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.

What did your mum have to say about it all? I’d hope she has gone through your sister for doing this.

Your sister should have turned up today with flowers and a proper apology and a chat about her behaviour/promises to do better and then just not bothering. She needs to actually own what she has done and talk to you about it.

I’d be grateful in the circumstances. It’s really you’re responsibility to make sure your child is collected. It makes sense they charge for after school club to avoid cf using it for free by being late. Suck it up, suggest your sister covers it perhaps?

Does she sometimes use the after-school club? If she does, it wouldn't be unreasonable for the school to assume there'd been a breakdown in communication somewhere and just put her in? Especially if your DD went off to club quite happily.

This isn't the schools fault though. This was your family's fuck-up. You need more reliable childcare. The only thing I'd be going to the school with would be apologies and paying the bill as quickly as possible.

I work in a school office and often have to make calls for late parents. If the child often goes to after school club, our default position, 10 mins or so after pick up time is to assume the parent has "forgotten" to book them in, so will take them over to ASC for a snack then call the parent to check what has happened and let them know they will be charged. I can see how a phone call to parents could be missed if this procedure isn't tight, as late bench and office staff have normally left by then.

I would just send a polite email to the school to let them know that she wasn't booked in, as someone was meant to pick her up but didn't, and they should have called you. Then leave it as that. Hopefully, you'll get an apology phone call. I would not moan about a charge when this is technically your fault for using your flaky sister.

@Cantheowneroftheredcorsapleasemovetheircar exactly this. And to have the nerve to complain about being charged!!

I have worked in ASC. We have ratios to adhere to and we can't always take random strays. We are a private company. In our school. We would take the child (only if in ratio) but it's the schools responsibility to check where the parent is. We would are follow up with the school.as to parents location. you would be charged as well.
It's a safeguarding concern that the school didn't ring. A parent should have been contacted within 10 minutes.
Mn is getting worse for inventing scenarios and hyperbole and people not understanding two things can be true,
Op can be angry at her sister and concerned about the policy in regards to late collection.

She’s 7 and your childcare plan failed, thank goodness for after school club. I absolutely would not be complaining to the school, I would be thanking them for taking care of my child. There is every likelihood that they were about to call you - school finished at 3:20, say your child was directed to after school club 10-15 minutes later when it was determined that no one was collecting her. Another 15 minutes for her to arrive at after school club, everyone else to be signed in, your DD to be added to the roll, and then someone starts locating a phone number for you/your DH. Not to mention any other child who wasn’t collected and followed the same path as your DD. Honestly, it’s not hard for the time to pass. But regardless, it was your responsibility to ensure your child was reliability collected, she wasn’t, school cared for her. You should be very grateful.

Mn is getting worse for inventing scenarios and hyperbole and people not understanding two things can be true,
Op can be angry at her sister and concerned about the policy in regards to late collection.

this

Agree. That’s what they do at my children’s schools.

Think it is a bit off not to inform the parents that their child was still at school even if they were meant to be picked up by someone that isn’t a parent.

I would think it be a ridiculous to not inform them yet call SS. Mix-ups happen and so do accidents. My own mother was in a car accident only a mile or two away from collecting me from school and it was my father who had to pick me up. She was lucky that her injuries were minor enough that she could considering her car had been completely wrecked from an almost head-on collision and she had been knocked into a ditch.

Exactly. Wtaf

Do not complain the school had your daughter safe.
If you hadn't collected her at 5pm then the school would have phoned you and 2 members of staff would have had to stay with her until she was collected,and that would have added to their already stressful day and probably would not have got paid , and a concern for welfare raised by the school on her file.
I would have phoned your sister the night before to make sure that she was collecting.
I wouldn't ask her again.

It's the policy at my school to send children to after school club if they haven't been collected by 4pm. They would ring parents, if there's still nobody there by 6pm when it closes. That's made clear from the start, though.
We are an independent school and some of our kids come from 20 miles away. It can happen that parents gets stuck in traffic or that someone is late returning from a work trip or whatever.
You should be annoyed with your sister and she should pay the after school club session.

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?

I've been on Mumsnet for years and the above comment from the OP is by far the most entitled post I've ever read on here. To berate the very people who were there to bail you out from an emergency and keep your child safe is just so so ungrateful it beggars belief. You should have been thanking them profusely OP. How the hell did we get to this sort of behaviour?

I work in an after school club, some parents simply forget to book them in on the app so if they normally attend we would take them and then contact parents at their normal collection time.
Forgetting to book them an after school club place is much more common than a child not being collected due to someone forgetting. Or a parent being stuck in traffic and running late.

Your anger at the school is unjustified, they kept your child safe! You should be thankful they have that available.

I work in a primary school. Our policy is the same- if a child isn't collected at home time, they go into wrap around care (After School Club) and the parent is billed. We would ring the parents if they're not collected at 5pm.

I agree 100%

You should be grateful they didn't ring Social services because you abandoned your child. Even when a child is not in your "possession ' for want of a better phrase, if you leave them with someone and they are unsafe for some reason guess who's legally responsible...you .
So use the after school club from now on and don't leave them in the care of your sis anymore .

If they were in an accident, they may not have been able to answer their phones.

The school kept your child safe for you! You should be thanking them!

Are you seriously annoyed that they charged you? The could have phoned SS.

I've heard nothing from my sister since Thursday. I don't know if mum said anything to her.
After I hung up, sister sent me a grovelling apologetic voice note saying she is a shit person and a shit Auntie but tbh it was a big too self pitying for my liking.
I couldn't text back immediately as I was at work but I sent a message back a bit later saying I felt really let down by her, that DD had got out of bed that morning excited to see her and would be upset, that DH was angry, and it wasn't fair on mum. She texted back that these were all valid points and she would make it up to us. Nothing since. She could have maybe offered to take her out this weekend or something or even asked to speak to her on the phone but nada.

On my phone I couldn’t see the end of the title and thought it was going to say that school had phoned SS, not that they looked after your child by putting them in after school club. How very dare they. Want to be pissy with someone, be pissy with your sister.

Surely the onus is on the parent to ring the school if they can't pick their child up?

Thing is, with the best will in the world, human error happens, and I bet that is what happened here.

One day my year 7 son was 30 minutes late home from school. I called school to see where he could be (club I'd forgotten?) and it turned out he was in the sick bay with a migraine (he is very ill when he has them), waiting for me to pick him up - but no-one had phoned me, and he'd basically been forgotten.

I mean, I could have complained, as someone somewhere had forgotten to call me and no-one else had realised - but what would be the point? They knew the protocol, but it was human error.

OP, once you called school, they will have known their mistake - but your daughter, like my son, was safe.

I do think school should have called, even if it was to say that the child hadn't been collected and that they'd find a place in the after-school club.
I wonder what would have happened if OP had not called her sister and thus was unaware that her DD was at the club. Presumably the school would then have called and asked about picking up, meaning that someone would have to wait around. Or would this have been referred to social services?

It was a very good decision on the part of the school, and it's a good policy to have, but it's put OP in a tricky financial position through no fault of her own. Her sister should pay for the club, as it was her oversight.

And yes, the school should be thanked for keeping the child safe. It would be worth OP looking at the school's policies on safeguarding and (if there are any) around pickup from school/lateness. Not alerting a parent to their child not being picked up doesn't quite sit right with the safeguarding standards, regardless of whether there is provision in place for such situations.