Text from school saying my 6yo was absent when I dropped him off

[SugarCookieMonster]

I had an awful scare this afternoon. My DS(6) had school until 3pm and then after school club until 4pm (in the school but different teacher running it).

I dropped him off this morning and he walked past his teacher who was talking to another parent so we didn’t say hello as we normally would. At 10 past 3, I was WFH and had a text from the school saying my DS (mentioned by name) had missed registration and was absent from school. They have morning and afternoon registration. I immediately tried calling the school but as it was after official school hours nobody was answering and the answerphone kicked in. After a few minutes of trying not to panic I decided to walk over to the school directly as it’s at the end of our road.

I got to reception and my face must have said it all as the lady immediately apologised and said the text had been sent in error. She’d sent a retraction after but by then I was already out the door. I just burst into tears. She offered to get DS so I could take him home but I didn’t want him to see me upset over what turned out to be nothing so I went home.

Honestly felt sick. I feel a bit stupid for going straight there but it felt very ‘time is of the essence’ as I was panicking that he’d been missing for hours. I get that it was an admin error but it’s shaved a few years off me.

That must have been a horrible horrible shock. I'd be requesting an investigation into exactly what happened there and how it can be stopped from happening again.

I'm glad everything is ok.

What a fright. Go easy on yourself, I think any parent would have reacted the same way.

Same thing happened to my DD. Luckily I was working from home that day so rushed to the school but my heart was in my throat it was awful. I can’t imagine the stress if I was in London that day not wfh and had to rush to the school thinking she was missing.

Really? I’d just accept it was human error and try to be more resilient.

I have had the same happen where they’ve rang me and I’ve said she’s at school…

The most frustrating part is they don’t contact parents until late morning. I feel they should contact by no later than 9:30 if they are concerned a child is absent.

It’s even happened at secondary school but she has the Life360 app so I get an alert when she arrives.

Oh behave yourself! @100PercentFaithful ! As if you wouldn't be worried to get a message at 3 to say your kid hadn't been at school all day😂

I get these messages frequently for my son who is in secondary school, I then message him to see where he is and most of the time he's in class! Or he's in assembly and a register hasn't been taken. I then need to phone school and say he is there 🙄.

My ds primary school quite often don't message when he is actually absent. He walks himself ot school so I really just have to trust that he does make it to school! (It's a short safe walk, he's 10).

I don't trust the system in the slightest.

It’s happened to me too. Just someone pressing the wrong button. I was mildly concerned but obviously knew she wasn’t absent as I knew I’d dropped her off.

Both my dcs schools have done this to me repeatedly, most recently last week when the dc was in fact not there (so they were correct) However they had been correctly called in sick yet been marked present for all other periods lessons so it took till mid afternoon for one random lesson to decide they weren’t there and send a text. Two hours later.

they do it to me when the dc have walked to school themselves too and that’s a bit of a killer

IME the schools know where 90% of their pupils are at any given time and it’s just luck the other 10% turn up most of the time

I work in attendance. Unfortunately this happens when a teacher marks a child out on the register by accident. There's numerous reasons why this might be and we try and double check everything but sometimes we are doing so many things at the same time we make mistakes. We really try not to because we know it causes alarm but school staff are only human. We always apologise profusely when this happens.

Had this before from nursery on their app.

They do an alert every time your child is signed in or out. I dropped him off as normal and got the signed in alert, an hour later he’s “signed out of (room name)”.

Was straight on the phone as my worst fear was that someone had purported to be a relative and collected him (there’s a password but you never know!). Alas, it was a mistake, but I remember that feeling of my stomach dropping a foot inside me.

Thanks for the supportive replies.

The admin team sent out the absence text instead of another school update. It went to the whole school, but 90% of the kids were with their parent/caregiver by then (and would have immediately known it was an error), only the 2-3 small after school clubs were still on the premises.

@Kibble29 yes that feeling of my stomach dropping is exactly what I experienced. I think not being able to get through on the phone just made it 10 times worse.

Exactly. Mistakes happen.

She hasn’t said she wouldn’t be worried. Just that she wouldn’t demand an investigation into what is obviously a mistake.