My 5yo was left alone outside the school

[EezyOozy]

Hi,

I’m going for a meeting with the headteacher of my daughters school later on today and wanted to be prepared. I have already written complaint via email which has triggered this meeting.

Last Friday. We had quite severe snow and ice and I couldn’t get my car out of my property for a few minutes… Long story short I was a few minutes late for pick up. I am never normally late, I don’t think I have ever been late before … need to make that very clear! This was a one off due to extreme weather.

When I arrived at the school, my five-year-old was standing outside on the pavement by herself, crying. There were other people around, but nobody that really knows my daughter, and certainly nobody had noticed her standing there, everybody was just leaving.

There is a different teacher on a Friday to who is there from the rest of the week.

It appears this teacher had led the children down the steps and out of the school, not bothered to check who had an adult there to collect them, and who didn’t.

She then went back up the steps, through the gate, through another gate, back into the playground towards the classroom (round the corner, and behind a wall), which is where I eventually found her standing chatting.

she hadn’t gone completely back into the classroom, but she may as well have done.

She was completely out of my daughters sight and through a gate that cannot be opened by a child from the other side. And was also behind a wall/around the corner.

nothing that bad happened, apart from my daughter, being quite shaken and upset… but it could have done. I did try and phone the office when I realised I was going to be slightly late, but nobody answered. What if I had been 20 minutes late, or had an accident and not turned up at all… these things happen. Not to mention the extreme weather and ice… What if my daughter had tried to walk home by herself or wondered off somewhere else.

My main issues are that the teacher did not check whether or not a parent or guardian was there to collect each child. And simply left her on the pavement outside of the school! The second issue is that she then removed herself … completely out of sight and earshot , and had no idea that my daughter was standing there… Surely they should wait close by?

I’m wondering what to say to the head and how seriously this should be taken.

Do I have a right to ask for the schools, written policies about pick up procedure / what should happen if a child is not collected on time?

I’m worried I’m going to be palmed off , but I simply don’t trust this teacher at all anymore! When I confronted the teacher she just said “oh sorry… I didn’t realise!”

yes of course you didn’t realise… You didn’t do any checks or bother supervise the children properly, so how could you possibly have realised!

EezyOozy

I suspect that
but I’m almost questioning what the point is,
is rhetorical.
But please escalate and continue to escalate and push.
If is clear to me as an ex teacher that the HT is not doing their job correctly and is protecting this member of staff. (possibly because they are a favorite)
As an Ex teacher who suffered under this sort of BS I can say that you will not only be doing the children a fantastic service but also to the members of staff that are suffering under this level of poor management.

Yes, please do this. Hopefully the other parent has nothing to lose by backing you up? This is really bizarre and not how I would expect an efficient, reputable school to be run. (Not an expert, was at school in London in the Sixties and left the country decades ago.)

Wow, what a shit show. If this is how the head deals with safeguarding issues, I'd not want my child to be there. Definitely escalate

Any update OP?

Hi everyone,

Just a very brief update for anybody still following. After the response to my level one complaint, I escalated to level two (quite recently) and also put in a subject access request (before Xmas).

An email bulletin from the school came round today saying that this particular teacher was leaving the school and moving on…. And that the usual Monday to Thursday teacher will now be covering the class on Friday mornings.

Not sure if a coincidence or not!

I’ve decided not to move my children for the mean time due to the very close friendships they have made, and the other class teachers being very good. I have made it extremely clear to the school that I am very concerned by their handling of this incident , lack of transparency/ accountability, that this has damaged my confidence in the school etc…

The council Information Dept have taken over the SAR and I should have a response by the end of next week…. Which I’m still keen to have.

Well whether it’s a coincidence or not doesn’t quite matter as such.
She won’t be able to put your dc in danger again.

Has the school clarified what their pick up procedure is? (You might have answered that already - I can’t quite remember 🫣🫣)

Yes they did but it took them 5 working days from the incident taking place / me complaining initially.

That’s good the teacher is moving on, but the HT’s woeful response and attempt to cover it up is concerning and does need investigating.

Update - SAR request results came back. The head had claimed (in written response to my formal complaint) that she had a written witness statement from a staff member that proved my daughter never left the school grounds AKA my own account of events isn’t true. (Why would I lie?!)

