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.

Yes I agree.

It is normal for schools to call as standard practice.

The amount of threads on this forum where parents want to blame schools is shocking. Sort reliable childcare out and thank the school for taking your daughter in to after school club!

What has gone wrong with society??

I think that not calling the parents when a child isn't picked up is appalling! How on earth are parents meant to make other arrangements if they don't even know that their other arrangements fell through?
It's not about the fact they didn't keep her safe, - they did and of course you should be happy about that. But not informing the parent at all? it's basic communication. Common sense that as much notice as possible will allow a parent to make their way to school or arrange something else before the after school club shuts.
And worst case may also alert if the arranged collector is in trouble / been in an accident on route or something.

Of course the school office should have at least tried to phone you to find out why she han't been collected, and not waited until 5pm to do this!

Most schools I've worked in have had a protocol so they can establish if there's a serious problem (eg parent involved in a traffic accident/ taken to hospital) and reach an alternative emergency contact instead as soon as possible.

If the after-school club wait until they're just about to close, they might end up with their only options being to call either social services and/or the police (and in both cases, this would probably entail a member of staff being forced to hang around long after they're supposed to finish work)

This! You should be thanking them

I would THANK the school profusely and I would kick the sister up the ass.

As another poster has said, just use after school club and don’t rely on her again.

Hello!

I was a school receptionist for many years.

The uncollected child policy at our school meant I would try parents/listed contacts once or twice, and leave a message if needed. The child would always go in afterschool club to wait, so they’re safe, but you need to attempt to notify parents. It is fair that they charged you, however. They can’t wait out in reception/somewhere else.

Yes I would absolutely complain to the school. If it’s not their policy it needs to be sorted out and consistent from a safeguarding perspective.

Ex teacher here. In my latter days as a teacher they would frequently be up to 20 children waiting outside the school office who hadn't been collected in the usual way, often just because parents/carers were running late. How long do you think it would take them to ring round 20 sets of parents? And all the time taking away from the school admin's 'proper' work. So if they can put a child into After School club likely the parent who is still running late will have arrived by the end of ASC

Op id just be grateful they weren't calling the police on me for child abandonment lol. And as for charging you... really ?? You're fussing about a charge that saved your kid??? If you're that worried , just ask them why they didnt call, obviously after you explain why your child wasn't collected 😫

Some strange responses here berating the OP. Of course it’s expected that school will call if nobody collects a child. What a batshit attitude to think that they don’t have to. I bet everyone on here saying this is normal would expect a call if something similar happened to them. The fact that the sister is unreliable is a different matter and OP will be dealing with that separately. OP some people love a good pile on but if the shoe was on the other foot, they would be acting very very differently.

You keep complaining about the charge, but surely your child would have ended up in the asc anyway by the time someone turned up? My school waits for 15-20 mins before phoning a parent. How long would it have realistically taken you to either leave work and drive to the school, or arrange for someone else to collect your forgotten child? You can’t blame the lack of phone call for the charge

Er....just pay it?! You should just be glad she was safely cared for. I mean how much can these arrears actually be??

Do they charge less for only using half an hour of after school club rather than the full hour and a half? That's unusual.

Even then by the time they'd waited until half 3/3.35 to get all the kids out, asked dd if she knew what the plans were, walked her over to after school club, gone back to reception, found someone who could log on to the system and get your details as main teacher wouldn't be able to - this is assuming teacher is actually free to do all this straightaway and hasn't been pulled aside for - just a quick question - from other parents, then managed to get hold of you or dh, and you had then presumably first rang your sister to find out where she was then rang around to find someone else closer - realistically would all this have been done and the person able to get to the school by 4pm?

Basically i think you would have been changed anyway. If the money is such a big deal then ask your sister to pay it.

By all means ask them what their policy is and politely say you were surprised to have not got a call a bit earlier but they probably were going to call you - just 3.15-4pm is a busy period and as dd was safe and there wasn't any immediate urgency as she'd be sorted until 5pm you weren't the highest priority.

I definitely wouldn't word it as a complaint though.

Thing is though two things can be true ar once. The fault lies with the sister )and possibly slightly with OP if she didn’t do a reminder during the day).

However, I do think it is poor practice for a school to assume they’d just forgotten to book into after school care without making contact. If they’d been wrong (eg the OP had been involved in an accident) it’s shifting the problem to closing time. It’s not clear if the after school care is run by an external or in-house but if external they’re sort of shifting the responsibility onto a different body.

I see zero self reflection here OP just finger pointing. You still haven’t said what the school policy is on late pick up.

I suggest you familiarise with this and stop blaming the school for keeping your child safe.

At 4pm I was on my break at work and called sister to ask how DD is.

Nvm the fact that I babysat her kids when they were young all the bloody time and she hardly bothers to see mine but says she's sorry she doesn't make the effort.

Do you believe your sister genuinely 'forgot'?

It seems a bit of a coincidence that your flakey sister randomly phones to enquire about the health and wellbeing of a child she rarely otherwise bothers about, precisely at the very time she's supposed to be looking after her.

This. I have always checked in on the day when dc is picked up by friend/mil. "Are you still OK to fetch x after school?". I wouldn't feel calm not having checked in. I know you shouldn't have to but this is someone doing something they don't regularly do and we're all human and can forget.

This is not the school’s fault. At least someone was willing to take responsibility for your daughter huh?

I can see why you’d have expected a phone call but whinging about being charged when the school have sorted out your family’s mess and kept your daughter safe is shockingly unreasonable!

School should have called, but ultimately they did you a favour so you have nothing to complain about. It is ridiculous for you to blame them about your ASC charge. They probably just had a miscommunication and a lot going on at the end of the school day. Their priority was to ensure your child was safe, not that you avoided ASC charges when your arrangements fell through.

At my kids school any child that isn’t collected will go straight into after school club and you’d get charged at a double rate as it wasn’t prebooked, it’s super handy if you are running late (they don’t charge for the first 15 minutes) but nobody would call unless you weren’t there by 5.30 which is when ASC ends. The flexibility is really useful- you have a sister problem not a school problem.

Thank you ❤️

You could post on here that a teacher had assaulted your child and someone would call you entitled and tell you to stop teacher bashing

Of course the school should have called you.

The school didn’t call because they assumed you were on your way and had issues eg traffic

@ProjectsGaloremy sons school had this policy.