Should I say something or keep my nose out?

Janepig

ilikewatch wrote: »

I'd be more inclined to "have a word with the head" if I thought that someone who probably hasn't had any vetting or CRB checks was going round offering to transport other peoples children in a vehicle which could quite easily be unroadworthy/uninsured etc...

Wahhhhhh hilarious :rotfl:. His mum is a good friend actually, we were in school together. She was most grateful. I think you mentioned about the head thinking I was a nutter if I mentioned this issue to him - I think I'd be certified if I went and told him that someone was giving their child's classmate a lift to school! :rotfl:

liney wrote: »

He must be in Year 4 now, and at our school children in Year 3 upwards are allowed to leave site alone at the end of the day with parental permission being checked. Also from Year 3 they walk over to Out of School Club alone, and are checked in the other end. They have to make these baby steps.

He's in year 3. The teacher brings them out to the gate after school and they are meant to wait for a parent or someone to fetch them, but I think it's more a case of "come back if you can't find your parents". Little freedoms like you say.

Got to have a thick skin in here .

Jx

Gavin83

I actually really can't see what the problem is here. What the problem with a kid getting a taxi to school? I used to walk at that age, as I'm guessing many people did.

ilikewatch

Janepig wrote: »

Wahhhhhh hilarious :rotfl:. His mum is a good friend actually, we were in school together. She was most grateful. I think you mentioned about the head thinking I was a nutter if I mentioned this issue to him - I think I'd be certified if I went and told him that someone was giving their child's classmate a lift to school! :rotfl:

There's a world of difference between "a good friend" and someone you'd "seen bringing their child to school in a taxi". Of course it's pretty normal for friends to share the school run, but that wasn't obvious from what you said at first.
Most professionals involved in safeguarding children are acutely aware of the risks of predatory individuals gaining access to children by offering to "help out" a vulnerable parent - like one who doesn't have much spare money, and who's car is off the road...

yvonne13_2

Janepig wrote: »

Wahhhhhh hilarious :rotfl:. His mum is a good friend actually, we were in school together. She was most grateful. I think you mentioned about the head thinking I was a nutter if I mentioned this issue to him - I think I'd be certified if I went and told him that someone was giving their child's classmate a lift to school! :rotfl:



He's in year 3. The teacher brings them out to the gate after school and they are meant to wait for a parent or someone to fetch them, but I think it's more a case of "come back if you can't find your parents". Little freedoms like you say.

Got to have a thick skin in here .

Jx

Wait!!! Are you now saying your good friends with this child that (Your words) is not so nice?
Yet you seem fit to discuss her child arrangements with your co-workers and strangers on the net!!

I must've misread what you wrote.

tinkerbell28

If she's such a good friend, why wouldn't you speak to her about it? Or know why he was going in a taxi?

Prothet_of_Doom

I'd phone the taxi firm, talk to the boss, and point out that they only need to wait 2 mins to make sure the school is open, because if it's closed their is an issue.

yvonne13_2

Prothet_of_Doom wrote: »

I'd phone the taxi firm, talk to the boss, and point out that they only need to wait 2 mins to make sure the school is open, because if it's closed their is an issue.

Its not her child so she has no right ringing the taxi firm to ask anything.

Tenyearstogo

Janepig wrote: »

I drop DD/DS (10 & 7) off at breakfast club every morning at around 7.45am (school starts at 8.30am so breakfast club has to be open that early) before scooting off to work. I drop them in the parents car park then sit and wait in the car until I see them going in through the door into the hall from my vantage point.

Anyway, as I was waiting this morning, a taxi pulled up on the road next to the car park and out gets one of DS's classmates, taxi does a u-turn and drives off and he strolls into school. He's 7 (8 in February I think). Now I'm not one of your helicoptering, bogeyman around every corner type of parents at all, but I was really surprised, shocked even.

The child's not a particularly nice kid, DS has been beaten black and blue by him over the years. He used to have a lift (I thought he still was) from DS's classmates's mother who lives in the same street, but when I talked to DD about it she said that he had been violent to the boy whose mother had given him a lift so they stopped.

I hope it's a one off, but if I see him again, do you think I should maybe have a word with the head? Although technically it's not his problem. I just don't know how this boy's mother can go about her day not knowing if the child has got to school or not. I'm also thinking it's going to be dark at that time in the morning soon and although there are houses on one side of the street, the other side is the car park and a large playing field/trees.

Jx

Keep the first paragraph, swap the rest for this.

Anyway, as I was waiting this morning I noticed that one of my good friends children was dropped off by taxi. The taxi driver didn't wait to see if he went into school safely.

Do you think I should mention it to the head? I'm worried something my happen to the child as it's dark this time of day. This boy is in year 3.

Janepig

yvonne13 wrote: »

Wait!!! Are you now saying your good friends with this child that (Your words) is not so nice?
Yet you seem fit to discuss her child arrangements with your co-workers and strangers on the net!!

I must've misread what you wrote.

No, the the mother of the child I was giving a lift to was a friend. This child in my OP isn't really known to me that well, certainly not well enough to offer lifts to, not that I would anyway seeing as how the last lifts he was getting from a classmate ended.

Cor blimey, people are saying it's a sad reflection on society that I've asked if I should say something or not (bear in mind it's not illegal yet to have "thoughts" about something), I haven't acted on anything yet, and probably won't given the howls of protest on here - however it's seen to be "predatory" to offer a lift to a friend's child when their car is off the road to save them paying for a taxi (I never said they were short of money). Maybe professionals in "safeguarding children" would be better served in being aware of parents who are beating and starving their children to death given the glut of cases in the media recently.

Jx

Toto

dandelionclock30 wrote: »

At 6 and 7, I walked 1/2 a mile to school myself an then came home and made myself my tea and wited till after 9p.m. when my parents got home.
Social services do not always provide chaperones far from it.

You havent seen anything abusive going on, a child got out of a taxi. I'd just mind my own buisness in this instance.

6 years old? I find that totally unacceptable. I would never in a million years allow a 6 year old to look after themselves like this. 9pm? I would consider this to be neglect.