Noone picked up my daughter and school didn't ring.

[Cantheowneroftheredcorsapleasemovetheircar]

On Thursday my daughter was supposed to be picked up by my sister as my husband and I were both working. She finishes school at 3:20pm, she's 7 and is in year 3.

At 4pm I was on my break at work and called sister to ask how DD is.

Sister bloody FOROGT to pick her up and wasn't even in our home town. She was about an hour's drive away at her new boyfriends house.

In a panic I hung up on spluttering apologising sister and immediately rang school to find out what happened to DD. They just casually said "yeah, we've got her, she's in after school club"

At the time I was too busy arranging for someone else to pick up her with only 10 minutes left of my break and relieved she was safe to think much more on the fact that the scholl hadnt informed me so I just said thank you to the school and said someone would be there soon.

Would you complain to the school or at least mention it that noone rang me or DH to say she hadn't been picked up? If I hadn't rung sister I wouldn't have known, and what would have happened when noone arrived at 5pm when it closes?

They also charged me and I could have avoided this charge or at least got a lower charge if I'd got her picked up by 4pm.

Then complain to your sister!! She is the one at fault - or you are for trusting her. Pay your account arrears and make different arrangements going forward. As others say, you are lucky DD is at a school with a club and that they were able to centre her needs. Many of the schools local to me don’t have a Friday after school club as it was undersubscribed so only rune Monday-Thursday.

Sounds like OP doesn’t want to pay 😣

Personally I'd be grateful the school kept them safe.

It's your sister that ultimately let you down

I think they would have called you if she hadn’t been picked up getting on for closing time. My dgc school want to know in advance who is collecting if possible.

This! 👆🏻

I think this is more an issue with your sister tbh!

I’d be very grateful to the school for looking after her in those circumstances and would be profusely apologetic towards them.

i wouldn’t trust my sister to collect her again though. That’s who you should be directing complaints at.

The school should have phoned but I wouldn't complain because they really stepped up and did a much better job than your sister.
It may be that they were busy and were going to call you once they had a chance.

This is not complaint worthy and standard procedure in lots of schools. Kids not collected are put into after school childcare and the parents are billed. You’d have gotten a phone call if she wasn’t collected at the end of that.

So why did you mention the LADO? Who would you be calling the LADO on? You don't call them on parents, that's not what they are there for.

This! (And then try to wriggle out of paying for it… Make your sister pay the fee if you’re that bothered)

I agree with all of this.

Find out what the policy is on calling and charging when a parent is late. Do they say they’ll phone straight away? By 4pm? By 4:30pm? A sensible policy might be around 4pm, because by that time, other students are off site and immediate end of day business has been dealt with - e.g. the inevitable queries from parents who are physically there, calls home about any pressing matters such as child accidents or serious behaviour matters, staff running the club getting the children settled and started, locating a member of staff available to make the call, etc. While some schools might call straight away, it’s definitely not unusual that they wouldn’t.

While all of the above is going on, it’s highly likely that the parent is just delayed or someone has forgotten they’ve agreed to collect the child. Waiting a short while before phoning means the school likely has more capacity to make the call and isn’t wasting time on calls to parents who will mostly be saying ‘sorry, on my way, got stuck in traffic/a meeting’ etc. The school’s priority is that the child is safe - and the child was.

I’m surprised at some of these responses! The school should definitely have called you. Kids usually have to be properly booked in to afterschool care, I know mine does. They have staff to child ratios. What if your schools had been full? Then they would have been breaking the law to accept your child. I think this could set an unhelpful precedent of parents just thinking they can be as late as they like and school will just put them in afterschool care without even a call to the parent. I’m a social worker and often deal with cases of kids not collected because parents are under the influence. If school just put them into afterschool care without contacting anyone then a potential safeguarding issue could be missed. And kids just sent there who maybe don’t usually go, don’t know the staff, confused and worried about what’s happened to their parent.
Our afterschool care is run by a private company though although they are based in the school. Maybe yours is different and very much part of the school, which might lead to a different approach. But still, a phone call should have been made. And what if the parent had been in a terrible accident or something? No one would know until 6pm potentially, especially if it’s a lone parent.

