Mother blames school

At The end of day . It parents responsibility to make sure the child knows how use to phone . open doors go out side ask neighbour for help . Know grandparents to know to phone them.
And if the parents are together it mother responsibility to phone and make sure everything is ok.
If they are not together school age should be able reach the other parent when they need to .
But to be to scare to go downstairs there was some thing wrong there .

I believe emergency calls can be made from mobile phones without a password or fingerprint

Very sad story, but at the end of the day the mother phoned and didn't get an answer so it was her ultimate responsibility to find out why. She would have been expecting to speak to her husband so a follow up was necessary. However we can all be wise after the event. The school did take some action, not as if the ignored a no show.

Terribly sad but really our schools are struggling as it is, being judged all the time. The fact that they do try to contact home if a child is absent is surely enough. I'm the 3rd contact for my 2 DGC (after Mum & Dad) and have been called twice, but - as others mentioned because one of them had had a fall or was poorly. That's another thing, if they have any little fall or bang their head school have to ring and let you know - even though the child is fine and they don't want you to come and collect them.
My heart does bleed for the cases mentioned though but I'm not sure we can ever prevent something so rare.

If I have my grandchildren (aged 5 and 3) to stay with me I have an arrangement with a friend round the corner who has a key that she rings me at 8 in the morning and if I don’t answer she would come round. It sounds a bit melodramatic but it puts my mind at rest - otherwise I would torture myself with visions of me dying in my sleep ...........!

The children will suffer as much trauma at they're TOLD to suffer. We can run around telling them what a terrible experience it was for them, or we can praise them for coping so well when a sad event happened. Seems like the Mum has got off to a bad start. But if this is from a newspaper rather than personal knowledge...

To be fair to the mother I read that she did ring more than once and thought her husband's mobile was off. When she still couldn't reach him in the evening she must have contacted her mother as the grandma went round and found the house in darkness and milk still on the doorstep and the door not answered. I'm assuming (but not sure ) that she alerted the police. Mother was by then concerned and hurrying home in any case. She had no idea her daughter had not turned up to school. I dont think its fair to blame mother (or school.) The idea of 3 phone numbers is a good one I think.

When my gd was at secondary we had to give a mobile number and a landline number. They would call on one or the other if you did not know they hadn’t turned up at school or if you did not ring in.
Not everyone now has a home phone and it was up to you to give out numbers when you filled in form when they started school. Our gds school had our landline, and 3 mobile numbers. Even if the mother was working away she had to give a number. My d works all over the country but they still had her number.

most mobiles can dial 999 without log in, so children, even very young ones, could probably manage it.

Some parents give one number, and if there is no answer, what is to be done? Some people forget to update mobiles, or switch them off. Why didn't the mother give the school her number? I agree, too much 'blame' is going on now; things happen, sad and awful things happen, but they are not always someone's fault, not deliberate, and fingers should not be pointed.

I think the school did have the mother’s number, Rosina, but didn’t ring it. If she’d known her children weren’t at school she’d have contacted other people on the spot to find out why when her husband didn’t answer. A child not turning up at school or not being picked up without a message being sent to school should set alarm bells ringing. At the primary school where I worked we had an automated texting system that would send standard messages to at least two contacts to ask for the reason. If no answer came then yes, the attendance officer would chase it up, by trying other family members/neighbours and calling at the home if necessary. We sadly had a case similar to this where a parent had died completely unexpectedly at home, and we found out quickly. We did have a lot of vulnerable families though so had to have systems in place to protect our children. Keeping contact details updated was a job in itself.

Ilovecheese The Education Welfare Officer used to cover several schools, and would meet with Heads of Year perhaps once a week to discuss pupils with persistent absence issues. An EWO wouldn't have visited this home on 1st day absence. Nowadays individual schools each have their own person responsible for attendance, but with massive budget cuts, such people may well be one of the first redundancies. The work now is done by clerical staff from the phone only.
What has been lost is a person who could speak to pupils in the street, asking why they're not at school.

Schools don't always follow guidelines to contact parents. It's one of those things that looks good on paper, but it doesn't always happen. Not that I'm blaming the school.

So, parents take the kids on holiday abroad- without telling the school- what then?

Do they send police and break door down?

This is nothing but a rare and tragic event. The schools cannot spend all their time chasing non attending children.

Ilovecheese there is no way the education welfare service has time or recources to invesigate every child who does not turn up in the morning . More regular absences are a different matter and the EWO should look at those.

YES teach your children about "emergencies" and how to ring 999 or otherwise get help.

Seems like the Mum has got off to a bad start.
I think this happened in 2016 and the children were shown during the interview on tv playing happily like two well-adjusted little girls. I am sure they still remember this trauma but mother appears to have done a good job helping them to adjust.

sorry, above post was replying to ExaltedWombat.

She said she rang in morning and no one answered, presumably the children were too afraid to answer it. Maybe she feels guilty she did not ask someone to check on them so is expecting school to do what she didn't do. A terrible shock for her and maybe she will differently in a few days. I do how the children get counselling. Hopefully the 3 year old will forget.

It hasn't just happened, it was over a year ago.

My DIL works away for 2 days a week. When she rings home the 5 and 3 year old compete to answer the phone. She first rings house phone then mobile if there is no answer. If neither was answered I'm sure she would be phoning the neighbours. She rings in evening and morning.
The school has my number as third contact

The mother is taking out her grief and anger and possible feelings of guilt on the school. I do have to say though that there's no wonder teachers are leaving the profession. Parents now expect teachers to be familiy liaison officers/psychiatrists/counsellors/social workers/nurses/nursery nurses and Jeremy Kyle.

I have a granddaughter in Dubai. There the school has contact nos for both parents, two local contact nos plus at least one relative's contact no. It does not matter if this one is overseas it works on the premise that they may have information or contact nos not available to others or could give instructions on what should be done. Belt and braces? Maybe, but it doesn't matter if the welfare of the child is paramount. I don't think the Mother in this case was blaming anyone she was just raising a valid suggestion at a time which must have been traumatic for all concerned.

My DDs' Swedish schools went over to electronic registration around 5-10 years ago so that texts/e-mails were sent to both parents of everyone who hadn't arrived at school by the end of registration. A bit annoying when the school bus was delayed in heavy snow but at least both parents knew if they had/had not arrived at school.

It seems a sensible notion that schools have contact details for at least 2 people for each child, not necessarily just a landline and mobile number.

Reception in my area is very patchy for mobiles, so if I was out and someone tried the mobile, chances are it would go to voicemail.

Added problem is, that even when I get home I might get an alert that there was a voicemail message, but would have to drive to the village square to be able to hear it, which I might feel that I cba to do, not knowing if it was important or not.