What would you do if your DC was made to wait for you on the street when you are late to pick up?

[mammya]

Tonight I was late picking up my dd from after-school club, because of problems on the Tube, and I arrived at 6.15, when normally I pick her up at about 5.30. DD (7) was waiting outside the school with the after-school club workers. They told me the caretaker told them to leave at 6.10 as he was locking up.

The thing is, this has happened once before, again when I was late because of problems on the tube, and at the time I brought it up with the headteacher, who agreed with me that it wasn't acceptable, for all sorts of reasons. According to him, the after-school club workers have the keys, they are allowed to stay after the caretaker has left as long as they make sure to lock the gate properly. According to the after-school club play leader, they weren't allowed to stay after 6 for insurance reasons. The HT denied this was the case

I am about this and plan to go to the school tomorrow morning to request an appointment with the headteacher, the caretaker and the after-school club leader, so that we can discuss what should be done when a parent is late like this, as is bound to happen from time to time.

So dear mumsnetters, would you be angry and what would you do if that happened to your dc? Am I being unreasonable to think this is unacceptable?

No Lynette, good point, I have not seen their late pick up policy and I don't know if they have one. I will ask them about that.

Social services. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Glad I don't use the same nursery.

Well having heard what mumsnetters have to say, I accept that making a complaint is OTT. I still think the whole late pick up thing needs to be clarified.

Social services is standard. Your nursery will almost certainly have the same guidelines, just choose not to implement them.

Ask to see a copy of the late collection policy and also the complaints policy.

Don't start demanding meetings with all concerned.

Be preapred to be known as a PITA.

Consider carefully what you would do if you couldn't use the afterschool club.

I don't think there is a problem with waiting at the school gates there was an adult with her.

£1 per min at ds' school if your late for pick up time.

I don't see the problem with your DC waiting outside. I would assume that it was to enable a quick handover as you were late and, through no-one fault, the ASC workers were now going to be late for somewhere they had to be.

However I do think the HT needs to tell the ASC manager that they are allowed to be in the school after the caretaker BUT it may be that the ASC workers didnt really want to lock up because they may not be overly familiar with the alarms etc. I was recently left to lock up a club room and spent all night thinking I could hear sirens due to not setting the alarm properly.

IMHO Worth a mention to ASC manager or HT but not worth being angry.

Thanks for your comments and opinions.

I will start with asking for the late pick up policy and take it from there.

Really? I didn't know that. Surely not in a 15-30 mins scenario? That is what we are talking about.

you are meant to call social services after a certain amount of time over

I don't run an ASC but I do run a youth group. Our policy on late pick-ups is very simple. We expect parents and carers to be prompt. All our workers are unpaid volunteers and so parents who are constantly late are taking liberties; we ask them to find someone else to collect their child.

Personally, I would resist making elaborate contingency plans for when parents and carers are late, because that just normalises the lateness. I have one parent who is late just about every week, blaming the buses. All I can say to her is catch an earlier bus: don't let your problem become my problem

Yes, our instructions (which we've never yet had to implement) are to call social services if we have to go home and there's still a child who hasn't been collected and whose emergency contacts aren't responding.

"All I can say to her is catch an earlier bus: don't let your problem become my problem"

Eh, she was stuck on the tube. I would think that any professional ASC would be able to cater for the odd 30 minutes of lateness without calling SS. If you have a frequent offender, then you deal with that person. In fact I think our old nursery had an "3 lates and you are out"-type policy.

45 minutes late is unacceptable. What time does the after school club close? The nusery where I am working at at the moment clasesw at 6'15 and has an extra charge of £5 for every 10 minutes that parents are late after that.
If the club closes at 6 then they will not be insured for after that time.

My 8 year old goes to an afterschool playclub and it is quite usual for me to find him waiting outside the building with a playworker. And this is not when I am late.

The playclub shuts promptly at 6.00pm and often the playworkers pack up and lock the doors by 5.55 pm and take any remaining children outside to wait.

However, 'outside' is a quiet car park surrounded by gardens, so not the open road.

TBH I have never felt cross about it, as I realise the playworkers need to get home themselves.

I don't have a bad commute so no reason for me to be late. Poor you being dependent on the tube - it must be really stressful as you cannot even phone. IMO you definitely need a contingency plan - give the playworkers phone numbers of people who could do emergency pickups.

Incidently, if you are late AFAIK playworkers can report you to social services as they will need to find an emergency carer. Some years ago my ds1 went to a holiday playclub and, like you, I was 15 mins late due to travel difficulties. The angry playworker said she was just about to phone social services so someone could get my son, as she could not wait any longer.

I definitely would not demand go in all guns blazing if you want a meeting with the head, caretaker and playclub leader. They are probably right about the no insurance after 6.00 pm aspect.

Your best bet is to organise an emergency pick up or two, so playworkers know who to contact if you are late and uncontactable. Can you and some of the other parents at the playclub group together to provide emergency pick ups for each other?

Message withdrawn

Tigermoth, the ASC do have the number of someone for emergency pick ups. I don't know if they would have access to these numbers when they are out of the building. Actually this is something I need to clarify too. Thanks for bringing it up!

sounds like you are turning a situation where you are at fault into a situation where someone else is at fault. what will you do if they just chuck your dd out of the afterschool club? have you got other options lined up?

Fairymum - exactly so. We would only call social services in extremis and, in 5 years, I've never had to. Of course we know that public transport is not super-reliable, but my point was that we (or, I guess, any ASC) expect parents to leave enough of a margin that they're not regularly late.

Tigermoth - yes, that's how I understand it works. We would only ring social services if all our volunteers had to go home and could no longer wait with the child whose parent was late. It hasn't happened yet.

But not too much though coddy, yer honour

'I arrived at 6.15, when normally I pick her up at about 5.30'... so 45 mins later than normal - wonder if she usually pays until 5.30 or 6?