Another what would you do...

sheramber

You need to find out what the school say happened.

On antoehr forum a mother was spitting feathers about the school cancelling her 6 year old's tutoring atter school and not telling her.

She found out when her son banged on the door to get in.

Shhe was horrified that e had crossed a busy rounndabout to walk home.

When she spoke to the school she discovered he had decided he didn't want to go to the class but wanted to walk home with his 'girlfriend' who lived next door.

The children are checked out of school as the school is kept locked .

But her son had manged to dodge out without being seen and head home following his 'girlfriend'.

Some stern words were used to ensure he did not repeatt this.

Flyonthewall

FBaby wrote: »

You don't know that. Maybe there was only one teacher, maybe they didn't have £2 with them and couldn't leave all the kids alone to go and fetch some cash. Even if there was a teacher, maybe they didn't have the time at this stage to get into a discussion without risking missing the train and leaving one teacher alone with too many pupils.

It is easy to criticise, but we don't know what the circumstances were. We are talking about a secondary school pupil here, one who was used to take the bus and walk home, not a defenseless young kid.

Yes, the situation could probably have been dealt with better, particularly with the wording of the letter/response slip, but whether they handled his saying he wasn't going very much depends on what questions he was asked by the teacher and how he answered them.

There are still numerous possible options and it's still no excuse for letting a kid walk away alone who should be accounted for. If it were that badly organised then they should be doing more to make school trips safe and be more prepared.

A kid of any age walking home alone is defenseless. If anything had gone wrong there would have been nothing he could have done and his parents wouldn't have had a clue.

11 is still young, he's not even a teenager. He may have more sense then, say, a 5 year old, but that doesn't make it right, it doesn't make him an adult, he's still just a kid.

Again, the teachers were still responsible and shouldn't just take a kids word on things. Regardless of the exact conversation the situation shouldn't have happened how it did.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Flyonthewall wrote: »

There are still numerous possible options and it's still no excuse for letting a kid walk away alone who should be accounted for. If it were that badly organised then they should be doing more to make school trips safe and be more prepared.

A kid of any age walking home alone is defenseless. If anything had gone wrong there would have been nothing he could have done and his parents wouldn't have had a clue.

11 is still young, he's not even a teenager. He may have more sense then, say, a 5 year old, but that doesn't make it right, it doesn't make him an adult, he's still just a kid.

Again, the teachers were still responsible and shouldn't just take a kids word on things. Regardless of the exact conversation the situation shouldn't have happened how it did.

It was an afterschool trip. In a secondary school.

Anything up to 1400 kids leaving the school at once and thirty odd supposed to be waiting to leave fifteen minutes later. Some wouldn't have turned up, deciding to go home or to mates' houses, or having to stay at detention.

The staff member goes straight from the last lesson hopefully having time to go to the loo and pick up their coat. They have a list of kids who had paid for the trip.

Take the register. Five are nowhere to be seen. There's no class to phone (involving looking up each kid on SIMS, checking their attendance for the day, their timetable, whether they've been given detention, looking up the extension numbers for each class, calling the classrooms & asking the teacher to give the kids messages), as school has finished for the day. So that's not going to happen. So they walk to the train station.

Do they have their train fare? Some haven't been given it because parents are hoping that they'll get the travel for free if the teacher is put on the spot. Some have decided to spend it in the sweetshop on the way into school. Another has lost it and another's mum has changed her mind about letting him go but hasn't phoned the Office to say that. Is the teacher supposed to fish around in their handbag and use her own money to take the kids out on something she isn't paid to do? On the offchance that they do still have permission to go? These kids may be in her class, but there's a fair chance they've never taught them and have no idea who they are, other than the fact they're another year 7 kid saying they haven't got any money.


Should she then go back to school, and find a phone and sit down with each kid (none of whom will know their parents' phone numbers off by heart), look them up on SIMS, call home, work and the mobile to say they've not got the travel fare, so could it be sent in tomorrow, breaking the rules on staff receiving cash (and very likely not getting it back anyway)? Or checking that Mum really meant to say he can't go (and getting an earful about querying Mum's decision/bothering her at work/collared about why another teacher has said x or he came home without his coat three weeks ago)? She's already at the station, it's 4pm, the reception staff who started at 7.30am are leaving work now, so there's no point in calling - even if the office is open until 5, by the time the list of non attendees or people without money has been given down the phone, it's all been looked up, calls have been made and then the receptionist has called back (whilst still dealing with parents, kids, etc, at the office window and calling), and the receptionist calls back with a list of messages, the train has been missed and it will be too late for anybody to go.


