Can school stop this?

[CherryCherri]

My son collects my daughter from school whilst I wait outside with my other child. My son is 12 and my daughter is 7. The school were fine with this as I was waiting just outside and they are aware of this, never been a problem for 2 years. However a new headteacher started last year and suddenly it’s now a problem. Now siblings have to be 16 to collect. I explained my situation and why my son is collecting and that I’m waiting right outside and at no point is he ever expected to bring her home alone, they were ok with this until recently and now it’s a problem again. I’ve repeated again I am just right outside, members of staff can see me and I can see my son the whole time he is in the playground but nope they have refused and said he isn’t allowed to collect her and bring her to me. Now I hear time and time again on here that schools can’t dictate this but can they? They refused to allow my daughter to go with my son the other day so seems the school do have the final say. I’m asking if I insist he collects her can they stop it and I’m guessing all they could do is refer to ss, how would ss view this situation?

If they don't want to be childminder they can just let the child walk out with their sibling as they have for the last two years..?

The problem is entirely of the school's making.

You aren't answering the posts about what steps you have taken.

Have you written to the school?
Have you spoken to the head?
Have they said why they won't make the adjustment?
Have you engaged the complaints procedure?

Is there a class WhatsApp or Facebook page where you could ask?

I used to pick up once a week (childminder otherwise as I was working) and I would happily have walked a class mate of my DC across the playground to her mum even if I didn’t know the mum.

It sounds ridiculous but ultimately if you don’t like the new heads way of doing things, perhaps it’s better to look at a different school.

As an ex social worker I don't think you can insist that a dc is released to another quite young dc. I would be thoroughly unimpressed by my time being wasted by you and the school and would tell you to have a meeting and sort it yourselves.
You always have the option of moving schools if you can't work with the SLT at your current school.
But I would work on compromising.

Agree with this. Does this mean he can't do these things, ever? And the awkwardness of the situation must be pretty rubbish for him, regardless of the rights or wrongs.

I have no idea if they CAN do it but I think it's ridiculous that they are doing it. A half sensible 12 year old is more than capable of walking a half sensible 7 year old home let alone from school to their mum a few meters away. I'm sorry they're making life difficult for what seems to me to be no good reason. I have worked with children that I couldn't have brought into certain environments for behavioral reasons. I'm assuming this is a similar scenario.

Yes I have, I have an email where they have accepted the reasons and said it was ok. This was in may, as explained in my post I informed them of my reasons and they responded saying they understand my reasons and accept them and they will make an exception, this was ok last year no problems, when my daughter went into year 3 so different teacher, they have now decided it’s a problem.

My kids used to sometimes get invited out with friends on inset days.

I’m not going into details there but it’s very common for secondary school kids to collect siblings from school, extremely common.

Well yes, but not any more. Lots of agreements and arrangements go on for years, and then someone new says, "Hang on. This isn't right/necessary."

Obviously we're not in a position to say whether or not the school is being reasonable in this reassessment of your personal circumstances, but the school DO have all the information and have reached this decision.

I think taking the responsibly for this from your son as he gets older is possibly a good thing, for the reasons other posters have outlined - he gets to interact more freely at the end of the school day with friends and so on.

Can the school do it? Yes. Should they have done it? Possibly, nearly every one of my DC's activity groups have revised parent/carer collection/door policies after Southport. A couple of them are mightily inconvenient, but there we go.

I don't have kids so I'm just coming at this with non-parent logic.

They have a safeguarding liability, so worth checking if some guideline somewhere has changed, but they also cannot be ableist. I have to assume that you have a child that cannot be left unattended, and cannot easily be transported from the car. They know you are directly outside the school and you have offered a reasonable solution to a difficult situation.

If what I've written above is roughly the situation, I'd be sending a very brusque letter about the situation, and that if your child isn't released to the sibling, you will leave the premises and the child at that school will need to be dropped to your home.

You are physically at the school. You ARE collecting your child. It sounds completely petty for them not to honour a situation that has worked for years.

I also looked up the law on this and it's pretty clear - as long as they have it clearly documented in writing from you that the sibling will physically collect the child, they cannot legally stop this.

