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 is your school policy? That’s the only question you should be asking and finding the answer to! It doesn’t matter what you think should have happened, or what teachers or parents or school admins on here think. Every school will have a written policy stating what happens if a child is not collected. My daughters schools have all had a policy that if a child isn’t collected within X time the child is taken to after school club and at the end of that the policy applicable to after school club kicks in. As an ex school governor I’ve seen policies where a phone call is normal practice at the end of the school day before sending a child to after school club. You are responsible for reading and understanding the policies! If they didn’t follow their policy then you have the right to ask why not, but I wouldn’t be going in guns blazing. If a policy isn’t followed it is good for the school to know so they can retrain and ensure it’s followed in future. But check your policy first and go from there. Neither option is right or wrong, all have been carefully thought through and are dependant on the schools set up and staff/ASC availability (I imagine there is also an “if ASC is full and we cannot manage the appropriate ratio” clause as well). Schools rarely figure it out on the fly!

Send the school flowers and some chocolates. Say thank you. Thats all.

You have just triggered me on so many levels with your entitled and ungrateful attitude.
The school were brilliant in looking after your child in after school club especially since they didn't have prior notice or staffing. Maybe they should have sent you a text or given u a call but the way you speak in your original post. Absolutely awful. Give your head a wobble. Please. For the sake of the people around you and your children.

Oh stop it with this bollocks. She doesn't need to send the school chocolate and flowers for doing their jobs.

You don't know that, maybe they aren't. There was always a receptionist/admin staff member present at my kids school until end of ASC as they had to let the parents in/out with how the security system worked.

Lighten up. This clearly wasn't meant to be taken literally:-) However, this was meant to emphasise that I certainly wouldn't be having a go at them if I/we as a family forgot to pick up our own kid from school lol :-)

I wouldn't dare complain to school! Your sister is a flake, that's not the school's fault is it?
Frankly if I got complained at for taking care of your child when her own family couldn't be arsed to collect her, it would be referred straight to the safeguarding lead for investigation.

Your anger should be solely directed towards your frankly feckless sister.

I think you have it wrong?

• OP'S anger IS directed at her sister.
• She wasn't going to complain about the care of her DD, she's simply questioning why she didn't get a phone call.

So, you escalate to safeguarding when you receive complaints, do you?
By doing that, you could cause a full SS investigation, just because of a complaint.

Is this why we hear of so many fruitless, wasted SS investigations?
Because someone didn't like receiving a complaint....

Not coming back to this any more but want to say a few things.

I have not blamed the school for my daughter not being picked up. I was just surprised they didn't call me. I may have jumped the gun as it was only 40 mins.

Sister feels bad and has profusely apologised. I am on abpther shift until 8pm today but I am told she has left apology gifts in my house.

I am tired. I am stressed. I work four 12 hour days a week and I am currently taking on a lot of overtime as Chrsitmas is looming. People aren't always their best in these circumstances.

I think everyone has made their points. Thank you for all replies x

I find it baffling that so many people are so fine about this. I was a primary teacher for years before becoming a parent so just looking at it from a teacher’s point of view, I would NEVER have contemplated not calling the parent. Anything could have happened to them! Sure, after school club is fine once you have confirmation that the parent can’t get there any time soon, but I would absolutely check first. And from a parent’s point of view, I’d be fuming that no one thought to let me know something had gone wrong.

It's the way the OP is phrased. It's her sister (and her for not sending a reminder) who messed up, yet it's the school who gets the complaints?

If I were her I would have apologised to the school for missing pick up, then politely clarified their policies or asked to be contacted next time.

I wouldn't be trying to turn this round so the whole situation becomes the school's fault and I am a poor innocent bystander in the whole mess. It's not a good look.

@Emeraude

Speaking for myself, I would not say that I am "fine about this". I am asking you and posters like you to consider the timeline.

Pick up at primary can be chaotic - lots of kids to dispatch, lots of kids to direct to ASC or other clubs, accident reports to discuss with parents, parents who come with questions and try to have a chat .... it was 40 mins.

I am 100% sure that they would have called in due course.

I am baffled that having been a primary teacher you can't see how this might happen.

I am a parent and even I can see that pick up time is busy and requires prioritisation.

I wonder if it’s down to numbers- if they get a handful of kids every day where the parents are a little late, they just put the kids into ASC as it would too time consuming to phone all of the parents then and there- only to have most show up in 10-15 mins anyway. Then in 30 mins or so when the ones that were just a little held up in traffic of whatever have got their kids- they phone about whoever is left. I don’t think it warrants a complaint to the school, your DD was safe, it’s not their job to make sure you’re told as soon as possible when a family member has messed up so you get charged as little as possible - they’ve enough to do.

How is the OP phrased like this?

The OP i not trying to turn this round so "the whole situation becomes the school's fault" that's ridiculous.

She very clearly is angry at the sister and that has been clear from the start.

She was only saying she thinks she should have had a phone call.

People are also saying she tried dodging the fine or thought she shouldn't pay. She didn't say this either, she just pointed out that avoiding an extra charge is one of the reasons a phone call would have been helpful.

And she thanked the school! It says it right there in the very first post!!

I don't understand MN most of the time, I don't know if people don't bother to read properly or they just read what they want to for the fun of it

The OP literally asks "would you complain to the school" and the subject of her post is "no one picked up my daughter and the school didn't ring". Doesn't sound much like taking responsibility to me.

She delegated pick-up to the wrong person. That's on her, not the school and not only on her sister.

Much more reasonable would be to say I messed up, how can I politely raise the issue of being contacted more promptly with the school.

I'm sure if OPs dd had been chucked out of ASC to make her own way home at 5pm, or even if the school had only got round to calling her then, she would have had different responses. But people are presuming that the school were going to call her at some point between 4pm and 5pm, and pointing out that there are a lot of reasons why they hadn't done so before 4pm.

There is literally nothing to indicate that the school were "contemplating NOT calling the parent" just that they hadn't done so YET.

Therefore why posters aren't frothing in indignation at something which didn't happen!

Not once in 8 years of teaching was it so chaotic after school that I wouldn’t have been able to call a parent after 15 minutes of not being collected and if I couldn’t do it, then not a single member of teaching staff, SLT, support staff or admin staff could either. It’s absolute bare minimum safeguarding.

The sister’s role in it is completely separate to the school response.

@Emeraude I am sure the school would have called.

She is visiting from Australia OP!! Cut her some slack!

Honestly, I think bare minimum safeguarding is making sure that the child in question was safe. Which they did.

I’m SLT/a DSL in a primary school and I’m pretty sure we would have called within 15 minutes as well. But I don’t think it’s terrible or worrying that they didn’t.

I absolutely think that the op should query the situation. But I don’t think she should be complaining; I (a chronic over apologiser, to be fair) would be apologising to the school for being late.

I understood safeguarding was about protecting the child from harm?

You must have had a very sheltered career if you believed a call to a forgetful/disorganosaed/ delayed parent while a child plays happily in a after school club is the bare minimum of safeguarding?

unless there was a backstory, where i
did you see the harm to the child and why was this an urgent safeguarding issue?

So @Cantheowneroftheredcorsapleasemovetheircar did you find out via website or ask politely what the rules are of when they call /how long they leave a no show before calling a parent

I have three sisters

And sounds like a tricky relationship with all of them!

Pretty please will you update your thread about the visiting sister and the pizza drama?!!