What would have happened every other day between 3.30 and 4.30 with the kid? They'd have gone home by themselves. No money to go somewhere else, but have the means to go home as usual? 'Will anybody be in?' 'Yeah, Mum will be there with my little sister'.


It's obvious the answer is going to be 'Go home, then'. Just like every other afternoon.


It's not primary school anymore. And, tough though it seems, the more times there isn't the easy option of letting a grown up think for you, the sooner they learn to do the thinking for themselves. Proven by the fact the OP's son managed to get himself home

bylromarha

peachyprice wrote: »

All schools have the same 'no phones to be used during the school day' policy, that does not translate into 'no phones turned off in your bag'. I think you're taking it too literally and I can promise you that the majority of children will have turned off phones in their bags/pockets.

It is not reasonable for a school to expect you encourage independence by sending your child off to school alone without the
means to contact you in an emergency. Gone are the days of a phonebox on every corner or asking a stranger for help.

Nope we aren't taking it too literally. The turnaround is too tight for him to collect his phone at the end of the day and not miss the school bus.

Taken from the 30 page newsletter which came home at the beginning of this term. He's already had 1 random bag check on this.

I really don't have a problem with no phone - he now knows what to do if he feels unable to solve a situation himself. And has a checklist in his bag of options to pursue if he feels he has no options.

Either way, a phone wouldn't have helped in this situation - we'd have told him to get on the bus home as he'd missed the train. If the teacher had wanted to speak to us, she could have asked DS if he had our phone numbers.

bylromarha

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

It's not primary school anymore. And, tough though it seems, the more times there isn't the easy option of letting a grown up think for you, the sooner they learn to do the thinking for themselves. Proven by the fact the OP's son managed to get himself home

And had he gone AWOL, or been picked up by a stranger, we wouldn't have had any alarm bells until 6.15pm when we turned up to pick him up and he wasn't there.

None of those are reasons Jono, they're all excuses. If we'd expected him to be in their care until 6.15pm, then when he left the trip for whatever reason, she should have made sure someone knew about the change of plan. And his fare had already been paid.

Plus no email comms from the school bar direct emails I send to his teacher. I don't have a parent pay to log into either. I sent a cheque in.

Person_one

Its really excessive for them to dictate his behaviour while travelling to and from school. That just sounds like a massive power trip to me.

There's nothing wrong with learning that its ok to question rules that are unfair or don't make sense. When I started secondary school girls weren't allowed to wear trousers, for instance.

bylromarha

missbiggles1 wrote: »

That's what I can't get my head round either.

Even if he didn't think it came under the category of an emergency, I'm sure he wouldn't be scared that he'd be in trouble for using it for the wrong reason.

Just a thought - he has still got it, hasn't he?

He has the change from it - he had to use it on the bus journey home as he'd only bought a single to school that day.

He didn't think he'd be in trouble - he just didn't class this as an emergency. He knows the money isn't for fun stuff, and in his head, a school trip is fun.

bylromarha

Person_one wrote: »

Its really excessive for them to dictate his behaviour while travelling to and from school. That just sounds like a massive power trip to me.

I asked a couple of secondary teacher friends about it who don't teach at his school. Their schools both have a similar thing.

It's due to the fact that when kids are in school uniform, incidents are still reported back to the school. So they expect the same behaviour on the school buses/trains as they expect in school and prefects are there to monitor and [STRIKE]spy[/STRIKE] report back to school.

bylromarha

FBaby wrote: »

You don't know that. Maybe there was only one teacher, maybe they didn't have £2 with them and couldn't leave all the kids alone to go and fetch some cash. Even if there was a teacher, maybe they didn't have the time at this stage to get into a discussion without risking missing the train and leaving one teacher alone with too many pupils

I know of no teacher who goes on a school trip without taking emergency cash with them.

Any train station these days takes credit card for tiny amounts if that's all she had.

Person_one

bylromarha wrote: »

I asked a couple of secondary teacher friends about it who don't teach at his school. Their schools both have a similar thing.

It's due to the fact that when kids are in school uniform, incidents are still reported back to the school. So they expect the same behaviour on the school buses/trains as they expect in school and prefects are there to monitor and [STRIKE]spy[/STRIKE] report back to school.

I don't really think that makes it a reasonable rule.

No phones in school makes sense, they disrupt lessons.

No phones on the way to and from school is needless. Using a phone isn't poor behaviour, warranting a 'spy' to report back.