AIBU to raise concerns after school let father-in-law apply suncream when not an approved collector?

[Tryingtohelp12]

My father in law called in today to drop something off and I said can you do me a favour and drop dc2 Suncream at school I’ve just realised it’s not in her bag and it’s on your way past. Just leave it with the office (my child school has allowed them to take their own cream in this week and apply it themselves). About 20 minutes later came back and he said the office wouldn’t let him leave the cream and had retrieved my child from her classroom and allowed him to apply it.

i have no problem with him actually doing this as we are close and he is trustworthy, but was really surprised, he’s not on the list of approved collectors as he has never done a school run for us and honestly could have been anyone. What if he’d come in and said they need to take child out of school- would they have let him?

I mentioned it to the teacher at pick up who said she will look into it but now I’m worried I have overreacted and got the office staff in trouble.

I suspect it’s provided them with a teachable moment, dura lex, sed lex. If the rule is that only sunscreen placed in a child’s bag at the start of the day can be used, they should adhere to that. They shouldn’t allow any Tom, dick or Harriet rock up to the school and apply sunscreen. You were wrong not to put sunscreen into the bag, you were wrong to send a person to rectify the situation, they were wrong to allow that person to apply it.

Personally, I’d be pleased they’d applied a little flexibility, my greater concern would have been making sure my child’s skin was protected. I’m not you.

If there are family members who are NOT allowed contact with a pupil schools should be informed. Did the cream have your child's name on it, OP? If not that might be why the school wouldn't just take the cream and pass it on. The other solution might have been to ring you and check that all was above board.
Of course the very best thing would have been that you remembered to send the cream with your child or failing that asked someone on the list to deliver it. You could even gave taken the cream in yourself.

Schools really don't have time to deal with all this nonsense

Dealing with this nonsense like this takes away from them, energy and resources to deal with actual teaching and learning.

I also agree. It’s a huge safeguarding issue and yes on this occasion nothing happened but these protocols are in place for a reason.

It isn't a 'huge' safeguarding issue. A child isn't really at risk in a school reception area with loads of adults wandering around. What could actually happen? Some suncream goes on her eye if FIL is a bit clumsy?

i suppose in the context of this, it’s not an issue per se. It’s more about if this is happening, are they equally as relaxed at letting kids get picked up by adults not on the ‘approved’ list? In this situation, entirely innocent. But another situation, perhaps not. I see where you’re coming from but I do agree with the OP and I would also flag it with the school so they can sense check their processes, not to get anyone in trouble

Another thread, of help me out and I'll slap you off online to a load of strangers.

Men and teachers just cant win.

My main question is why does any adult need to apply it though? They’re capable of doing it themselves. We infantilise children for far too long. My 4yo is perfectly able to apply suncream to himself. He look at me as if I’d grown two heads if I attempted to do it for him.

The only process that broke down was OP's sun cream one. She could flag that to herself if she was really worried or just not worry about anything quite so low risk.

I think people are missing the point! I get what the concern is - it’s not whether you trust your FIL, it’s that the nursery has allowed someone not on the list or who they are familiar with, to walk in and start applying cream to a child. He could have been anyone and seemingly, they didn’t question that. You are right to have said something - they probably need to reassess that particular protocol or ensure all staff are trained in this.

No I still disagree in part on this. I agree that the OP shouldn’t have sent someone who was not on the approved list to drop an open item to be passed to the child, and therefore this situation should never have happened in the first place. but I also do think the reception team shouldn’t have granted access to an (in their eyes) ‘unknown’ individual.

ultimately, if a situation like this causes the school to review their safeguarding then that’s a positive thing. Because nothing happened this time and everything was fine but small slip ups like this are the ones that go unnoticed until something happens.

I get that there are untrustworthy people out there but really? Your FIL has done you a favour and you’re worried they’ll let some random person into school to start slathering children in lotion. I’m sure your child would have held a conversation with her grandfather and said something if it was a random man they’d never seen before.

