Child given money by "Vicar" at school

[TakeALookAtTheseSwatches]

So my 10 year old daughter (year 5) came home from school on Thursday and told us the Vicar (possibly just a trainee, I'm not entirely sure) who was taking their collective worship at school gave her £5 to "get herself an Easter treat" and that it was "just between me and you" I asked her if she told the teacher and she said no. I feel quite uneasy about this, should I say something to the school?

Some us just find it bizarre that the OP appears to be so unconcerned about a safeguarding issue.

Probably doesn't want to acknowledge just how serious it could be.
Nobody wants to think their child is being targeted and as this thread shows, people are all falling over themselves to try and excuse the vicar or accuse the child of lying.
I have experience of this. My old childminders son was abusing 2 children in his mother's care. He'd groomed their vulnerable single mum and the little ones. The mother if the children went to the police immediately after 1 child disclosed what was happening, and the childminder launched a campaign to crucify this woman.
We live in a smallish town and sadly, people were very quick to believe the childminder and join in the persecution. A few of us stuck by the mother and were encouraged by others to distance ourselves from her.
Only when photographic evidence of the abuse emerged and he admitted to everything, did people realise. He's in prison now.
We still seem hardwired to see the good in people unfortunately.
I hope the OP does realise the seriousness of the situation and where this behaviour could potentially lead if not investigated.

Why haven’t you contacted safeguarding at the diocese yet?

I am op. Watching to see what happens. I think that you are in a very difficult situation. Keep going, but do let us know what happens. Cant believe that you have to wait until 20th but you have done the right thing waiting for interaction from the school.

x

Oh. and I think that it's you who has to monitor, not MN x

Because the first point of contact is the school.

Suspicious of what ? Nothing to report until there’s something to report ?

Ok ok.

If the email was sent to school admin then it will not be answered. There should have been an out of hours contact though for safeguarding concerns. But usually you would contact the LA safeguarding. If the OP had a direct email address for the HT or any of SLT then they would likely answer unless on holiday- slt often might be on a rota for emergencies. I can’t understand why OP hasn’t contacted the LA though. Many people have linked to the number.

My kids school all send an email out before holidays with emergent contact details do a variety of services. I also received an email off a teacher on the evening after they broke up for school holidays and when I replied I for the standard out of office all the staff seem to have worn the same list of emergency contact details for various agencies.

It’s not really an emergency though is it? Her child is safe at home, and isn’t going to come into contact with this vicar between now and next week. So it’s fine to wait until then.

But he very possibly has access to other children? OP's child is safe but it needs flagging immediately to minimise risk to other children.

Yes, the safeguarding team will look at their emails. But to moan that the teacher isn't answering emails is not ok.
Even over the holidays, the DSL may not answer emails. For something serious like this, every church/ parish has a safeguarding representative that can be contacted. It does not always fall to teaching staff.

Hallelujah! One more day to go for an update 😂

I hope so.
Very curious about this.

Any update @TakeALookAtTheseSwatches ?

The suspense is killing me. Not really!

The incident happened on the 2nd April. It's now the 21st, so I'd be inclined to be very concerned about the school's reporting and response levels.

I'm very concerned about the OPs reporting and response levels.

It shouldn't be when the school is closed! This is a serious allegation which needs urgent investigation by appropriate authorities. School would be first point of contact in term time but not in the holidays.

It's the school holidays. They generally don't monitor emails in the holidays. If there was an emergency then the appropriate authorities will have contact details for relevant staff. Email is not an appropriate contact method for such emergencies. In this case, the police would be able to contact the head/ safeguarding lead if needed.

Our local school only went back today, yesterday was an inset day and every member of staff paid to work yesterday was on a training course at a different venue.
So if it had been our local school the email would only be seen today.

So...hopefully the Op @TakeALookAtTheseSwatches will update this thread at the end of the school day...

This is shocking! Surely the safeguarding lead is contactable in school holidays? Are they back from Easter now?

The school safeguarding lead is not a statutory service (yes a statutory role in school, but not a statutory service) so don't need to be continually contactable. The LADO, children's safeguarding and the police do need to be continually contactable (and are) and one of those should have been notified.

Yes. I will grant you if tge school burns down or the roof falls in🙄
This os not an urgent matter l-this child is not in imminent danger. If she were then police and SS would have been cobtacted. The school cannot investigate things (assuming this girls story even stacks up as being possible) because there is nobody working and no pupils attending to question about the incident.
Given thw girl's story changing, the witness denying it and the implausability of it all plus the

Yes, I know it's the school holidays.
Schools are supposed to be monitoring emails - yes, over the holidays too - especially safeguarding.
I know that I'm in a large secondary school, but our Safeguarding Team have a rota for safeguarding concerns, even on holidays!
The SLT have a rota for other concerns, even when the school is closed! I've picked up concerns on Saturday morning, and on Bank Holidays.
This school having no response to this point is poor.