Do a school have a legal responsibility to pass on info to police if aware parents being unlawful with covid rules?

[NameChangerForQuestion]

If a school are made aware of parents clearly and obviously behaving in a way that’s against the law with regards to covid (I don’t just mean against guidance, I mean the law at that time eg going out to indoor public spaces unnecessarily during self isolation. I pick one example here but have many school have been informed of) do they have a legal obligation to pass this to the police? Is this something other people have heard schools of doing?

Whilst I’m here, if a school are not following the rules eg not sending home a child with any of the main 3 symptoms, is there someone that is the next port of call to contact so they can investigate the school?

Fwiw I am not the person behaving illegally!

I'm sure schools have got enough to do without monitoring the movements of all parents

No, of course not. And schools must use their judgment and experience in deciding if a child needs to be sent home sick.

What do you imagine the police would do?

Whilst I’m here, if a school are not following the rules eg not sending home a child with any of the main 3 symptoms, is there someone that is the next port of call to contact so they can investigate the school

Schools round here take advice from PHE when there is a suspected case and they ultimately tell them what to do. So the chances are the school won't be making the decision, that is the advice they will have been given.

If you know of someone breaking the law (which you clearly do) and you feel soooooooo strongly about it, why don't you call the police. 🙄

So, we have covered schools, other parents, anyone else you itching to grass up OP?

If school try to send a child home and the parents refuse to collect during the day, what do you suggest school does?

Its a very common problem, sadly.

I work in a primary school. If there is proof that the parent isn't following the rules and the child is specifically vulnerable, yes they can tell the police. Or they may speak to the parent first, depending on the situation with the child / children

If school try to send a child home and the parents refuse to collect during the day, what do you suggest school does?

Then the child will sit in the isolation room in a mask til the end of the day . It's a welfare issue but I've never actually known this be reported.

To answer OP's question no schools have enough on their plates trying to follow their own guidance without monitoring individual parents outside of school.

Police and social care are massively underfunded and would never follow this through. I hope they are following up children who have been abused and neglected rather then responding to reports of a parent who has popped to their mates house.
And the school are not there to monitor the movements of parents.,

I know a school in lockdown where the head went to deliver work and found a huge party going on. They therefore refused to have the child back for 2 weeks.

Yes, of course they do. It's a little known fact that all schools now also operate re-education camps in the school playground where they hold parents known to be offenders of such heinous crimes as going to the supermarket, and packing the wrong things in Amelia's lunchbox. Repeat offenders can be held for life.

Sigh. Mumsnet just continues to astonish as to the plainly stupid stuff that people think is their business. OP, if you wish to join the Stasi, do it on your own time and don 't expect schools to sign up with you!

mean the law at that time eg going out to indoor public spaces unnecessarily during self isolation
I thought all unnecessary indoor places would be closed, or do you mean you've noticed little Billy's mum go to Tesco again this week when you KNOW she went in November?

I'm afraid that our school have sent out reminders regarding self-isolation rules stating that if they are aware of a breach they are required to notify the local Covid Team. I'm not sure who the local Covid Team if but it is clearly a government organisation of some sort.

I'm school staff and know not of any local covid team so I guess that's area specific.

Why on earth would this be school's responsibility?

I would think in a lot if cases it depends on the extent of the law breaking. I'm pretty sure that at DD's primary, a blind eye is being turned to the families whose circumstances dictate they need to use more than one other family for childcare. The alternative for some is giving up work leading to debt and eviction, which is in nobody's best interest.

We have children that get picked up by different people throughout the week - I didn't actually think that was not allowed as part of childcare arrangements. It's different to bubbles/extended households?!

My sons primary has sent an email out reminding everyone to follow the rules as some children have been excitedly telling the teachers about parties they've been to !