I don't think OP has over reacted. It's right that the school realises it's safeguarding proceedures don't quite work. It's not like she's gone in all guns blazing.

The Grandpa could be someone the child knows and likes but OP wouldn't dream of leaving alone with the child, for all the school knows.

I think it was fine to send in FIL as he posed zero risk and OP knew that. I just don't think OP should worry about any of it.

But the school didn't know.

He wasn’t on the approved collectors list and he… didn’t… collect the child?!!

My god it’s a bad day to work at a school on mumsnet today 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️

I think some could be reading this as:

Op forgot suncream
Op asked FIL to deal with suncream at school
FIL dealt with suncream at school
FIL is a trusted member of the family
But regardless OP is angry with the school
Seems very unreasonable

But I think the situation is more:

Op forgot suncream
Op asked FIL to drop off suncream at school
School asked unknown man (to them) to rub suncream on child
It so happens that FIL is a trusted member of the family - so no big problem in this instance
But that is more about luck than process, and so the situation might have exposed a loophole that could have significantly worse consequences - e.g for another child
OP has flagged this to the school to allow them to close the loophole
Seems reasonable

I agree with you OP
What if Grandad has a history and isn't allowed around the child unsupervised? The school don't know that!
Just coz the child knew him as Grandpa means nothing and in other cases too, not just Grandpa... Whoever comes to drop off something for a child, you don't know anything about that person and their role in the child's life so I wouldn't like to assume that person is safe to put suncream on a child without knowing their history.

Then the parents should have told school!

They should have.

But they didn't.

So school shouldn't have granted access.

But there wasn't any risk! How many nefarious men or family members are going to attempt to drop off sun cream for a child, on the off chance that they will be asked to interact with the child and apply the sun cream in reception? If you have to list all these random scenarios in a risk assessment then no one would remember any of it. The fact that a member of staff couldn't apply the sun cream themselves, suggests that they may have too many policies as it is.

i would be very surprised by their decision as well.

Especially the not letting him drop the cream off, but allowing him to put it on here. Something has gone astray in that decision making.

None of the schools I worked in (and as peripatetic for 20 years that was a lot) would have allowed him to apply the cream. Most wouldn’t have given it to the child either without checking with you (and maybe politely pointing out to you that if you want him to be able to drop things off he should be on the approved list).

The approved lists exist for a reason and there should be nobody not on the list putting sun cream on the child.

You're being ridiculous would you prefer your kid to get sunburnt?

Maybe it’s just me. I don’t think you’re over reacting I think it’s a safe guarding issue. Just because kid says hi grandad doesn’t mean he can put sun tan lotion on kid or even gave parental permission to be in the same room as the kid. There could be a very strained relationship or he could even be potentially abusive. I think it was wrong of school to allow this.

As a member of school staff (until recently), I assure you the staff knew it isn't good practice to let a stranger come in and apply suncream to a child.

However, your neglecting to give your child suncream meant they were put in a difficult position and had to choose between two risks:

1. Refuse leave the child without suncream during a heatwave, making sunburn highly likely. This also isn't safeguarding the child.

Or.... make a common-sense judgement based on the fact the child clearly knew and was comfortable with the adult, and the explanation was consistent (e.g. the child didn't say they had already put on suncream). The adult also was going to apply the cream in public and wouldn't be alone with the child. In reality, the safeguarding risk was extremely low.

So yes, it did go against safeguarding guidance. But they probably judged that, in those specific circumstances, allowing the child to get the suncream was in the child's best interests and the 'common-sense' decision. You should actually be grateful they did this - lots of schools would not have.

The downside is that they're now likely to apply the policy far more rigidly in future, making things more difficult for parents when genuine situations arise.

I'll also point out that if they followed every letter of every safeguarding policy to the letter, technically you could be seen as a neglectful parent for sending your child out without suncream.

Edited to say this is a classic case where schools can't win - if they hadn't let the child take suncream, and the child had gotten suncream, then they'd also have looked bad and you'd probably be writing a post here about how the school failed your child also.