Will I be in trouble for sending my child into school late?

[wools]

DS1(Yr 2)has just started a new school last week. DS2(Reception) is in a school 7 miles away from his brother. Most of the time DH and I are able to drop and pick up both boys on time by doing one school run each. Next week, however, DH won't be able to help with the drop offs on two occasions so I have two school runs to do at exactly the same time. Clearly I can't be in two places at once so was hoping to drop DS2 first and then DS1 - he could be late by 30 minutes. My main worry is this may happen again from time to time as DH cannot always be around to help. We have recently moved to the area and I don't know anybody well enough to ask to help. My question is could I get into trouble for this?

7 miles can easily take half an hour where we live. At ds's school you can drop off and leave from 8.30am even though school start time is 8.50am. You could check to see if your ds1's school does something similar. Means you might still be late but not 30 mins late. We only get marked absent if dcs miss registration bell at 9am.

We have 4 year olds that come to school on their own in taxis, they are however arranged via the LEA rather than privately.

Summersoon - why wouldn't you send a child in a taxi? ds2 had piano lessons in the next town, and from time to time (from age 6 or 7) when I had lots of things to juggle, I would order a taxi and send him in that. It really wasn't a problem. I paid before he set off, and asked the taxi driver to ensure he was getting out safely from the best side of the car.

Can you not send him to the breakfast club anyway? That way only one of you needs to be doing the drop off at all times, which is surely less stressful?

speak to the office / head at the school. don't just do it

Wools, I wouldn't worry too much. Explain the situation to the schools and maybe ask what they would suggest. It's not going to be all the time and you are doing your best. I would hope that the schools could be accommodating of this temporary problem.

Good idea to get to know some of the parents in the playground whose children are in your child's class. Someone will probably be willing to stand with your son and see him in okay if you need to dash off.

Hopefully another place will come up soon.

Book the breakfast club anyway and pay for it for a term. Then you can use it when you need it. Then use the time to get to know other parents and see if you can set up a reciprocal arrangement. By then you might have a place for ds2 anyway.

Thanks to you all for your input - will let you know how I get on.

Apologies if this is already said: in the past, before our school had a breakfast club, some of the children were dropped off a half hour early for this very kind of reason; they hung out in the classroom with their usual teacher who was already on site and preparing. The school was accommodating, is what I mean.

Explain the problem to the school and they'll probably keep the register open for him.

That's quite unusual though, peanutbutterkid - teachers are working at that time, and are not childminders!

Could one of them move schools so they can be dropped off together?