School transported children in a pupil's grandmother's car without my permission

[muppetsmum]

My 8 year old daughter had an away match today which I was planning on going to watch, and I got a phone message from school asking me if I was going, and if so would I mind taking my daughter and one or two others as they were short of seats on the minibus. I couldn't go in the end and left a message in reply to this effect. When my daughter came home, she told me that they had indeed been short of room on the bus and had asked some girls to go with parents/family who were going to the match. She volunteered, and, with two others, had made the 45 minute journey driven by one of the girls' grandmothers!!! We know the family, I happen to have met the lady in question and have no personal problem with them, but surely the school isn't allowed to just send kids off with 'unknown' family members, whose personal/medical history/driving ability/car safety are presumably not known to them? I'm normally very laid back about stuff, but surely somebody should have rung me to check I was OK with this? Not knowing anything about this granny's health, I would certainly not have been happy to have a 70+ year old driving 3 giggly, excited girls a significant distance. Am I going mad or is this totally unacceptable?

Hasn't your daughter been taught to refuse to get into a car until you have given her permission to?

Virtually all child abductions are carried out by people children know, who trick the into coming along. It is absolutly vital that children are taught this very basic rule, whoever it is, whoever tells you to get into the car DO NOT GET IN without your parents permission.

I wouldn't have been happy about this either. Was the woman background checked?

I wasn't there to give/refuse permission, but teachers were and I don't suppose you would reasonably expect an 8 year old to refuse to do what the teachers are asking her to. No, she was just a random grandma of one of my daughter's classmates who was going to watch the match - in no way background checked or checked to have a clean driving licence/safe car, I think it was all a bit chaotic TBH.

oh, what would the school have done if the lady had had an accident? a bit worrying.

If it was after school the onis is on your dd to accept it refuse.
If it was during school they should have checked however I still think it's not a big issue.

I wasn't there to give/refuse permission, but teachers were and I don't suppose you would reasonably expect an 8 year old to refuse to do what the teachers are asking her to.

exactly, parents are rarely present when children are abducted.

Children have to be taught it is entirely reasonable to refuse to get into a car without parental permission, WHOEVER is telling the to do it.

No it doesn't come naturally - it has to be drilled into them.

This was in school time. This lady could, for all school knew about her, have come straight from the pub/have been banned from driving/be on the CSO register/have bald tyres/an unroadworthy car/no rear seat belts etc etc. All manner of unknowns. I've no reason to think any of these are the case but if any harm had come to the children I cannot imagine the school's position would be defensible. I find it very scary.

Hang on a minute. The school asked you if you could take your dd and some others, then, as you were unable, they sent them with someone else.
Have you passed the same scrutiny that you are expecting the grandmother to have been subjected to?
It ALL sounds wrong. They shouldn't have been asking either you OR the grandmother, imo. Parents taking their own kids, sure - asking parents to arrange carpool lifts fine - but not this.

Could I please point out that my issue here is with the school's actions, not my daughter's - I really don't feel that she did anything wrong here so find it a bit upsetting that it's being suggested she might have poor judgement. She was simply being helpful in responding to a request from her teachers and I see nothing bad in that.

I don't know if you can speak to OFSTED about this?

I agree TheExMotherInLaw, which is why I would only have done it with direct permission from the parents involved (all of whom I know well and have car pooled with to non-school events many times, but as it was in school time I would regard it as being different).

I'm not suggesting she has poor judgement, I am pointing out that she is extremely vulnerable if she hasn't been taught not to do this. The incident shouldn't have happened, but she has come to no harm, however in the future she might.

It isn't actually that easy, you can teach children never to get into a car without parental permission, but the chances are they will anyway....

doesn't mean you don't teach it though, or that youdon't talk to her now VERY seriously about what she did

Charis, I disagree. When a child is at school the teachers are in loco parentis. Children need to be able to accept that if the teacher says another adult is okay then they are okay.

Issues about parental permission are between the school and the parents, not between the child and the school.

They asked you to give other children a lift and when you couldn't they got someone else to give them a lift. What did you think would happen? Therr still wasnt room on the bus. Why are you OK with other children getting in a car with you but not your child with others?
You could have been at the pub etc too.

Sorry, I'm perplexed, too. And why the three exclamation points after "grandmothers"? You are ok to do it but not a grandmother? Have you provided your health information to the school?

I disagree totally catkind. It is very basic child protection procedure. No teacher should ever ever be telling a child it is ok to get into a car without parental permission. Every child should know a teacher has no authority to do that. The teacher's were totally in the wrong, but the children should have known better than to go along with it.

