP to pick up her child and they can’t incur charges on her behalf. OP might be able to seek a court order requiring the school to release her child at the end of the day but that costs money. Given one of the reasons she no longer wants to use the ASC is the increased cost, that’s unlikely to be a useful solution for her.

Probably her best bet is to refuse to pay the after school club charge (and make sure they know, in writing, that she refuses the after school club service and won’t be paying for it) and just collect her child when it’s convenient, saying each time that she should not have been sent to ASC and OP will refuse to pay.

An alternative is to play a game of brinkmanship, refuse to collect her from ASC and just keep reiterating to ASC, and SS if they are called, that her child is perfectly capable of walking home and shouldn’t be being kept at school. The big concern there is the impact on the child. The school clearly don’t put that aspect above adherence to their policy, but OP is probably more concerned about her.

So there is a risk for children walking home from school that make it appropriate for a yr5 who is capable of walking 300yds home to be prevented from doing so, but for yr6s the danger is so diminished they don’t even need to be told about it and the teachers just need to be more vigilant?

What sort of dangers would result in that sort of decision, zeibesaffron?

It seems a bit bonkers to me, but probably one of those situations where you can be right or happy, but not both.
As it’s only 6-months, I would just do a combination of 3 days club, 2 days DH doing it. If he has meetings, surely you know enough school parents to send a quick text and ask them to walk DD home. Just repay the favour with some weekend play dates. I’d find a work around for the sanity of your DD and your longer-term relationship with the school