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?

4 children here and I cannot fathom how one teacher would know that each of their 30 or so pupils had been collected by an adult in upper Primary. . It's a melee of kids and parents. Most any school one of mine has attended has done is "if nobody picks you up go to Mrs' L's room).
Do you have teensy schools ( sorry not in UK - but some of our primary schools have 1000 kids) . Being picked up at the classroom door is only done in kindy/reception and then more vaguely in Year 1/2. After that it's a free for all!

IF the kid is willing... then yep, next time she needs to walk home by herself, tell them to call SS and let them explain to SS why they're detaining your child who is a 5 minute walk, max, from her home where an adult is present.

if the school make an exception for you they were be demands from other parents for similar exceptions.
ask another parent to pick up surely

What risk is so grave it could cause upset and distress and requires increased vigilance from staff?

But isn't serious enough to alert parents and doesn't pose a threat to children walking to school alone, or year 6's.

Can you get another parent to pick her up and take her out the school gate and then let her walk home? The school probably o only cares about handing her to an adult not about if she actually walks home alone or not.

Can you get another parent to pick her up and take her out the school gate and then let her walk home? The school probably o only cares about handing her to an adult not about if she actually walks home alone or not.

It is illegal to demand payment for services that have not been ordered. So demanding payment for the after school club is illegal, Unsolicited Goods and Services Act.

why would you want to be so obstructive and difficult?

This is my question for the school.

I suspect the answer is they want to maintain numbers in ASC.

It's not because they have a genuine concern about the child. If they did, they'd have reported it, as they are duty bound to.

No they don’t because they are not responsible for the child until the child enters the school at the start of the school day. The school are then responsible for the child.

Therefore if they do not feel it is safe for a child to walk home, they are well within theirs rights, as responsible adult for that child, to refuse to let them leave on their own.

Very unlikely. More likely is a blanket policy of no child to leave on their own. The school is responsible for all of the children that attend and are therefore well within their right to refuse to allow a child to leave on their own.

If mum doesn’t like it, family either collects or moves school.

Can anyone even imagine what if something happened to a child who walked home alone after the school let them leave alone? The Daily Mail would have a field day!

Jeez, I give up.

I asked which law was being broken, the poster claimed it was a law which states that a child cannot be detained without justification.
But if they have a policy, then that is the justification for keeping the child.

This thread has gone on long enough for me, have to agree to disagree.

As with most criminal law, the unsolicited goods and services act requires criminal intent for an offence to have been committed. That would be hard to prove, since the school and ASC almost certainly believe they are in the right. So, again, that leaves things in the civil sphere, not the criminal sphere.

At my children’s primary school most of the pupils cycle or walk to snd from school independently from Y4.

Do you have lots of toddlers strolling up to nursery alone? If parents can be trusted to decide what age is best to accompany their child to schools why can they not also be trusted to decide what age children can make their way home as well.

And I can hear the out of hours service (as it would be by the end of ASC) ridiculing the DSL during the phone call.

CS:Parents haven't collected this late? That's serious. Have you tried to call them?
Sch:Yes
CS:What did they say?
Sch:They told us to let her walk home.
CS:Is this unusual behaviour for the family?
Sch:Not really. They've told us they want her to walk home, but we disagree with their decision.
CS:So she has parental permission to walk home?
Sch:Yes.
CS:How far away does she live?
Sch:About 300m.
CS:Is the route busy with traffic?
Sch:Erm, no
CS:Are her parents in?
Sch:Well, that's what they've told us.
CS:Remind me how old she is?
Sch:9
CS:Any SEN?
Sch:No
CS:And you didn't let her walk home because...?
Sch:It's school policy
CS:Guffaw guffaw guffaw So what do you want us to do?
Sch:Make the parents realise they have to come and collect their daughter from school.
CS: They aren't the ones who need to realise something. Walk the child home now as it's dark and let them leave at the end of school tomorrow. And don't waste our time with this again. We've got actual safeguarding issues to deal with.

We had this with one of our children, again we lived a 2 or 3 minute walk from school, no road to cross but school refused to let her leave alone. She was almost 9 so a bit younger than your child. My DH is a retired senior police officer so he put on his police persona and saw the Head who immediately backed down. The next confrontation was school phoning to say we needed to pick DD up as she was unwell. I was at work, DH is disabled and the 3 minute walk is hard for him but obviously he hobbled up the road and the 3 minute walk probably took him double the time. He arrives at school to be told he needs to fill in a form about why he is removing DD from school and sign it. He refused as he said he didn't want to remove her, the school were asking him to so they should fill in the form. There was a stand off until he said fine I'm going and then magically he just had to sign to say he collected her.

Yes he's bloody minded, yes he's spent years enforcing laws and hates people telling him he has to do something that actually he doesn't have to do and yes he was probably in a grump as he would have been in alot of pain after the walk.

I think schools sometimes forget that they can't treat adults like children and they can't override the law. I hope you can get this sorted out.

What a bizarre response.

The point is they can’t make the OP pay for after school club if she hasn’t requested it. She can go to trading standards.

Of course the boys in blue aren’t going to turn up handcuffing people 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

Exactly. Imagine if something happened to a year 6 and it came out the police, SS, the school knew there was a risk to 10 year olds and if they were in year 5 were protected but 10 year olds in year 6 were just thrown under the bus.

DS is a September baby. There are kids in yr6 much closer in age and maturity to him than in yr5.

I really don't get these arbitrary set dates about when it is ok to walk home. Either they are mature and safe enough or they are not.

If they think there is a problem then school should report and/or someone should have a serious conversation with the parents about why they have concerns - either social services or the school - whichever is more appropriate for the situation. If they don't then they should support the parents and the child in building independence.

The end.

My son's best friend was a 31st August baby so yes if he was year 5 and your son was year 6 they would possibly closer in age to each other than to any child in their own year and certainly closer in age than to most of the children in their own year.

Then I think it was your post that was bizarre.

You were replying to my post in which I had already said that the school could not incur ASC charges on OP’s behalf. You quoted the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act which deals with criminal offences, not civil responsibility for payment.

Yep DS would be closer in age.

DS has gone to cubs and beavers early too because he's a leaders child so he's used to being with the year above in a lot of situations. They ARE his peers as well as his own year group.

It makes for a difficult position in a lot of ways.

There a kid with SEN needs who is a June baby. He will not be safe to walk home by April. He's a lovely kid who DS gets on well with. His route home is easy and safe. But no he shouldn't be walking home alone.

DS would have been fine to walk home at the start of yr4.

Thankfully DSs school have a policy which recognises these issues.

My point was that while some things are obvious, above nursery age there will be grey areas. On your second point, the school cannot be held responsible for the kids on their way to school but they are responsible for them when they are on site including st home time. Not that complicated.

But only if they actually do call SS. They can't just detain the child and say they will call in the future, they have to call once they decide to detain the child.