School reported daughter's dream to social services, should I complain?

[Maya2233]

Hi, I need some advice. My daughter, she just turned four, is in reception.We have a very loving and beautiful relationship i never even shouted at her. I love her so much. Never had any complaint in nursery or never anything of any sort. So what happened is I went to pick her up today and the head teacher, she called me on the side and it was during the carpet time that she mentioned that mummy hit me on the head. the teacher who was there, was not the class teacher. class teacher was absent. She was another teacher. So she took her to the office and there my daughter, she said the same thing and then she said that it was a dream. So what they did is they reported this to the social services. I am so cross at this as she did mention that it was a dream. And when I went to pick her up and I asked her, the first thing she said was that mummy, I saw a dream last night that you hit me on the head. So I am so unhappy about this, and I don't know how to take this forward, because how can you complain this thing to the social services? The social services didn't even contact me.I don't know why would they bother about a dream. But I am so upset about this. Do I have any rights to complain about the teacher? The class teacher came today she was also surprized and said i know you guys and i am so sorry about this and i will handle everything.

You can absolutely complain to the school if you are unhappy about how this matter has been handled.

But you will be wasting both your time and theirs, because your complaint will not be upheld. The school have followed basic safeguarding procedures. They are not going to apologise to you for this.

Think about what you want to achieve here. What good is complaining actually going to do? It won't change the school's approach. It will mark you out as unreasonable and excessively defensive.

@Waytoohothot thought the OP should be concerned about the dream not the school.

I don't know how to take this forward

Easy - you don't take it forward. You thank your lucky stars your child is in a school that takes its safeguarding duties seriously.

It's not an accusation, OP. It's the correct response to a child saying she was hit.

We have safeguarding training. We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t report something like this. A new law has been brought in that says teachers can now be prosecuted if they don’t report concerns. It is odd. I’ve been teaching 20 years and I’ve never had a child say something like this about a dream.

Out of interest, on what do you base your opinion that it was over the top? Genuine question, I hasten to add.

Both

i suspect this school has existing and growing concerns and this was the icing on the cake so to speak

I think the school did the right thing but I also think just having dreams is absolutely normal and no cause for concern in itself as implied by a pp. I don't know how to explain myself any further so I'm not going to try.
For reference, this is what I was replying to

'Waytoohothot · Yesterday 22:31
Re reading your post i find it odd that your only concern is to complain and not to worry that your child is having bad dreams and why she is having bad dreams, and the fact as already pointed out that youve never shouted at her....she dreamt someone hit her, id start there'

For the best

Agree!

I’ve worked as a teacher/lecturer for 15 years. The DSL decided to refer straight to SS as an outcome over investigation observation. This is unlikely if no other evidence/concerns especially as the child said it was a dream before interacting again with her parent. It’s not like she came back the next day and said it. The class teacher was new and not the usual teacher also. They didn’t speak to the normal class teacher. If the DSL decided to refer to SS I think either it was a rash ‘just in case’ which isn’t how safeguarding process should work. Or there is more to the story.

What would the safeguarding requirements have been, here, that the DSL went beyond?

My safeguarding training is limited but my understanding is that anything which rings alarm bells is to be passed on to the DSL who is the person specially trained in what to do with information (much of which has to be reported by way of intelligence rather than because they believe something needs doing immediately) and the parameters within which DSL's function are extremely strict.

This is a young child
recounting a disturbing dream
anyone with an iota of experience in this arena know that child often open up about things that they are distressed about via drawings, stories… dreams

Ok…… Then the person in question reports their safeguarding concern to the DSL. Rightly so. However for the DSL to report to SS with no other evidence of harm is unusual. Do you think anytime a child says something like that ‘dream
or not it goes straight to SS? No it doesn’t so either OP is omitting information or DSL jumped the gun which would be unusual

I don’t believe there was “no other evidence”