Things might be open but you aren’t legally allowed to go to them if you’re self isolating because you have Covid or have been in close contact with a case.
Schools don’t have the time or resources to police what students and parents choose to do outside of school unfortunately. I do think there should be consequences for schools that are not sending children home for testing if they have one of the 3 symptoms though. In several of the positive cases in my school the parents were really miffed that we wouldn’t have them in school without a negative test because siblings had had identical symptoms a week or so earlier and their schools had used “common sense”, realised it was a cold and kept them in school rather than advising the family to isolate. Except it wasn’t a cold, and If those schools had followed the damn rules then the older siblings would have been isolating and not brought Covid into our school, forcing bubbles to close. The story is becoming depressingly familiar.

You're only allowed one exclusive childcare bubble. They can only provide care for you.

Thank you. I’m not going to justify my reasons and explain to you the situation I’m in, but some of you have made assumptions based on my post which assume I’m being petty about a few little things when this is not the case.

It makes me so annoyed and upset the assumption is on me being a busybody trying to stir trouble rather than the truth of the situation I’m in.

You give a vague situation you'll get a vague answer, if you give a more in depth detail of what's going on then maybe you'll get more specific answers.
I'm sure if school thought there was an immediate or high risk to a child for any reason then yes I think they would probably inform the police

All we can do is make assumptions based on the very vague post 🤷🏼‍♀️

@NameChangerForQuestion

Thank you. I’m not going to justify my reasons and explain to you the situation I’m in, but some of you have made assumptions based on my post which assume I’m being petty about a few little things when this is not the case.

It makes me so annoyed and upset the assumption is on me being a busybody trying to stir trouble rather than the truth of the situation I’m in.

If this was all that serious then you should be taking responsibility yourself, not expecting others to do it. You go to the police if you think the law is being broken. If all you want to do is sit and watch whilst somebody else does it then yes, you are in fact just shit stirring and being a busybody.

You are being deliberately coy, but it's not difficult to guess at. You work in a school. Other people are ratting out parents to the school (rightly or wrongly) and the school refuse to be piggy in the middle. If the school receive second and third hand information that Johnny's dad burgles houses every night, and they refuse to pass that on to the police, then they are quite right. Spurious allegations of undue shopping or visiting are similarly not their business. Anyone who thinks the law is being broken - any law - is responsible for their own actions in that regard, not passing it on to someone else and hoping they do it. Whether that is you or anyone else.

And you want someone to investigate the school but presumably aren't willing to say yourself that you think there is wrongdoing? Have you considered that other people may, in fact, be doing their job and taking the appropriate advice and actions, and that it isn't your job to judge them? I don't think any school in the country would be deliberately breaching health and safety or failing to take the appropriate steps and advice from those who know. But if you know better, phone your local education authority and put your name on a complaint.

It would depend on the extent.

Schools generally do not want to report parents to the police, but sometimes circumstance warrant it.

Yes, there was a case that made the press yesterday. This wasn't school getting arsey about minor breaches. It was persistent and wilful breaches that were putting others at risk.

There comes a time when the protection of your staff and the other pupils matters.

Op I think it’s hard to know without knowing your examples but I think if a school knew that a family had had a party then I think they would have the right to send the child home or if a family had gone to a banned country without self isolating then the child should be made to stay at home and/ or family made to isolate.

If it’s a more minor thing that the ‘wrong’ person picked a child up from school then I would ignore it however I’m assuming because you made up a thread that it’s more along the lines of what I said in my first paragraph.

As far not sending dc home when they’re showing the symptoms I agree they should also be sent home but I don’t know who you would talk to about it. I am upset at the moment because dd1 sits in front of a girl who for weeks had a bad cough and eventually took a week off and tested positive for covid. No one was told to self isolate. The girl who sits next to the first girl also came in with a bad cough. I understand it is hard to judge coughs as it’s cough season but I think if you have sat near someone who had covid and you come in with a cough you should be sent home - more so than someone at the other side of the classroom.

@NameChangerForQuestion - if you are not the person doing the illegal actions, then it’s either all hearsay, or you are the witness who should be reporting it. Did you take the relevant children’s temperatures, or take the details of their coughs (eg asthma provoked by exercise, in healthcare plan and following advice of GP, gets better after inhaler used, or continuing but following a negative test and the child is otherwise well, etc, etc)? Or is this all hearsay? Schools do not report possibly malicious reports to the police, as a rule.