Warm boot recommendations please

[ali-s]

Feeling very angry at the moment.

 

Todays awful weather brought a power cut to my Village for a good part of the day.

Mid morning my Daughters Primary School was closed. Parents and carers were phoned and asked to collect their children. However no one phoned me or my Husband and my Daughter had to stay at School until the end of the School day at 3pm when she was allowed to walk home herself, which she normally does. I get in from work the same time as she gets home.

My workplace is 3 miles away from home and had power all day, so I was unaware of the situation. My Husband did not leave for work until 1pm.

 

The school has 6 phone numbers to contact in an emergency, so there was no reason why they could not contact us. They are my work number, my mobile, home number, Husbands work, Husbands mobile and our emergency contact who is a friend.

 

When my friend collected her daughter from class my Daughter told her teacher that she was the emergency contact. The teacher said to my Daughter " oh dear, too late, never mind". The consequence of this was that my Daughter had to sit in the School Hall ( which is the biggest room

in the school), in the dark as it only has a couple of sky lights in the roof, very cold until she was allowed to go home.

 

What is the point of giving all those phone numbers if no one uses them?

I could have been back in the Village in 10 minutes if my Daughter had gone home with my emergency contact and she had phoned me. Our Surname is nearly at the end of the alphabet, so did they not get round to contacting me if they started at "A"?

 

My emergency contact friend did not ask about my Daughter when she was at School because my Husband is often at home. She now feels terrible about this.

 

The School has a policy of not allowing mobile phones being taken into School but after today my Daughter will be takeing hers to School so that she can contact me herself if the School closes.

 

I am on very angry parent and Monday morning I will be demanding an explanation from the School as to why this c***up happened.

 

Rant now over. Feeling a lot better. Eating Bendicks Mingles.

[Lesley]

Ali - I'm surprised you are feeling better The Mingles must be doing a good job. I'd still be ranting by Monday with all that happening. Not a difficult job to phone with that many numbers available to them surely?

 

I need some Mingles now

[ali-s]

I'll send you a Mingle before they are all gone.

I've eaten 15 already and feel sick.

 

I feel like I abandoned her today. Hate the thought of her sitting in the cold and dark. Why didn't they put her in the staff room or a smaller room where it would have been a bit more cosy.

 

Out of 260 or so children only 3 didn't get to go home. I am going to try to contact the parents of the other 2 tomorrow, to see if they were phoned or forgotten about as well.

 

I do not like to have to go out to work and times like this makes it more difficult.

[Cate in NZ]

That's completely outrageous Ali, I'd be furious, how dare they fail to consider your daughter.It's not as if they had no way of contacting you or your husband. I tell you I'd have steam coming from ears if that ever happened to us.

You absolutely must speak to the school on monday morning, I'd emand an explanation and an apology to your daughter.

I know exactly what you mean about working parent guilt- I've been there so many times, but it sounds as if this one was totally out of order.

I do hope that your daughter is OK now.

Have a good weekend. Maybe you need something to wash those mingles down with now

[Guest]

Outrageous Ali! Good luck on Monday and I really hope you get an explanation.

 

I think schools are a law unto themselves and I feel l;ike I've given up fighting. Last week, my 7 year old son fell over in the playground and hit his head. He had an ice pack on it and was sent to the classroom when lessons started again. Because there was no external bump, the school didn't ring me. I suspect that his classroom wasn't told either and unfortunately the whole afternoon was spent with Teaching Assistants as it was PPA time. No-one noticed that he was looking really grey and his eyes were swollen. My 10 year old daughter noticed when she met him on the way home though! When he got in, he burst into tears and had a temperature of 102 degrees. I put him to bed with paracetemol and 90 minutes later his temperature was 104 degrees! We took him to the hospital where the doctor diagnosed swelling of the brain, caused by the fall He missed two days of school getting better. All I can get out of the school is that the classroom did know because one of the TAs walked past the medical room while he was being looked at!

 

Sorry, I'm ranting now and I don't want to distract people from your problem today Ali. But I feel very uptight that we as parents can't really get at the truth. In fact it's very difficult to get past the receptionist!

[ali-s]

Sorry to hear about your son Ginette.

Hope he is feeling better now.

 

I'll get past the receptionist, she is a friend. Just hope it wasn't her who was responsible for phoning round, that will really hack me off.

[Mrs Frugal]

Unbelievable Ali. They deserve a rocket for that.

 

Schools are useless at dealing with information. When Ollie was sent home on Monday we asked the school to send an urgent message to Tom to tell him not to wait for Ollie at hometime and go to catch the bus instead. They always wait for each other so if they happen to miss the bus I can pick them both up rather than worry about one heading home on the bus and the other waiting for me. Tom never got the message. He waited for Ollie and missed the bus. LSH had to drive yet another 30 mile round trip to pick him up - the second in one day after collecting the poorly Ollie earlier.

 

As you say Ali, why do we bother telling the school these things?

 

I hope your son's better now Ginette. That's a terrible story. I wish they still had school nurses in all schools. He'd have been monitored then.

[freerange]

What terrible experiences. I'd be steaming! Yet another reason why I'm so happy my children don't go to school.

[Louise]

I don't understand schools either.

 

I don't have children but I have a couple of staff with them. One of them has a year old baby and his wife goes back to work in February I think and she has a great deal with her employer where she gets all the school holidays and they still pay her monthly and it is all taken into account which works really well for them BUT my staff member came in with a list of dates for next year that he has to have off they are school 'in service' days whatever they are and most of them are Mondays our busiest day. Obviously he has to look after the children as his wife has no leave other than school holidays. Given the amount of school holidays there are and some of these training days are for next academic year I just don't understand it.

 

Maybe a parent or one of the teachers can explain it to me I'm not having a go at teachers just the schools

 

My rant over

[Guest]

'in service' days are training days for teachers. There should be 5 of these in any school year. Children have to attend school 190 days in a year and teachers 195. The extra 5 days are used for all sorts of training, whatever the school or teachers feel they need. Sometimes the whole area has one on the same day so that, for example, all the music teachers can get together. This is particularly important for smaller departments because those teachers don't get much opportunity to confer with others doing the same job.

 

The INSET days are very hard for working parents, especially if you have children in more than one school and the INSET days are different. Our local infant and junior schools choose the same days to avoid this problem.

 

I'm glad that we can afford for me to stay at home (although I work part-time from home too) or, with 4 children in different schools, holidays and INSET days would be a total nightmare!

[Louise]

Thanks Ginette I still don't like it Makes my life difficult and I don't even have children

 

I just don't remember any of this when I was at school is it a new thing

[Guest]

Must be getting on for 20 years now, 1987 or 88 I think. They were called 'Baker Days' originally. It might be different in Scotland though as our Education Bills are always 'England and Wales'.

[Louise]

I was at school in England Ginette I only came home 5 years ago but now I htink I have been out of school for nearly 20 years

[Guest]

Well Louise, I remember INSET days starting when I was teaching!! So don't feel bad, PLEASE!

[Mel (& Paul)]

Thats awful - I hope that they never do it again When I was 6 my school (a private prep school) had a school outing for some of the children. As a result the after school clubs werent held. Therefore someone should have told the parents. However, they didnt tell my parents. Which meant I sat outside the school for 2 hours waiting for my mum. Luckily a lady who lived close to the shcool saw me sitting on the step crying and managed to get hold of the headmaster. I just think now what could have happened if someone other than that kind woman had found me. My parents were FURIOUS. I still remember it clearly so I hope that your daughter is OK. I dont blame you for getting her to take the mobile phone in, if the school cant look after her properly. I am getting cross and I dont even have children!