FROM NSPCC WEBSITE:

"There is no law determining the age at which a sibling can accompany a child to school. It is ultimately up to parents and carers to decide whether they feel this is appropriate.
Factors that parents and carers should take into account include:

• the maturity of all the children involved
• the length and nature of the journey home
• the behaviour of all the children involved
• the relationship between the children collecting or being collected.

Some schools prefer not to send a child home with a sibling unless the sibling is aged 14 or older."

So, a school may 'prefer' not to release to a sibling under 14, but they cannot stop it.

https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/schools/dropping-off-and-picking-up-before-and-after-school

(Edited to mark the actual quote from NSPCC site clearly.)

Thanks, but since they've changed their mind.

Have they said why they have changed their mind and have you responded to that?

If that’s the school policy, that’s the school policy.

What’s confusing the issue, is that you’ve previously been allowed the accommodations you mention. If you haven’t already, ask to meet the head, explain the previous arrangement and your reasons for requiring it, and ask why they won’t continue to make reasonable adjustment for your circumstances.

If you don’t get a satisfactory outcome, ask for their complaints procedure and start a complaint.

Presumably there are a lot of parents now affected, if 11-15 year olds were previously collecting and now are not?

Can you all discuss a solution together?

What would you do if your 12 year old was not with you?
Do they never have a club/go to a friend's house/other reason?

The thing is though whether they're right or wrong you still need to find a way to force the issue if the school keeps saying no. You could use the school's complaints procedure and follow the steps till you get high enough up the chain and someone with the power to do so agrees to somehow overrule the head, but it's a lot of time and effort for an uncertain result or you tell your kids to ignore the teacher and to just leave anyway and it really isn’t fair to put that on them. It's not so much about whether they do or don't have this power and more about how you go about getting what you want and that could involve a lot of exhausting time and effort. Is there another solution that could work? Due to my disability I pick up my DC from the front office. Maybe you could talk to the head along the lines of this is the reasonable adjustment needed because of my/my DC disability so how do you think we could make that happen? Go in seeking a way to solve the problem, there might be another option you haven't thought of.

Our primary has a new head this year too and she seems to have cracked down on a lot of safeguarding issues, including the pick up and drop off policies. She’s also put a new gate and fence up. Schools do sometimes need a shake up especially if the old head has been there a long time. Sounds like yours is similar. For whatever reason they don’t think you have good reasons to not be there to collect your child. There may be some backstory here that you’re not saying. Schools are not in the business of being awkward for the sake of it

In the primary school my kids went to they were only allowed to let the kids in year 5 onwards to be collected by an under 16 , year 6 did not need to be collected. All other year groups must be an over 16

It occurs to me that you must have a backup plan for when your 12 year old is sick, playing with friends, on a school trip, etc.
Can you use your backup plan more regularly?

I am just right outside, members of staff can see me and I can see my son the whole time he is in the playground

but Just to clarify...

are you standing just outside the school gates with other child?

or are you parked stood outside your car with your other child in the car (but not looking at other child as you can see 7/12 the whole time)

Or are you sat in the car (not always easy to see who is in a car so would staff know its you or just the same car?) -and if so
-are you parked in school grounds in a carpark (do your children have to walk accross carpark to get to you?)

• or parked on the side of a public road (so you children have to cross to get to you?)

Feels Like a big dog is involved somewhere in this tale.

Is it that they've changed their mind about your specific situation and they've decided you shouldn't be exempt from the policy or is it that they've changed the policy overall since May? If they've changed the policy since May then you need to pursue an exemption via a formal meeting with headteacher. If they've removed your exemption from the policy then I'd be asking them to put on record the rationale for that and making a complaint.

I know. Mine did/do it for their sister (10 and 8 year age gap to her respectively). But only on an occasional basis, not regularly and certainly not every day - that would absolutely have curtailed their extra-curricular and social lives.

I was going to give the benefit of the doubt but this was such a rude answer I am going to say the school is right.

In my local community centre for under 8s you have to be over 16 to collect, if they are over 8 they can sign themselves out.