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.

I'd be more than pleased school did this.. daughter was happy to do this I presume and wasn't left on own.. But your sister!? How could she forget? Ask her to pay for asc it's her irresponsible fault.

The former. Amazingly clever .... and literate. What about you?

I don't think I would complain as such but I would ask them why they didn't try to call. I think it's very odd that they didn't.

I can't see that you've mentioned this - were school aware she was due to be picked up by your sister?
After school club at our dc's primary was off site, so if they weren't booked in they wouldn't get on the transport. School would absolutely have called any/all emergency contacts if child hadn't been collected, rather than sending to ASC.

How was dd about it? Was she upset?

I don't think that's unreasonable of the school. They had her and she was safe. Ideally they'd have phoned you and let you know but they may not have had a spare adult at that point.

In contrast ds had a club cancelled when he was that age. He wasn't told, but when he found it wasn't on when he went to the room, no one was there so he walked 50 minutes home.
They'd told 4 of the forms that the club was cancelled and to go to the after-school childcare but forgotten to tell the other form. They didn't bother contacting any parent who might have preferred to pick their DC up.

First I knew was when DD phoned me and told me ds had come home. If she'd not been home early from 6th form, then the first I'd have known was when I went to pick him up and he wasn't there.
They hadn't even registered that he'd gone missing - even though I know he was on the list that they were expecting from the club to turn up at the childcare.

About two weeks later, I got a bill from the after-school childcare ( run by the school) for the session he didn't use...

My dh forgot to book after school care one week for the day they usually do it, so they looked like uncollected children and school called us pretty promptly then put them in after school care when I explained. I don’t blame you for expecting contact earlier, but your sister is the real problem here. Gone off with her boyfriend? I’d call again and let her have it with both barrels - that she could always trust you with her children but she bloody well completely forgets about yours when she’s supposed to have them!!

Who cares if the charge would have been smaller? Your DD was safe, that's all that matters, surely?

When my DC were at school there were no ASC's and your DD would have been left standing outside.

I can't understand your attitude. The last thing on my mind would be complaining to school, I would be so thankful.

This was standard at my children's schools if the child was collected late. ASC finished at 6pm so I guess they'd deal with it then if the child was still forgotten.

It really sounds as if the school has followed its policy to ensure the child is safe, at the end of the day, the responsibility for pick up is the parents, use after school club or arrange a reliable alternative person to get them instead of blaming the school for not ringing you straight away. As to the, charge, be realistic, it’s not as if after school club is hundreds of pounds a day

I also think people are missing the point. The op doesn’t want to complain about the school sending the child to the club, she wants to raise an issue with the fact they didn’t bother to find out why no one had collected.

My school always ring as soon as we can. It could be a parent with a new baby who has simply fallen asleep or it could be more sinister and we might need to make arrangements for emergency foster care. Putting the child in after school club and hoping for the best isn’t a good policy.

So amazingly clever you post a random comment rather than quoting the post you're responding to

Oh be sensible, it’s one child who wasn’t picked up at school end time, what are they going to do leave her in the school yard until someone pootles along to grab her??

Which safeguarding policy trumps the other in this situation, do you think? 🤔

Look, shit happens. My mum forgot once. She had got the time wrong and was mortified.

What I didn’t do? Blame the school in anyway for keeping my child safe.

I once didn’t pick up my child, he was supposed to be at an after school club, the club was cancelled but I didn’t get the message. I received a phone call ten minutes after collection time to tell
me. I would be shocked if it was 45 min later!
So no don’t complain to the school but maybe ask them what their policy is so you know for future

This is about you, not me!

Only if the parents are not contactable! They didn't try to contact them. For goodness sake. If a school called the MASH to say the child wasn't picked up and said they hadn't called the parents yet they would be told to do that in no uncertain terms whilst the call handler rolled their eyes at them.

Seems a bit extreme but it’s nice that you have options.

