I viewed a primary school for my child and as we were being shown around the building (a two story porta-cabin), I noticed that the classroom had about 8-10 year 2 children getting changed for after-school sports club.
One boy was walking around without his top, saying he has lost his sports kit. Another was scoffing down what looked like a chocolate bar, and another was accusing someone else of stealing his shoes. They were in a class full of computers, at the top of the stairs, and were totally unsupervised for the whole time we were standing in the doorway talking about the school. How long they would have been there before we turned up is anyone's guess.
The person doing the guided tour led us out of the building and didn't notice that one boy had been left alone in the classroom. When someone raised concerns about the safety of this, the person showing us around said she hadn't seen he was left behind, and that she wouldn't have left the room if she had noticed.
Staff at the school told concerned parents that they like to promote independence in the children at an early age, and that they had a high level of staff sickness recently which would account for the children being left alone like that, but would feed back to the head teacher. However someone I know (whose children attended this school) said it wasn't true, that it was indeed common practice, and that we were being fobbed off with excuses.
I am all for promoting independence in children, but I really didn't feel comfortable about a room full of 6 year olds being left unsupervised for as long as 20 minutes. Apart from the damage they could cause to each other if a fight broke out over 'stolen shoes', I hate to think what a lone 6 year old could get up to in a classroom on his own!
I then wondered how normal this is for schools to leave young kids unattended like this. Any thoughts anyone?