Should school have let me know that ds didn’t arrive.

[AFOLNerd]

Ds 14 (not quite so d at the moment!) decided to bunk of school yesterday.
He has a bit of a cold and wanted to stay home and I told him to take some painkillers and suck it up like the rest of us.
So he decided that he would pretend to go to school and wait until I left for work and then come home.
I finish work after he gets home from school so was completely oblivious to the fact he didn’t go to school until I got a text from school at 6.30pm last night stating that “your child was absent today please call us and let us know why”

So at that point he had potentially been missing for 9 hours!

I am beyond angry with ds and he will be dealt with severely.
I rang the school and spoke to someone who told me that they don’t have to let parents know that a child hasn’t arrived. Surely that is a huge safeguarding risk? In 9 hours if he had run away he could have been halfway across the country or lying in a ditch while I thought he was safe at school.

Also she told me that they don’t punish in school for bunking off and it’s down to me to punish him. Which seems completely crazy.

Would love other people’s opinions on this.

Massive safeguarding breach. The school would a) fail an Ofsted and b) open itself up to legal action had any problems arisen. You should take it up with the HT not someone more junior.

The schools mine went to had an automated text messaging service if the children weren't registered for every single class. I also had frequent calls from one of the schools when DD had forgotten to tell the teacher that she was at a music lesson.

Schools have a duty to investigate any unexplained absence, but I’m not sure there’s any specific guidance as to how urgently. Most schools would get a text sent/phonecall made before lunchtime.

noble I think there's a golden couple of hours type of thing which means the parent or carer should be notified by around 10am.

I would agree, goodbye but I can’t find anything firmly written down in government guidance.

All I can find is that absences should be followed up in order that appropriate safeguarding action can be taken.

noble I don't think it is written down but any problems which arose (DC going awol and coming to harm as opposed to sneaking back to the safety of home) could be firmly laid at the school's door if it doesn't notify the parent within a reasonable length of time - which to my mind would be once the registers are in plus not much more than an hour. The whole point is to prevent harm coming to the DC, and the window for prevention is fairly narrow, as the police are only too aware.

Our school texts if the pupil hasn't arrived by 10a.m.

But the question was ‘should the school have let me know he didn’t arrive?’

The school says that they don’t have to. It feels like the school should have to, and indeed other schools would have. The OP needs to be able to pin the school down on this.

All I could find in the government docs was this. The school could say that it was following up the absence to ascertain the reason but the OP could certainly query that if the school didn’t know where her DS was, and she didn’t know where her DS was, how could the school ensure proper safeguarding action was taken when they didn’t let her know till 6:30pm?

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/739764/Guidance_on_school_attendance_Sept_2018.pdf

Yes quite noble. The school says it doesn't but it's wrong and that should be challenged to prevent possible future harm to any of its students.

I would escalate this - to at least the Head.
At my DC's school you get phoned if you haven't reported an absence by 10 am.

I agree with Noble. Our policy states parents will be notified within 30 mins but I don't know of any legislation requiring it. Maybe check their attendance or safeguarding policy.

Appalling and a massive safeguarding fail. They should have a policy of notifying parents when kids don't register in the morning, and there should absolutely be school-based consequences for truancy, what are they playing at?

My ds is flagged as a suicide risk at the moment so he's on their "first call" register - they call me first if he doesn't turn up as expected, before all the other potential truants. I wonder whether your school would bother with that?

We had issues with the buses the week before last and DD was late for school. We got an automated text at 10.06 to say she hadn't registered for her first lesson (which really panicked DH who hadn't also had her text saying she was late). I thought all schools did that now?

Are the school's, policies on their website or could your request them to see what they say. I would be expecting to here during the morning and that when DSS has bunked off his mum has had a call before lunch. Although disciplining for bunking off is down to you, monitoring his attendance is the school's responsibility so it may be worth asking for a word with his year head about a more pre-emptive approach.

Dd's school texts after registration and calls at break if you haven't contacted them or the child hasn't turned up. I'd say it's pretty late to be notifying you at 6pm tbh.

I do feel sorry for this generation. I spent many a random day bunking off. Worse, I was dropped off, I registered (6th form) and then left school to get the bus back home

Thanks for all the replies.
School are now claiming that they sent the text at 11.30am yesterday. (So he had still been awol for 3 hours at that point) I had signal all day and received other texts during the day so I don’t understand why that one would be delayed.
However obviously I hadn’t replied to their text so surely it should have been chased up with a phone call to find out where ds was.
Member of staff was very rude on the phone, talked over me continuously and wouldn’t listen to my point of view at all. Kept stating that it’s impossible to keep track of 1200 kids and she doesn’t have time to be phoning parents when kids don’t show up, that legally she doesn’t have to let parents know and the text they send out is just curtesy.

Waiting for head of year to phone me back so discuss and I will be going higher if I am not happy with his response.

I did think it was odd that the text was sent at 6:30pm - generally office staff would be long gone by then so it’s possible that the text got delayed in some automated system somewhere. Or that someone realised they’d not sent them and worked late to catch up...

I think you’ve got a good case to make - a student was missing, school and parents didn’t know where he was, and it was missed. The fact that it worked out ok in the end isn’t really good enough in terms of safeguarding. Amending the policy to sending the text earlier and following up with a phone call if ignored would be the best solution.

If a DC ran into problems and the school hadn't notified and got a response then the school would be responsible legally for failing in its duty of care. It's such an obvious area to police and computerized registers make it very simple. I'd complain about the rudeness too - no call for it at all. A text needs to be followed up on if there's no response. This woman is just wrong - she needs to sharpen up at her job.

Cross post.

This has happened twice with my DD and the school didn't message me until mid-afternoon. It's not good enough I agree but perhaps more common than you think.

My kids schools text by about 9.30am if they aren't in school and I haven't called yet to explain why. Sometimes even when I call to say my eldest who is at secondary school is ill, the head of year calls to see 'exactly what's happening and if they can help' . I think that's a bit much. My children, especially my eldest do not miss much time off and I fail to see how a teacher can help with a chest infection, migraine etc. Your school texting so late seems pointless though, do they usually text earlier? Other schools here seem to do the texting thing in the morning, so maybe the text just didn't come through for some reason. I wouldn't be happy with the attitude of the person who you spoke to and would be interested in what the head of year has to say.

In defence of your son though, maybe he felt really poorly. I had a cold last week that's still not gone properly now. Painkillers didn't really help and I definitely wouldn't have fancied facing a school environment. I didn't really do anything for a few days. My son m is in Year 10 now, he decides if he's well enough for school if he's feeling ill. He knows it's important that he's in school and it's difficult to catch up so doesn't take advantage. I don't think they get much from the day if they genuinely feel ill.

That sounds very lax. I'm really surprised they don't punish for skiving!
Where is the deterrent?

My school has a first day absence system which sends a text but my understanding is that there is nothing about a legal requirement to check where pupils are.
Putting it another way in a safeguarding context, the onus is on parents to deliver pupils to the school for the start of the school day not for the school to act as nanny to get them to school. The school's safeguarding responsibilities start when the pupil arrives at school gate not before.

I don't think this is a legal responsibility. Chasing up absence to record as authorised or unauthorised, yes. Investigating absence in a reasonable time period, yes. But when you say your DS was "AWOL" for 3 hours, you are being unreasonable to expect them to text you immediately when a child isn't in registration. They usually give the parent a few hours to phone in.