What would happen in your school?

[Corneliawildthing]

All our infants get free school lunch. After lunch they play in the playground. One parent, who claims other kids are hitting her child (they are not - in fact it's the other way round), now comes and stands in the playground, watching her daughter every lunchtime. There are always 2 playground supervisors in the area who "don't like to say anything to her" and the HT avoids confronting parents.

Yes I am a member. I will take to our rep about it as she's very on the ball.

Good luck. It sounds very stressful.

Is the school very remote?
I'm finding all this so hard to get my head around.

Op- you know this is a ridiculous and very worrying situation, oaky is be whistle blowing on the head as she's clearly doing nothing about and it's a huge safeguarding issue.

It can’t be that remote @leccybill if most children would be going home for lunch. Remote schools tend to cater to large areas.

No it's not remote at all. When anyone has tried to bring up issues before they were told it was pretty normal for what goes on in schools nowadays and to more or less get on with it

Wait... you have frequent runners too? Fucking hell, that's just an accident waiting to happen. And while the school/head will be primarily responsible, it will be a poor teacher/TA/MSA that gets blamed for not being on the ball enough.

This is past chats,unions, staff meetings. You need to ring the Local Authority and report a massive safeguarding concern. You can't keep strangers out or kids in.. what's the point of having the gate at all?

Bonkers!!

It is not normal or run of the mill. I’ve worked in schools for 12 years and I’m sure there are others who have worked many more years and they will attest to that.

I'm glad it's not the norm in other schools. I feel everything is escalating and gradually being seen as the norm and it will take a child being hurt for anything to be done.

As I said previously nothing happens when staff are abused. It's like -
Monday Mrs P got told to fuck off
Tuesday Mr J got called a pedo
Wednesday Mrs C got kicked
Thursdsy Mrs S was called a cunt
Friday Mrs D was pushed over

It's truly horrendous but apparently not as bad as some other schools

It's not normal whatever they say. I hope you are in a Union. And regardless of what any in school rep might say I would want to put something in writing to those centrally in the Union.

Absolutely the same where I work, do we work in the same school?
Or it's just Scottish education going downhill

This sort of stuff is REALLY NOT not the norm!

I think Scottish education is going downhill fast

Presumably the catchment system is at play here? I can't imagine anyone wanting to go to such an unsecured school in England so they would have to make changes pronto.

I am in Scotland and was primary age when Dunblane happened. The playground went from completely open to very secure almost immediately and all schools in our local authority are still extremely secure now. Write to your mp at the very least.

This woman is a nuisance but my concern is anyone accessing the playground so easily and children able to leave if they wanted.

If the head is willing to let this woman continue to invade the playground at lunchtime, she should be out there supervising her.
Please report this OP. It's truly shocking!

I'm surprised the parents put up with it. I have a few Scottish friends that would make a massive fuss if their school was like this.

I wonder what else slips to the side and how many kids fall through the cracks. From academics to wellbeing .

@FlamingoAndJohn re the lunches, all primary one to primary threes get a free lunch provided, the OP was not making any comment about the backgrounds of the dc by saying that (in case you thought she was).

It would be a bad idea for a teacher to "write to her MP", though are channels she should go through first and (unfortunately) number one is the HT, with union support if she wishes. The local authority would be next.

I didn’t think she was commenting on their backgrounds, @tombakersscarf. Reception to year 2 get free school dinners in England too. I didn’t see the relevance of what they ate for lunch, that was all. It didn’t occur to me that children would go home otherwise, in many years of teaching I’ve never know children to go home for lunch regularly.

Oh I see, I thought the free lunches were another Scottish-only bonus (like free uni and prescriptions!)
I don't think anyone at my dc's school goes home but I remember my mil assumed they would be

Our school has old broken wooden fences. Any random person can come onto the playground, including dogs which has happened. Nobody including Ofsted appears to care.
That is until something happens.

There must be a safeguarding procedure detailing who to report to if your safeguarding concerns are about the head or any other member of SLT. If there isn’t that is even more concerning than a random parent.

The secondary schools work at is extremely open (there is even a public right of way right though the middle of it) but all visitors need to be signed in and out etc...

This is not the norm anywhere, it has become the norm in your school as it has been accepted. Changing the culture will be hard but it is doable. What sanctions have been put in place for abuse towards staff?

You can report anonymously and escaping children will trigger and inspection.

The gate should either be manned by staff, or children going home from lunch should only be able to return at a set time (for example the last school I worked in lunch was 12-1, the gate was opened at 12 for them to leave, then locked, then re-opened at 12.55 for them to return).

There shouldn't be people taking shortcuts - there was huge court cases at the time after Dunblane to prevent this as legal action was needed to close off established rights of way through playgrounds.

Your HT is failing in safeguarding massively.

You can complain to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, or go through your local authority.

Escaping children might trigger an inspection with OFSTED but not here. We have escapees on a regular basis and nothing happens.