I don’t know if I’d complain exactly or raise a stink- they were acting in good faith I guess, but they need tighter procedures around this I think. Maybe a ‘thank you for taking care of my daughter but I’d have preferred you called me…’ sort of approach.

I think I would check in with the school to see when they would have started phoning you,
you just never know if there was another emergency they had to deal with and phoning you re was the next task in priority after another emergency was dealt with. I think I would approach it with curiosity and a bit of humility to be honest. It s no harm to contact the school about it but bottom line is they prioritised getting your child into ASC and cared for and, you just don’t know what else was going on for people that day. Good to alert them if there was a system failure but be curious about the system first and sort facts out.

your sister letting you down is very difficult though, I m
interested to know when your last conversation/ reminder with your sister was about the pick up arrangement ?
it s remarkable that she didn’t remember and it was so far off her radar that she was over an hour away! You must be so hurt,

The headline reads as if the school chucked her on the street, honestly your sister is at fault here.

Complain! Oh my god i can't believe you are even bothered about the charge i would be absolutely mortified and so apologetic. This is your sisters error and also yours maybe I'm too safe but I would have clarified with my sister the day of and then maybe a couple hours before.

Thank you for a constructive response to the OPs question rather than the classic mumsnet pile on to have a go at her!

I’m very interested in this from a safeguarding perspective and good to know that (hopefully) the plan would have always been to call the parent / guardian but take to a place of safety in the 1st instance. Like you say there could be on any given day multiple kids who’s parents are just 5-10 mins late and might not be feasible or a good use of already stretched resources to try and call each one immediately.

@Cantheowneroftheredcorsapleasemovetheircar as others have said suggest you look up the schools policy on late pick ups and if what they’ve done is in line with that take it no further.

Life and shit happens. You’re fully aware your sister is in the wrong and you’ve said yourself she won’t be picking your child up again. I’m sorry you’ve been let down like this by someone you trusted. But your daughter is safe - don’t let the negative comments make you think you've done anything wrong to question not being called - that’s what I would expect from a responsible parent. I suspect many people have been triggered by the word “complain” used in your OP which seems like you were trying to apportion blame on the school. I haven’t voted because I feel personally a formal complaint to the school is unreasonable but checking their policy and discussing any discrepancies with their practice is completely reasonable

The school did the right thing. You and your sister are the ones in the wrong. Just accept that. Complain to the school for what? Looking after your child when no one turned up to collect her?😀

Might be the odd one out here but the school absolutely should have called you. I used to be a secondary school teacher and I’ve never worked in a school that didn’t ring after either 10/20 minutes after supposed pick up.

It’s actually very common for miscommunication to happen amongst family members and for a pick up to be messed up so don’t listen to the people talking about child abandonment etc. what a load of BS

You should be thanking them, not complaining. I’m sure they would have called if you weren’t there at the end of afterschool club. They were hardly going to keep her over night.

I think the difference is that you could raise it nicely with the school as opposed to complain, which is what you were suggesting. I also don't think the fact that they charged you should be an issue.

Yanbu to be upset.
Your sister is some loser.
I couldn't look at someone so selfish and useless.
Now your know.

School kept her safe. They most likely have protocols to action after a time if she hadn’t been picked up.

If for any reason a parent didn’t pick their child up at our school, they would just be put into after school club too

Complain to the school for providing a safe environment for your child after YOU failed to ensure she was picked up?! No… I wouldn’t.
If you’re relying on others to pick up your children and expect confirmation of pick up, then arrange that in advance with your sister.

I would be grateful school put her in the club and she was safe but I would question why they didn’t call you… nicely