School refused to release my child until after parents’ meeting – is this allowed?

[Sofia14]

Today, I went to collect my child from his primary school (London), but was told I couldn’t take him until after a parents’ meeting. The children were kept waiting in the hall for about 20 minutes.
The school only emailed about the meeting at 10.30am for 3.15pm. The message didn’t say it was compulsory or that kids wouldn’t be released. Staff were abrupt and didn’t apologise. I was unwell and really needed to get home. In the end, the meeting wasn’t urgent at all; it was about who the teachers are, what uniform to wear, and reminders about being polite/etiquette. All of this could easily have been sent by email.

AIBU to think the school had no right to keep my child like this?

Yes it is allowed
Yes it has happened
Yes I am guessing you already have a somewhat fraught relationship with the school
so 🤐 and stop stewing

Did you explain the situation and make it clear that you weren’t well?

It’s normal for school meetings like this one at the start of term.

What about the children who were being collected by non parents with other commitments eg childminders or after school clubs? Or if the parents had commitments to get back for? This sounds like you could have just said no and taken your child home tbh?

Why didn't you just say, I'm sorry I can't stay today I'll need to collect Johnny now

20 minutes after school day? Or were you trying to collect 20 minutes early?

They would have definitely told you about the information meeting before 10:30 this morning

What a drama over nothing. It was 20 minutes, with a notification earlier in the day.

School children are managed in herds, this is for convenience, safety and generally because there are limited adults available. As soon as you start expecting special treatment for your child for any reason ( eg, hauling them out of a group setting for your convenience), you become THAT parent and a PITA.
Pick your battles carefully and be 100% aware of the fact that literally no-one thinks your child is special, except you and you will negotiate the state school system with minimum stress to all involved.

After school day

Why didn’t you just attend the meeting?

For goodness sake, all these people saying it’s only 20 min, don’t they have other commitments in their life? I’m past primary age, but I would have been quite annoyed at being told I could not pick up my kids at the usual time with little warning. And for a pretty useless info session as well. I often had appointments to get to straight after school

Nothing you can actually do about it now, but I get why you’re annoyed! Might be worth dropping a polite email suggesting they give more warning next time and make it optional.

I’ve always had a really good relationship with the school, this is honestly the first time I’ve experienced something like this. I’m also a migrant and new to the UK, so I just want to know my rights. Google suggests this could be a breach of parental rights, safeguarding and even family life rights, so I just want to understand if the school was actually allowed to do it.

The parent before me argued with the teacher because she really needed to go, but she was still refused. I’m too polite to get into an argument, which is why I came here to ask. I’m quite new to the UK and would like to understand how things normally work here.

Its a drama if you have somewhere else to be

How it works is that school thinks they can do what they like without considering that parents have other commitments.

I did say I needed to go, but I didn’t want to mention health issues as that felt too private with others around. Another mum before me also tried to collect (she had uni, I think) but the teacher shut the door on both of us. I didn’t argue, thought maybe school had the right, but later googled and it looks like my rights may have been breached. I’m new to the UK and this is my first post, just trying to understand my rights.

That's crazy. I can't believe so many people would be chill with that. I remember that happening once when we were about 16 and they held my year hostage basically and they weren't allowed leave. Somone had gotten drunk during school and they were trying to sweat out some informers. I was home sick that day- what a day to miss.

So we’re the children in a classroom with ta or other adults while the teachers were released for the meeting? If they didn’t have enough staff to safely deal with releasing the children from class as they do normally then I can understand why they held them back rather than let them out in dribs and drabs and risk losing a few.

Round here, people are often collecting multiple kids from different schools and nurseries. If my DC's school tried this with me, they'd be told that they'd have to hang on to DC for an hour while I collected the other one.

I've had 5 kids and I've never heard of a school doing this! One of my sons went to a special school and was brought home by school minibus so I always had to rush to pick up my other kids and make it home in time to be there when he was dropped off. I couldn't have hung around for 20 minutes after school 😳

It’s not ideal but no big deal and nothing you can do. Rights aren't really relevant tbh as it doesn’t mean anything in this context.

Next time you need to firmly tell them you need your child to be returned so you can attend an urgent appointment. Not much else you can do

I would of just barged past & took my child.
I am not someone you should take advice from clearly!

I think you should do this OP. It’ll cost about £250k but only about £400 for the first legal letter to be sent so plenty of time to save up the rest!