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.

Did you do an hour after school every day in the office? I have to say it's very unusual for a secondary pupil to be getting "picked up" and then go to the office if the person picking them up is 10 minutes late. Unless they have been texting and calling them for the 10 minutes and is worried.

Honestly - teachers can be incredibly busy. Lots of parents run 10-15 mins late (unfortunately). So the earliest they were likely to phone would have been 3.35-3.40. And then the after school supervisors would have busy looking after the children, and the classroom teacher might have been busy with a phone call/meeting relating to an incident earlier in the day etc etc.

I don't think it's awful that they hadn't contacted you before 4pm, especially if your daughter does use after school club sporadically. You could check their official policy (it might be that they aim to phone by 4.15 or by 4.30) but you can't reasonably expect them to change the policy just for you.

Teachers can sadly have many safeguarding concerns to follow up throughout a day. A child that is warm, safe and supervised is not a safeguarding priority from their point of view. Convenience and/or cost for you are not really the school's concern.

Wtf is with the responses on this thread? Of course the school should call a parent about an uncollected child. Are people genuinely thinking the school should just hang on to children until who-knows-when, unquestioningly? What a bizarre expectation.

DS's school sends uncollected children to the school office, and the staff contact parents by 3.30pm. Its happened a couple of times to me when DS has forgotten he's supposed to be at after school club. I actually cant believe some people think this is an unreasonable expectation. Do you all know what safeguarding is?

Well put. While it does seem a bit odd for the school not to call maybe it just wasn't top of anybody's priority list given that the child was perfectly happy and safe in the after school club that was due to run for a good while longer. No matter what the reason for the lack of a phone call for 40 minutes that is a fuck up that pales in comparison to a child not having been picked up in the first place, so the OP being the one to complain really would paint her as an unreasonable pain in the arse.

So what are you going to complain about? The fact that no one was there to collect her at pick up time, or the fact that they kept her safe?
They discharged their responsibility to your dc. They do not have to provide a PA service for parents!

Just because not picking up your child isn't your normal doesn't mean it's not a very normal thing to have happen to staff at school. It happens all the time and schools try their best to make sure everyone is looked after. It's pretty standard practise to pop them into after-school club as we know things happen. Usually the parent arrives sputtering and apologising. Technically a child who is not picked up is considered abandoned and a safeguarding risk from a legal point of view. They have done you a favour in just looking after her, yes they could have called and it was probably an oversight that they didn't. They can technically call the police though and turn her over to social services. Please remember this before consider picking up the phone to complain. They did you a favour. Direct your anger where it needs to go at the sister who let you down not at the school who ensured she was safe and cared for.

Why are you all saying noone?? No such word

There's always one isn't there?

Yep, which is why it should be a concern if they haven't and nobody turns up!
I work in a school, we'd call after ten minutes.

Wtf are you talking about? The school would have rang at 5o'clock if it hadn't been sorted by then. It was sorted, no need for the dramatics. The child sometimes goes to after school club anyway so it actually worked out well for the OP. I've no idea why you and she are annoyed.

Maybe in the future confirm with your sister if she's on pick up that day.
It's not the schools fault, I'd be grateful that they took care of her.

Sounds like they were just busy at the end of the day, maybe the teacher had a meeting or had to collect their own child immediately - it was probably just an oversight.

If you're not going to forget to collect your child again, it's not really going to affect you?

This

Please could you explain how the child was not safeguarded by the school?

Did you advise the school that her aunt would be picking her up? If they didn’t know your arrangements for the day they might have thought you had forgotten to book her place at the out of school club, seeing as she sometimes uses it.

I think it would have been more sensible for the school to ring earlier, although they obviously would have had to at end of school club anyway. I don’t think though that the school really need to take any accountability here, especially if you didn’t communicate to them who was picking her up and when.

Complain? Are you actually having a joke? Would you have been happier if they let her wonder around in the playground until someone might have turned up? Sounds like you have a sister problem.

It sounds like your pick ups arrangements are too chaotic. You can’t just rely on unreliable family members all the time. Your sister has shown herself to be flaky. You need to pay for after school club more like most people do.

School dealt with the problem. Teachers are busy. She was safe and used to going to after school club. This is on you really.

You are seriously misplacing your blame.

The school would have called you if someone wasn't there by the time after school club ended.

It's up to you to arrange pick up, not the school.

Surely they were right to charge you. I'm not sure what else you expected them to do. They would have phoned if she was still not collected when the after school club finished . They would not have just left her .
You should be angry with your sister not the school. You know now not to trust her again.
Incidentally when did you make the arrangements with her an and when was the last time you spoke to her about it?

Sorry, how do you know this was clearly out of character?

I can’t believe you’re annoyed they charged you too. You need to change your mindset around childcare. Most people pay for it - then it’s reliable. You sound like you expect your family to run around picking your kids up and begrudge spending any money on it.

This is what working parents do. They need water tight arrangements. You should be happily paying the club and grateful this issue was sorted for you. Yet you don’t want to pay and you want to blame the school…!

In my previous school we would have called especially if this was the first time.

I agree that school could have called but they didn’t (as is their policy) so you need to move on. DD was safe.

Errrrrr why has no-one mentioned blaming the forgetful, unreliable sister in all this???

Cos OP didn't know that the school doesn't call if no one collects a child at the end of the school day

Just adding my observation as a TA/After School Cub supervisor…the number of times that I’ve gone to collect children from their classroom, as they are booked into ASC and found that someone has collected them without informing school that they were not going to take up the booking is a thing! It causes ripples of panic due to safeguarding. We also have children who think they ARE coming to club but we don’t have a booking for them. This then necessitates phone calls at a manic time of the day. And as for the end of the day….we are supposed to close at 5:15pm, but people rock up 10 minutes late, while we stand there, unpaid, waiting to go home after a long day and their child is the last one sitting there….no apologies.