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.

I used to work at a school. We often didn't get the chance to ring a parent until around 4ish. You would not believe the things teachers have to deal with at the end of the day! (I vividly remember a mother having a screaming meltdown because her son had lost his hat and we couldn't find it instantly)
If a child wasn't collected, we would quickly drop them at afterschool club and then ring the parent as soon as we could. They kept your DD safe, don't direct your anger at them.

No, of course not! I would follow school policy and in extreme circumstances if DSL took over (as parent not answering and no one collected) and WAC/school now over - it could escalate to that. Very rare but does happen. More so in PRUs.

So why even mention a very rare scenario? Just an excuse to pile on the OP.

Your sister is some loser.I couldn't look at someone so selfish and useless.

Wtf

Now your know.

😆😆

I am very surprised the school didn’t ring to check you were ok as no show

surely that’s simple safe guarding - obv not in front of child to worry them but once in afc to call you /dad 15m after in club

did Your child say it was aunty picking up so why they didn’t call you ?

did you remind your sister in the morning to pick up , if you didn’t then you are slightly to blame as well

yes obv you need to pay for the afc - again lucky there were spaces as ours is always fully booked

obv they would squeeze a child in if have to and no show why they work out where you are

Our policy is to put child in ASC and ring a parent. If they collect in a reasonable time then no charge. We’re fairly rural so we factor in farm-based delays!

@CatamaranViper quite

I don’t think you should complain to the school but I would maybe speak to them and say that going forward you would like them to call either yourself or your husband if she is not picked up and not booked in to after school club.

with you saying that you do use the afterschool club it is a possibility that they just assumed it was an oversight on your part and had forgotten to book her in on that day so sent her there when your sister didn’t show up. I can’t imagine it would be school policy not to call parents if their child is not collected and instead send them to afterschool club and hope for the best that they turn up when that closes.

i was just making a general observation really, rather than particularly directing it to the OP

Yes, it has absolutely nothing to do with the OP.

Actually - I work in a school.

A pupil would be put in ASC and parent charged but equally we would ring the parent to check what was going on because if they weren’t there at finish (6pm) it’s much harder to get in contact with SS and the ASC and site team are delayed further.

If a you start the procedure at3.30pm you have 2.5 hrs to make sure the child will be collected when ASC finishes and also you have 2.5hrs to deal with the situation if (for example) a parent has had a medical emergency or similar.

O wouldn’t complain as such but I’d certainly be asking for clarification for hair procedures.

We have a family whattsap and always text about childcare arrangements outside of the norm but these things happen i suppose

Yes I think ideally school should have phoned you, but for whatever reason they hadn’t yet. She was safe and cared for by the school so I would just be grateful for that. I would absolutely never trust your sister to do childcare ever again though.

I disagree. As I was commenting on the observation that these sorts of things are the reasons why teachers are leaving the profession.

'Farm-based delays" 😂🚜🐮

It is your responsibility to collect your child on time, and you want to complain because they found a solution and this is going to cost you some money??

I would be very embarrassed and apologetic and although errors happen I would be furious with my sister, not the school.

You would have received the call after the school club. Schools are busy enough. Be grateful they look after your daughter.

I'm amazed at the voting. I've voted YANBU.

School should have contacted you as part of safeguarding. The relevant part of your OP is "what would have happened if no-one was there to collect her at 5pm?" It is also in school's best interest to do that too - what would they then be doing at 5pm if no-one turned up for her? Having said that, school may well have rung before 5 if you hadn't rung first - presumably their policies will guide you here.

Just imagine if a single parent was in a car crash and taken to hospital and no-one knew.

YABU re the fees however. The club did the work and there was no alternative. You wouldn't expect them to gift you the session, would you?

You need to thank them for looking after her not complain. They could have contacted child services to report it as child abandonment.

I'm an ex-teacher and completely agree with this. I would be HIGHLY surprised if they weren't planning to call you. The end of the school day is extremely busy and it had only been half an hour after the official end of pick up time when you called them.

It was always standard procedure in any school I worked in to call the parents to check in these sorts of scenarios. You need to find out if it's a mistake, or there has been an emergency and not leave it until much later when staff at after school club will potentially then have to stay late.

I completely understand how furious you are with your sister and I get the question because yes, of course there should be a phone call to check in. But I think in this case it's likely you pre-empted their phone call. I definitely wouldn't complain.

Lol I paid it before I even posted this.

YANBU - they should I have called you to inform you that your child had not been collected. I would email the school about this aspect only. You ought to know where your child is. The school knew, you didn’t. They should have communicated that to you by generic text message at least… “your child was not picked up by <insert time> and therefore has been placed in the after school club. Please contact X person on Y telephone number to confirm you have received this message and to confirm who will be collecting your child.”

YABU - …to be complaining about a charge when your unreliable choice of childcare fell through and they made sure your child was looked after in a safe space. Your sister should be paying this as a bare minimum.

If I was you I'd just be grateful there is an after school club and your DC was safe. There wasn't an after school club at my DCs school and they had a policy about reporting uncollected children to social care after a certain amount of time.
Of course you should pay for the place. They provided childcare for you.

Stop scapegoating the school, they kept your child safe.

Never do your sister a favour again and don’t invite her.

I would be overjoyed and relieved that they had her safely . Turn your anger towards your sister .

No, read the post. She wants to complain that the school did NOT attempt to contact her when nobody turned up to pick up the kid.

I imagine they were giving you the benefit of the doubt. If child normally gets picked reliably they might have thought there’d been some emergency. There was space in after school club and she’s used to going. Maybe they were giving you an hour and thought they were helping you. I’m sure they would have started chasing you at some point.

If you want to call I would phrase it as confirming the procedure should this happen again.