What would happen if you didn't bring your child to school?

[soreankles]

I often wonder what would happen if I just didn't wake up - I'm a single parent and don't have anyone checking in on me. Would school or nursery do anything?

You should get a call after your child hasn’t turned up and no contact has been made. I agree that because of your situation you should teach your child to call 999 in an emergency.

Presumably you have also had to provide alternative emergency contact numbers for your child at nursery? So if your child was absent school will ring you, several times, then if they can’t reach you they will phone the next contact on the list until someone responds. At my school we wouldn’t wait more than 2 missed days of no contact before we did something else about it.

Years ago two girls were abducted on their way to school. School didn’t call home. At the end of the day both sets of parents assumed each girl was at their friends, it was the 60s/70s and times were different. It wasn’t until bedtime that it was discovered they had gone missing.

After that calling home to check on missing children was brought in.

When I was at a company that WFH we always tried to contact people who just didn't turn up, we had emergency contacts for everyone too

But did you take a register every day or just leave it up to the manager or colleagues to notice?

Are you volunteering?

Also why make a judgement that I don't have a support network? Seems bizarre. A support network doesn't mean that you have to check in with someone the minute you wake up

My son is at home ill today and they called to see where he was, even though I had reported his absence/illness via the school app yesterday evening (and received confirmation email from school early this morning). I suppose there was some glitch or crossed wires in the office, but yes they did check.

A priority for schools to meet targets or just an excuse for the state to come down on the parents like an anvil if their kids' attendance is 2% off the mark?

There was an incident a few years ago near me where a child starved to death after the mother had died at home. I think that changed a lot of systems and schools are more persistent with making home visits and follow-ups if no contact is made.

My dcs school insists that I send an email before 8am if they'll be absent. Not sure what happens if we don't (because we always have done), I expect they'd call us but not sure realistically if they have the capacity to do home visits.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/08/boy-4-died-alone-in-hackney-flat-two-weeks-after-his-mothers-death

What would happen in school holidays as you seem to be putting the onus on the school to be the one to realise you are ill/dead @soreankles

A neighbour died in their sleep, they lived alone no DC. Police welfare check found them after no-one could contact them

Like the father that died and so therefore his two year old starved to death. Although in that case the social worker did try to contact and get into the home but it was over the Christmas period.

I work from home and if someone didn’t log in and didn’t make contact we would chase it up and if they didn’t respond we would eventually contact police for a welfare check.

At a previous (non WFH) job an employee didn’t turn up to work for 2 days, no contact so a manager who lived near him knocked on the door on his way home and then spotted him through the window dead on the living room floor.

Yep that’s the DfE for you. A child could be missing from education for 5 days before a school holiday but we can’t do a thing until it’s also been 5 days after the holiday too.

Some schools have staff who can go and make house calls, but this isn’t the done practice in every school because we don’t have the adults to do it.

It was a small company and it was policy to say Good Morning every day in Teams so I suppose that was a sort of register

I find it odd that your work doesn’t keep tabs on you. When I WFH I was expected to pop a ‘good morning’ in the chat when I logged in. If I didn’t they’d ring me by 10…

Most workplaces DO have people who check if people are actually working. Many have apps installed on your laptop to ensure you’re there and working.

OP, I could be barking up the wrong tree completely here but are you feeling OK?

I was a bit surprised recently when my car broke down on the way to school. I had to walk back to our house with my four year old son and two year old daughter in her pushchair. When I got back, I thought there would be missed calls from the school but nothing.

It did make me feel surprisingly vulnerable; what if I’d been in an accident and had been seriously hurt or god forbid killed and my poor kids in the back alone? It does kind of shake you up.

Seconding the idea to teach your child/ren how to use your phone in case of emergency. I have a similar job where I might be visiting sites etc with no need to clock in anywhere - hopefully someone would notice after a few hours but it might not be quick!

Are you OK, OP? Is this a hypothetical ask or something niggling at you?

I understood that since a previous sad case a few years back, schools are under an obligation to investigate unexplained absence. So they would phone and if couldn't get hold of you follow a process which may result in someone coming out to your address.

This is because of their safeguarding responsibility towards your child.

Your employer has an obligation for your wellbeing too and should have a policy in place for if they can't contact you. If you frequently go for days without checking in with anyone this may well take a long time to trigger. If you usually have contact with people in your team multiple times a day and they can't get hold of you this would be much sooner. My workplace holds emergency contact details for this purpose (DH).

So if you have a school age child, then surely you teach your child that if there was ever an occasion that mummy couldn't be woken up, they call 999??? Or an ICE number on your phone?

Children have needs, so they would find you and wake you up to ask for food or whatever they wanted.

There have been 999 recordings of very young children who were able to call 999 from a phone and speak to emergency services who tracked the call.

For safeguarding the school would have to call.

I remember when my son was really young, i tripped over and had a really close encounter with the TV cabinet, an inch further and I would have knocked myself out on the cabinet and probably done some damage. I taught my son how to use the house phone, mums number was similar format to 122312 so easy for him to pick up at 4 years old.

It did turn into a nightmare though cause the little buggar would call her whenever he wouldn't get his own way or when he was having a tantrum.

The school has a 'duty of care' to all children on their role. They would email/text and call you - possibly wait and then call again. Second emergency contact would be called. If no answer and no contact, it would be deemed a safeguarding concern. Either someone from the school would make a house call or the police would be asked to do a welfare check. Your employer has a 'duty of care' to their employees, so your employer should contact you if they don't hear from you and/or you don't turn up for work.

We don’t actually have a house phone and while I can try to show ds how to unlock my phone and use it, I’m not sure he’d actually be able to do it, to be honest.

DD's school texts about 9.15, then calls if you don't get back to them within the hour. I know this as she once had an OT appointment that they'd forgotten about and I didn't see the text as was with her at the appointment. I don't know what they do after that, but I'd assume they'd work through the contacts list.

Does your child know how to ring 999? Or how to ring a friend or relative if the worst happened?

They do have a duty of care to children on roll but many schools would not do a home visit for one day of unauthorised absence and the police wouldn’t be contacted unless there were other concerns.