The road near our secondary school was closed by a n accident once, and the head teacher and deputy head teacher put several children in their cars and drove them a mile and a half to where the bus had been diverted to. Only those children who could contact a parent to get permission got into those cars, quite rightly. My son rang me at work and told me who's car he was getting in. Other pupils who couldn't contact a parent, walked the mile and a half instead.

Correct procedure both from children and teacher's.

An after school club supervisor once gave my 9 year old DC a left home, because another after school club supervisor, who I paid to do it, was called away suddenly. DC was in very serious trouble from me when I found out, and I made a formal complaint against the supervisor too, who had broken all the rules by asking.

My child knew it was wrong and tried to refuse, but the woman had insisted. It is very hard for a child to refuse someone in authority, but they have to be taught it is the right thing to do. My child was left in no doubt that they had done totally the wrong thing, and they refused a few months later when another teacher tried to make them get into the car. That teacher, it transpired, had a faked CRB form, and was sacked when it came to ight.

I can understand the worry, but this all seems a bit of an extreme reaction, if you knew the family. Why does being 70 make someone s bad driver? The poor woman seems to have been castigated for helping your daughter.

Have a word with the school, by all means, but talk of child abduction and OFSTED is OTT.

You knew the bus was full so unless some kind grandmother or other parent volunteered how else did you think your child was going to get there?

This is a common occurrence in DD's school. You have to be DBS cleared, and have shown school your driving licence, MOT certificate and insurance, which they keep a copy of on file.

I just don't get it. The parents of the 'one or two others' that you were going to transport should just suck it up. But the poor helpful gp of another child does exactly the same as you were going to do and suddenly it's a child abduction issue.
What did you think was going to happen when you said you couldn't provide transport? Obviously another parent was going to have to be drafted in - a gp in this instance but that's irrelevant.

The 8 year old was not at fault at all. Her teacher told her to get in the car and she did as she was told because that member of staff has authority over her and the child knows that her parents trust the school and teachers to do the right thing. The 8 year old wasn't to know not to trust what she was being told to do by a responsible adult who was her teacher. It is completely unreasonable and ridiculous to suggest that the child is in any way at fault for getting in the car. Teachers tell children to do things all the time that random adults in the street don't do. They are expected to do as they are told. Her PE teacher can stand there while the girls get changed. She can tell her to stand on her head. To vault over a box. To walk a balance beam. The onus is on the teacher to plan and risk assess what she is asking children to do. The same goes for much older kids too. Kids don't risk assess the demands of their teachers. "No miss, I've given it consideration but in fact I can't be sure Emily's grandmother has a clean licence or indeed any licence and thinking back on previous journeys I am wondering if my parents have in fact authorised this arrangement formally... I believe not and that therefore this journey has neither been risk-assessed, nor has parental permission been sought and it is therefore with regret that I must decline." ?? Really? She's EIGHT. Kids of 15 don't think beyond the next meal. She's hardly likely to synthesise all that information and make an adult decision over her teacher!

The school is at fault here because they should not have allowed any journey to take place without doing all the checks mentioned above and get parental permission. This is black and white.

It is irrelevant to suggest to the OP that the bus was full so how did she think her daughter would get there. The only option the school had was to cancel the trip. That was it.

I regularly helped when my DS was in his final year of primary, they had a lot of sporting events during the day.

The form that was sent out asking permission for a child to attend also included asking if it was ok for a parent to drive- I'm assuming your form didn't OP?

I had to then provide my license and insurance. Oh and my DBS, but the school knew I had one of those as I worked at the school at the time

As every teacher knows, or should, teachers, headteachers etc cannot and must not transport students in their own cars, unless they have the very specific insurance to do so. Obviously as school staff, the DBS is a given.
I would therefore be asking if those criteria had been satisfied for casual drivers as well. Obviously they won't have been, maybe the school is unaware of just what an absolute no no it is. Or maybe they were thinking on their feet and needed to transport kids from A to B quickly. It was wrong for them to ask anyone to do it and I agree you should address it. With the HT at first.
And of course it wasn't your dd's fault. Talk about victim blaming.
It sounds to me like the whole thing was badly organised and they thought nobody would say anything.

And what does the driver's age have to do with it? There was a thread riddled with casual ageism about older drivers not so long ago.

The main points about whether the driver is competent, the car roadworthy, and appropriate insurance in place are nothing whatsoever to do with age (or sex or fecundity).