My Daughter with SEN was left hungry at school

[Dolphin7]

I'm just after advice really, a child in my DDs class was confirmed as being Covid-19 positive (he's fine asymptomatic), the whole class was sent home. My phone had run out of battery (Typical!! The only time my phone doesn't have charge!!) and I was unreachable. My other half had been contacted and could not collect earlier than the normal collection time due to work commitments and travel etc. I was able to charge my phone and received the messages mid afternoon, therefore I was only able to collect my daughter 20mins earlier than her normal collection time. When I did collect her she told me she hadn't been allowed to have lunch because of the Covid-19 case in her class (not being allowed to enter the lunch hall I understand, but no one thought to feed her at all!!), so she'd been left to go hungry the whole day apart from some birthday sweets she found in her bag!! Am I being unreasonable to be upset that the school allowed my daughter with SEN (she's on the autistic spectrum) to go hungry the whole day? I understand that I should have been contactable and I always am, just very unfortunate that on the only day ever that my phone didn't charge properly I needed it the most 😫
What would you do now? Complain to the school or beyond?
Thank you in advance for any advice given 🙂

I really don't understand this, so your dh was contacted before lunch but couldn't get there does he work over 3 hours away? the problem here is that you did not collect her promptly. There's no excuse you need to have someone who is avaliable to collect your child you left her sitting there in isolation.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

Just to consider - it's hard when a bubble closes. Logistically.

We need to move children out really quickly. Staff too. The room is closed while they are in there, toilets are allocated and other children have to be diverted, there is government office stuff to be done, so someone is doing that, there are letters to go out, someone is doing that, someone with the children, someone to run children back and forth to exit doors, someone on the exit door to meet parents/deal with concerns, someone to get children's stuff from the cloakroom and run it to the classroom, someone to get lunches if necessary. Meanwhile children (and staff) are upset, the rest of the school staff get an email, other staff are upset/anxious.

Last time I happened to be out of class. I had to mop up the class teacher in the toilets, deal with a crying TA, 3 crying children, then I ran lunches back and forth up the corridor, then I escorted children to the allocated toilets. Meanwhile the head was on the door, the class teacher pulled herself together and started sorting out work packs to go home (without leaving the room, so other TAs were pulled out of other classes to get work through the photocopier, another admin person was putting those things together in envelopes).

And then parents don't pick up the phone, or just can't quite get to pick a child up. Who might already be distressed.

Yeah, it's a super situation for all.

They still should have fed her something though.

Was that at the beginning of the pandemic (in which case understandable)? My experience was kids waiting outside in playground with teacher for parents to collect. No PE kit kept at school, no cloakrooms in use, learning already set up from the last lockdown and in place in case anyone needs to isolate (if the notification had come earlier or the previous evening they wouldn’t have turned up at school to collect any worksheets anyway). A bit of a pain for all involved but very well planned and all very calm without any upset. As people have said it’s just become a normal thing which everyone, including parents, need to plan for. OP slipped up but that’s not the childs fault and the school should have a plan which includes a safe supervised environment as there are many unavoidable circumstances were children might have to stay on in school

Both the school and you were at fault. The child who was not at fault suffered bh having no food. A poor show. Uncontactable even by your DH.

I think you just have to put it down to very unusual circumstances, I would just apologise for not being able to pick her up and mention she was a bit upset as she didn't have anything to eat. It's not the schools fault though that no one was able to pick her up so I certainly wouldn't be complaining. Could your DH not have phoned your work and asked someone to give a message to you?

As everyone has said the school should have fed her but of course the main issue is you and your oh's poor organisation. He shouldn't have just said sorry too far away and left it at that, he should have phoned a relative to collect, your dc could've warn a face cover and sat in the back with the window open.

It sounds like the school punished her because you and her father couldn't get there. I think that is awful, if they have an issue with you they need to address that but while she is in their care they need to feed her.

