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.

The school did look after your DC. I wouldn't complain, but you could email them, just to feedback that they should probably let the parents know in such circumstances. No harm done though

As a worker in a private company, you have absolutely no right to tell school staff how to prioritise what is happening at the end of a school day. Especially down to the minute!

I'd have more of an issue with your sister. Who clearly can't be trusted.

This

I wouldn't complain, no. But I WOULD make it clear that they should have contacted you or her dad.

Would you at least be arsed to read the op's posts?

Some of those staff will be working unpaid overtime to contact parents who are responsible for their own children. Or should be. The safeguarding issue is with the irresponsible parent - not the school staff.

I didn't it is our schools policy. What are you on about? Uncollected children need to be contacted after ten minutes.

You must be sitting with nothing else to do then.

DS’ school rang me just after 3:25 when no one picked him up (no one called us to say football wasn’t on after school). He didn’t go to ASC as said would be just over 5 minutes

She has no idea if they call as she didn't give them time to do it. She could be a frequent flyer here considering the amount of different adults picking up the child depending on shifts etc. Also, the sister was a new person picking up her niece. There is no way the child would be allowed to go with, what is essentially, a stranger. If the school had been informed that the sister they had never met was going to pick up the child, they would have her phone number and would have called HER.

This has nothing to do with the school, you can complain but you don’t have a valid reason to and it won’t be upheld. You being late to collect your child is not necessarily a safeguarding issue caused by the school, as the school ensured the child was safe in the afterschool club. You may still have been charged the fee if they called you, as she may have needed to be monitored for a time before she would be collected therefore incurring costs to mind her.

I reckon your cards will be marked as a problematic person if you do complain, where you’ll find that the school is less easy going with you and much more clinical. You won’t be able to rely on their goodwill for example eg in future, they might charge you for any length of time your children are late to be collected and telling you as such when they give you the call you want.

Have you read the other responses? At this stage, you could pay it and also send in a thank you message to the school, promising it won’t happen again.

Have you employed staff to sit with nothing else to do but phone irresponsible parents? Though you have said it's the uncollected children that have to be contacted. 😬

They kept her safe. It wasn’t their fault that she wasn’t picked up on time. 🤷‍♀️

Are you serious? This isn't a school problem, this is a you problem.

10 minutes after school finishes I am often still stood at the gate discussing issues with parents (and waiting for parents to arrive)

Then I will take any children in ASC through to the club - including any not collected - and pass on any messages that need to go home.

Then I would be able to think about phoning parents (as well as everything else I need to do!) but often by the time I get to the office to do that the phone is already in use so you have to wait.

even with the best will in the world it can easily be close on half an hour after official end of the day before it’s possible to start trying to phone around

They kept her safe, you hav erratic pick up arrangements because of your shifts and they have 250-300 other kids to think of as well.

Do you have any idea how flakey parents are about informing school and ASC about ad hoc arrangements? I've spent hours chasing up parents who didn't turn up through miscommunication or forgetfulness, and those are the ones with no ASC accounts.

We never rang the ones who sometimes went to ASC, we just sent them there and ASC would ring after 5 if no one had turned up for the child (they closed at 6). Otherwise the school office wouldn't have got any work done in the 90 minutes after lessons ended.

Entirely normal for school to just transition a not picked up kid into after school care. Of course it’s not on them to start calling round the parents to pick them up. Get your sister to compensate you the cost of the after school care. And don’t rely on her again.

Yes, absolutely I would expect a call from school in this situation. Was your daughter aware her aunt was picking her up? What did she tell the teacher when no-one arrived? It honestly sounds like teachers just passed her over to staff running the after school club and left it with them to sort out which is very poor practice.

If you hadn't phoned your sister when you did, you would have had no idea until 5.30pm when aftervschool club ended. I expect your daughter was quite upset when no one arrived to pick her up.

Ask the school what policy is in situations where children are not collected at the expected time, and there is no confirmed booking for after school club and take it from there.

They absolutely did have time to do it. I call after 10 minutes as it's a safeguarding concern. I'm the SBM and the DSL so yup, 10 mins and I'm on the phone like I've said up thread. I also always call the priority contact 1 first unless I've been given explicit instructions not to. Even if sister was coming to collect, if sister isn't there, I call contact 1

The school kept her safe which is a lot more than your sister did. You should be grateful that they took care of her when your pick up failed not complaining.

Very unreasonable. It’s up to you to make sure your child is not forgotten. The school looked after her appropriately and kept her safe. They would have been in touch when club finished.

This!!

She's not an irresponsible parent though. She didn't forget her child.