Am I right to be angry with school?

[24hourmommy]

Hi all, so my daughter is in year 3 and she has after school club on Tuesdays. But today when I went to pick her up she was crying. She had been sat not inside school but in the reception area where the doors are constantly open and visitors come and go.

Nobody has informed me or noticed that she has been there for a whole hour! I asked her why she didn’t speak to any staff and tell them and she said she was scared and shy as she is not familiar with some of the staff. But surely if she had left school unnoticed it would be a safeguarding issue. I am a teacher myself but in my school children stay with a member of adult inside the school for a certain time and then parents/guardians are contacted. On schools part they have been very careless.

So would you be angry if this had happened? And should I go speak to the head tomorrow, I know him very well even outside of school but I know he will get all defensive.

I'm a school office administrator and agree with this. This would not have happened where I work because each of the above points would have flagged up that a child was not where they should be. And even if there had been a breakdown in procedure somewhere, no child would be left ignored in the school reception area crying for an hour!

At the very least, a member of the admin team should have checked in with her, reassured her, found her some kind of activity to do whilst she was waiting (i.e. I have a box of books, magazines, colouring pens and paper etc that are always offered to children waiting at the office to be collected for whatever reason) and checked if a call home needed to be made. Even if she had already been spoken to by a teacher.

I am not a 'complain to the school!' type at all - but this really sounds as if the school need to review their procedures ASAP. I hope your DD is okay now OP.

I'd be a bit upset that school didn't do anything but I'd use it as an opportunity to talk to DD and teach her to speak up. Sitting in silence for an hour is ridiculous tbh, and you need to encouraging her to use her voice!

We don't know why OP's DD didn't want to go to the club - but personally I think that's irrelevant. Whether she was feeling unwell, anxious, something had happened in school day, or even if she was just having a strop and refusing to go. Admin should have contacted the parent to say there was a problem and daughter was upset and stuck in reception. Basically she wasn't collected or passed on (to parent/carer/after school club) so it was effectively still the responsibility of the school to contact parent.
Interested to know what the Head is saying.

I'm school admin too. If a child doesn't want to go to a club then if they're unwell we'll phone a parent. If they just don't fancy it then it's tough, they go that time and we'll contact a parent to see if they want to continue or whatever. Kids don't just sit it out in reception. This isn't making any more sense the more details you give. It's not on and school should be bending over backwards to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I think the cover teacher was at fault because he should have told the office that she didn't want to go to the club and that they needed to call you (or call you herself).

It sounds as if the office didn't know she was there, SLT were busy with an emergency and passing teachers did talk to her but just naturally assumed that she was being dealt with by someone else.

I do think that they need to remind staff of the correct procedure for leaving an uncollected child at the office.

This morning at drop off the staff were being weird or I’m being paranoid but it’s seems Ive become ‘that’ parent that teachers discuss. I’m really hating all this attention 🤦🏻‍♀️ Not heard anything from head yet…..so the teacher that passed by was her class teacher and knows that she has club so that’s why she encouraged her to join which is great but also left her sitting in reception because she was (just passing) 🙄 her words.

passing teachers did talk to her but just naturally assumed that she was being dealt with by someone else.

No teacher in my school would leave a child sitting alone in an area where they had access to leave the building. However, we have a procedure for children who aren't collected and know where they should be left (in a visible area, within the secure site). I can't believe her own class teacher would have left her sitting there!

You have complained. Staff have explained. It isn't hard to see that there was a mix up due to the class having a cover teacher and people assuming that someone else knew why she was there. It isn't great but sometimes mistakes will happen. I am not sure what you want from a meeting with the head. All he will do is apologise and explain again what happened. He will tell you that he has spoken to staff about what happened. You already know this.

It isn't hard to see that there was a mix up due to the class having a cover teacher and people assuming that someone else knew why she was there. It is the school's job to ensure these type of mix ups do not happen. That is the whole point of policies and checks.