What a stupid statement. Schools don't behave like this. It was clearly an oversight. No one is punishing the child by withholding food.

You or your husband should have collected her sooner. You are in the wrong and you let her down - sorry.

You wouldn’t be even having this conversation or making this post if you’d have picked her up when you were meant to. We’ve all know for over a year know that there’s a risk that children need to be immediately collected from school because of covid. You should have had a plan A, B, C and D in place. Seriously you need to let this go.

@gamerchick what i meant was the OP hasn't said (i think) that she was AT work, just that her phone was dead.

If she's a SAHM or on a non-working day, and just out running errands, then there wouldn't BE a work number to call.

@Dolphin7 - as others have said the bigger issue here is that neither of you were available to pick up your DD when asked, and did not have a a back up plan. What if she'd been rushed to hospital for something??

The whole point of children having multiple contacts on file is that there's a back-up if a parent is unreachable (eg your battery dying). Surely if your DH works several hours away, as you've told us, and would therefore not be in a position to get to her school quickly, you need an alternative emergency contact like a neighbour, family membe or friend.

We dont have relativs nearby but our lovely neighbours are on file as emergency contacts. They're retired so mostly at home... and near the school.

Why the hell did your DH not call someone else??

You said you couldn't think of any reason why you would have any other parents' contact details.

I said 'Why would I?'

You couldn't think why anyone would have them.

I didn't say this.

Even though apparently, now, you DID have those details for your other children.

My other children are not relevant. Like I said, bad wording on my part but I was referring to not having the parent details for my current primary school child

And yet you still find it unfathomable why anyone would.

I still haven't said this.

As a parent with a disabled child, i am NOT perfect, but i charge my mobile EVERY night, and start the day on 100% before i ever leave my house, i also have chargers in my car.

IF for some bizarre reason the fault is with my phone not being able to charge, i have a tablet with a giffgaff sim and 4g capability that can receive email and i phone the school from home to tell them to email me in an emergency and i check that periodically while out!

As a parent who might need to be contactable at a moments notice i always make sure i am available and contactable, and on the rare occasion that i am not, i make sure i have contingencies in place.

Perhaps the OP will use this as a learning curve to make sure she has a back-up in the event of an uncharged phone.

I still think the school should have fed her DD though.

So instead of leaving them with their teacher, already exposed, in their classroom, already exposed, your school would want a social worker to come and collect the child, exposing social worker, and take them where?

Yes, ancientgran that's correct. Stupid isn't it? And then the said social worker would take the child to foster carers who in advance had agreed to have potentially covid positive children in the very short term. I am a foster carer myself but as my husband is CEV we could not agree (and I'm not at all sure how they got others to agree). But that was the system in place should children in the OP's daughter's situation not be collected promptly when asked by the school to. To my mind you have then potentially infected four places - school/social worker/foster home/own home. But when did social services ever have common sense?

It's a mix up on a busy day. Yes, the school should have fed her. Yes, you/your husband/a relative/someone should have picked her up earlier. Forget it and move on.

@Dolphin7

OH could not have collected sooner than I was able to due to physical distance, transport etc. Otherwise he would have been there. Thank you for agreeing DD should have been fed, DD is fine thank you, Covid-19 negative after home test, she was a superstar didn't even retch!! Did better than I did!!

The fact your child has sen is completely irrelevant. They should have fed her. Equally you,should have been contactable. Where were you that you couldn’t be contacted. We’re you somewhere that your husband knew where you were. What I’m getting at is, was it not possible for someone to ring you on a landline, ie, if someone knew where you were. You have contributed to the issue by your poor emergency planning so I wouldn’t bother to complain.

I think you are getting a bit of an unfair roasting here OP, but I think saying you want to complain rather than raise it as an FYI for the future is an issue.

Yes, they should have fed her..it was clearly a mistake. I can't imagine a school which would deliberately get a child to miss a meal. The fact you were charged indicates they haven't realised she didn't eat. Mistakes happen.