Lo and behold - this written witness statement was not provided to me in the SAR response. Nowhere to be seen. Nearly 100 pages of documents, emails, waffle etc and it wasn’t there.

I asked the dept. deals with SAR’s to check they hadn’t missed anything. I referred them to the paragraph in the heads letter (which they have a copy of) that states this “evidence” exists.

I got a reply from the manager of that dept saying she is looking into it but there is currently nothing to add. Then I got a letter from the school asking me to come for a face to face (eg nothing in writing) chat with the head AND her boss to “move things forward”. I have said I am happy to meet when the SAR is concluded… but that it still isn’t, and until then I’d like to keep everything in writing. I then got another email ignoring what I had said, and asking when I’d like to meet.

I am pretty sure this “evidence” doesn’t exist. Im 99.9% sure it was made up to refute my account. I was certainly very confused to read of it when I got the formal response to my complaint, as there were no staff witnesses around !

I’m unsure if the team handling the SAR will confirm in writing that this doc doesn’t exist …. But I’m pushing them to at least confirm that they don’t have it.

what happens if the LA have to admit that this “written witness statement” (that refuted the incident took place) does not in fact exist? Or words to that effect… they can’t put it in writing can they?

🙄

What is wrong with these people. Why can't they understand

Apologise
Identify and admit how and why things went wrong
Demonstrate the change in procedure so it can't happen again

Yup! That’s all I wanted!

This is unrealistic, a teacher cannot know all the adults that might pick every child up.

@notknowledgeable are you joking? Of course they can. At the school my children go to, if the teacher doesn't recognise the adult they don't let the child go with them until they can check their identity. If children have a play date you have to tell the school that your child is going home with a different adult that day. Some places use a password system, many nurseries do that.

And even so, that's not even what happened here. The teacher didn't hand the child over to anyone at all, and didn't know what had happened to the child at pick up until informed by the OP.

Dont be ridiculous. As if a teacher is going to remember 60 faces or more associated with 30 children from day 1. or even by day 101.

There are only about 10 kids in the class.

but anyway… I posted my update really just wondering what might be happening now re the non existent evidence. Is it normal to be pressured into face to face meetings rather than keeping things in writing? Are the SAR team legally bound to be completely transparent about this “witness statement” not existing? Or might they try and wriggle out of saying anything at all….

i can’t believe it’s actually gone this far!

@notknowledgeable it's what happens. It's not hard for a reception teacher to be able to do this. They have meetings with parents before children start school, including home visits. They will often know parents already from having had older siblings in their previous classes and so on and so on. Some children go to after school care, so don't get picked up straight from the reception teacher. After school care at my school uses the password system. So it's not remembering 60 plus different adults, it's a lot less. And that's before you consider a class that's less than 30, often only 20 or 15 in some schools. And strangely, teachers are good at remembering faces and names for some reason!

@notknowledgeable day 1? No. Tbh the first whole week is a struggle. But it absolutely is a requirement to not only know the adults, but all possible exceptions too like "Jimmy can't be picked up by dad", "sarah can only be picked up by mum on Fridays" and "If either parent shows up, alert SLT and remove Samuel from the classroom ". It's all part of safeguarding.

I promise you it is not what happens, and I have been that teacher, and know many others too. you are expecting some sort of superhuman power of memory that is totally impossible to hold anyone to

Bloody hell, just read the whole thread and it just gets worse and worse, although you must be relieved the Friday teacher has left.

@NatalieNatalieNatalie yes that is one massive weight off my mind.

I think if the SAR doesn't come back with the witness statement document, then you can simply say any time that the Head tries to refer to it that the document doesn't exist. If it did, then you would have been provided with it. If they have a copy, they should have provided it as part of the SAR and if they are admitting they withheld it then you will be writing to the ICO. They can't have it both ways.

Our school recently put out a message reminding everyone to inform school if someone not know to school would be picking up dc. To avoid dc being brought back into school whilst parents are called to give permission for their dc to be taken. So good schools absolutely do this. Anyway it isn’t particularly relevant to the OP as her child was allowed to walk out of school alone, into the road.
OP I would go in to see what they want to say to you, but I would take someone with you to witness the meeting. Maybe they will admit face to face what they won’t put into writing. Maybe they have a plan to prevent it happening again which I assume is what you want?