Sorry, no.
School Admin here.

1. Primary responsibility is to the students. Ensuring students are collected afterschool is ‘proper work’. It does take time but it’s the job.
2. The more you call parents, the less they think it’s acceptable to rely on afterschool club as a last minute back up.

In our school the office would probably say, are you supposed to be at after school club? And if she said yes she would probably just be sent there. It happens all the time that kids forget they are supposed to be going. It's odd the after school club didn't flag that you werent booked on and bounce it back.

Edited to say I'm pretty sure there's safeguarding policies around registering who is at after school club, so really it's them that need talking to (assuming it's run by a seperate company as lots are).

At the nursery we always call if a parent is about 15mins late or immediately if it is end of day to see what is happening. We then charge late pick up or the next session rate depending on how late they end up arriving.

If there’s been a communication or transport issue with us arriving to pick up children for our after school club the school has always called within ten minutes to see why we haven’t arrived.

Honestly, some of the replies on here! Nobody collected the child, said child wasn’t on the ASC list, so of course the school should have rung!
I worked in a school for many years and we’d take the child to the school office and ask them to ring mum/dad/emergency number.
It was good of the ASC to take her in but they have child : adult ratios and so what if they were full? Oh and if nobody collected the child at 5pm when it closes, what then? Most office staff had gone home by the time ours closed, so the ASC staff would be expected to stay late and try and contact someone? Madness when all that was required was a phone call at 3.30pm when nobody showed up.
All this talk of taking M&S vouchers in or chocolates to say thank you. Jeez.
I wouldn’t complain @Cantheowneroftheredcorsapleasemovetheircarbut I would be asking the school why you/dad/grandparents weren’t contacted.

It’s the fact you used the word ‘complain’ that has got everyone’s backs up to be honest. If you’d stuck with the word ‘mention’ you would probably have had different responses.

You say here ‘I just thought the lack of a phone call was odd’ as though people are over reacting to that but that’s not how your OP comes across. The fact is that your own arrangements for your daughter didn’t work out (through no fault of your own although maybe it could be argued that you could have phoned your sister to remind her) which led to the school having to find alternative arrangements for her. There would have been extra work involved there for someone and of course the extra admin side of that for the ASC. I’m sure no one at the school end minded doing any of that because they would have being trying to ensure that your daughter wasn’t feeling stressed by the fact she wasn’t picked up. At my school a phone call home would have been the norm, however it seems to have been overlooked here, which has potentially cost you a few extra pounds. And your response is to question whether you should complain about that. Can’t you see that this attitude of ‘school must do everything perfectly and according to my preferences or I will complain’ rather than appreciating all that they did and recognising that this whole event started with the arrangements that you had made is very wearying? Schools get people complaining about small things every single day and it just wears very thin after a while. And yes, after a while all of those little niggles, grumbles and complaints do add up and make you think ‘it’s just not worth the daily hassle I get whilst working my arse off trying to do the best for these children.’ I left three years ago.

A much better response would be ‘I am so sorry that DD wasn’t collected on time yesterday - I know that was extra work for you and I do appreciate you putting her in ASC so she had a lovely time. Please do call me anyway if it ever happens again so I can make alternative arrangements to get her collected.’

Exactly. I'm concerned about the lack of phone call.

I haven't suggested any of the filed pick up arrangements are the school's fault.

Someone did however point out that it was only 40 minutes between expected pick up and when I called which is a good point. Maybe they would have called me.

Yes so it's the ASC that have messed up here. They should have noticed she wasn't booked on when registering her in. Children should be registered in and out and not just take in stray children.

Are policies listed on the school website? If not I'd definitely contact them and ask what policy is. It may well be that as @daffodilandtulip says policy is just to bung them into after school club and deal with it later, if they're not collected then.

Sounds like your child uses ASC fairly regularly op so I think that's probably ok. Would be less comfortable with them doing it for a child who had never been to ASC.