As for the comments on not being able to pick up early/dead battery...it was just unfortunate. I think it's a bit unfair to be saying how awful it was no one came etc...these things happen. I'm sure going forward OP will charge her phone!

And the dad...lots of comments about 'he can't leave his big important job to collect?'... Well we don't know what the job is. Maybe he's a heart surgeon and if he left surgeries would have to be rescheduled.

My other half had been contacted and could not collect earlier than the normal collection time due to work commitments and travel etc

I am struggling to understand what work commitment is more important that collecting your young children from a covid positive situation, or indeed why their journey to work would involve 3 or 4 hours each way. But I assume the OP's husband is something like a surgeon working many, many miles away. In which case it's probably sensible to have another contact in place too.

I think this is why we need to stop sending kids home to isolate due to close contact tbh. I really don't think its necessary anymore.

And to the OP, I'd be pissed off too.

In all fairness knowing my child needed to isolate as a covid risk - there are few people I would ring to collect her when she could continue waiting safely in school. Presumably the teacher, or TA from that day would be allowed to wait in class until all the children had been collected before they went home?

This is an entirely different situation than being in hospital with no carer or emotional support.

It was a one off and I would treat it as such.

@supersonicsue

My other half had been contacted and could not collect earlier than the normal collection time due to work commitments and travel etc

I am struggling to understand what work commitment is more important that collecting your young children from a covid positive situation, or indeed why their journey to work would involve 3 or 4 hours each way. But I assume the OP's husband is something like a surgeon working many, many miles away. In which case it's probably sensible to have another contact in place too.

Or he might have been out the area working - like I was last week which was a three hour drive away then three hours back!

There are a number of issues here.
First, of COURSE the school would not have deliberately done this to punish the child, ffs.
Second, as @RuleWithAWoodenFoot has pointed out, the closure of a class/year group due to Covid is a massive ball-ache to organise, even with prior practice and systems in place.
This will have been either a pure oversight (and yes, of COURSE the child should have been fed), BUT I would imagine that it's also quite likely that the school might well have assumed your dd was going to be picked up at any moment and would therefore be fed at home. Even if your dh said quite explicitly that no one would be able to get there for quite some time and then forgot about it as after all it's "wimmin's work" it's likely that part of the message didn't get through to those who could have thought, "right, let's get her some lunch."

But ultimately, it was a perfect storm of unfortunate events. Yes, she should have been fed, but then so too should either you or her father been able to deal with it. Absolutely not on to complain, although you could perhaps point it out to them so it could be avoided in future.

It doesn't really matter that dh couldn't physically pick up it's more what he did or didn't do after that. Was there lots of messages from him when your phone charged? Did he try to contact your work or colleagues? If he tried and then didn't have any luck did he phone the school back to get the latest info and talk through a solution? If not I would be raging at him not the school.

I don't understand why so many of you are horrified at the dad not being able to get there within 3 hours. There are a lots of jobs where you can't just drop everything and run out the door, where things have to be tied up first. Yes he might be a heart surgeon, but may also man a petrol station on his own, he might be a social worker in the middle of a home visit or a crisis meeting. And a long commute is not that unusual.

And OP I agree it's shoddy that your DD wasn't given lunch.

Or he might have been out the area working - like I was last week which was a three hour drive away then three hours back!

You’d think the o/p might have mentioned that? Her post didn’t indicate there were out of the ordinary reasons her dh couldn’t collect- in fact at first it was “work commitments and travel” amended later to being too far away to collect.

Plus if your Dh is travelling for work, even more reason to check your phone is charged. What if he’d had an rtc or got stuck in traffic and was trying to get in touch?

@miltonj

I agree OP, a pandemic is not a reason to leave children hungry by them selves all day. It's cruel and neglectful.

I think that you missing that the school had called the DH and expected her to be collected shortly.