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?

I use to worry that I might die while dh was at work and our baby would be screaming for hours. This was after reading a local newspaper article about a four year old found wandering the streets and it turned out his mum had died the day before and he had been alone with her.

At my sons school it goes down as unauthorised absence and they may do a welfare check but depends on the family and the day. I would mention to school that you are alone and ask that they do prioritise a welfare check if you don’t answer the phone.

This is a good idea.

I work flexibly from the office or from home with no requirement to let anyone know where I will be at any given time so I reckon if would be at least 2 weeks, probably more before anyone noticed that I was missing! I am also a single parent. My children are older now but when they were young I taught them to phone 999, and also told them where to go to ask for help if I was hurt or anything.

PPA is a bitch. Would your husband not be mes8saging you throughout the day? Reolink do room cameras as well

Would no one notice that you hadn't produced any work, or joined any meetings? I work on something that tends to be separate to the rest of the team, but still have a daily catch-up meeting. Even without that I don't think it would be more than 2 or 3 days until someone tried to get hold of me and realised I hadn't been online.

I don't have any meetings.

Just be careful if you do this. CPS often defines the children of single parents as vulnerable when they stop going to school. If that happened you could lose him quite quickly & be forced to jump hoops to get him back.

On an iPhone if you hit the side lock button 10 times quickly it called the police. Even if you end the call then they call you back. Ask me how I know!

Slightly off subject but I know of two secondary school age kids that don’t go to school nor are they home schooled. How does that work

No, I don’t have any regular meetings. I work for a large college and I am the only person who teaches my specific course. I teach online in the evenings and do site visits and admin during the day. I’m pretty much left to get on with it!

School would do a welfare check. My head and my children's school head have done them.

They might well be technically on roll at a school, which means they are responsible for them. Or all it takes is for a parent to say that they are home schooling and that’s enough. They don’t really have to prove they do it.

it’s in the safeguarding training. There was a horrific case of a single mother dying and her child starved to death because no one checked. I remember updating my training when I was a newly single mum of a toddler and it gave me nightmares. Following that it’s in safeguarding training and school/childcare settings have policies to follow. That said not all settings follow their policies so it’s not 100% fool proof

I was thinking of Chadrack Mulo aa I read this post. Local escalation policies vary but I’d hope that a child who normally attended and was suddenly absent without any contact would raise concerns.

Years ago a colleague didn’t arrive at work. Two staff went out. She had died alone. So sad 😢 . Work have a duty of care too.

They email and text as well. Then ring back later. (Occasionally an email has pinged back or the receiver is absent and other staff haven't got it and I've been driving other child) EBSA. (After a bereavement)

Generally school contact you by 9.15.

You should provide two other emergency contacts to school. At our school we would attempt to contact you for around an hour then start calling the other emergency contacts. If no response, we might do a home visit - on one of such occasion a parent was sadly deceased. But we are a small school and tend to know our parents quite well. I’d actually have a conversation with the school office about your fear, they can make a note to ensure that any absence that is unexplained is resolved the same morning.

I work in a school. Our policy is that we would call the first contact several times between 9am and 9.30am. If not answered we would move on to second and third contact. If these do not answer we would do a home visit if no contact by 10am (it can be a right pain when people go on holiday and do not let us know.)

If we overslept I would take my child in late and apologise. It happens.

Most schools will ring you, however I once forgot to phone in to tell them my daughter was ill and they didn't contact me at all.

I'd be on the phone to you at 9.20am (10 mins after registers close) if there was no warning that your son was going to be off.

@Elisheva wouldn’t someone query if you didn’t turn up to teach online?

What do you mean omg? Why so rude or am I
reading your message wrong? I think it’s bad and that they have an obligation to make sure you’re safe! I’m not implying that you’re wrong or lying, just that it’s really poor form not to check that an
employee (working from home or not) is okay and not laying dead in a ditch. I’m not sure how I’ve managed to offend you to be honest.

Are you sure you’re okay?

Your work should check in on you if you don’t
show up. We would try you a couple of times, then send a text to say will contact emergency number if no response on 30 mins. Then we’d ring your emergency number. Our school send an email, doubt they’d do anything on day 1.

Our managers are still responsible for checking their staff are online by 10am daily and will follow the same process as if someone didn’t show up. Pretty poor line management if not checking. So easy to check on teams too.