School hands over 6yo to wrong grandfather!?

Synopsis: 6yo pupil gets picked up from school by grandfather, taken on a bus journey to be seen by a GP, gets prescribed liquid paracetamol (which 'grandfather' must have got from a chemist) and then returns the girl to school.

"Mistake" only discovered when girl's mother sees the name on the medicine bottle!

(Link to article)

So, girl didn't recognise own grandfather; grandfather didn't recognise his own grandchild (allegedly poor sighted) and GP prescribes medicine for a child that isn't ill (!??)

Oh dear!!

 

As a grandparent who regularly collects a child of similar age, I find this absolutely terrifying. How confused must that little girl have been - it just doesn't bear thinking about, poor child.

We're lucky in that C****** is a confident child and would say outright 'That's not my nana or granddad' if they tried to hand her over to the wrong person. The school that she goes to holds a list of 'names, addresses and phone numbers for all appropriate adults' for each child on their books, but that still doesn't really help until the school staff get to recognise them.


The whole 'Safeguarding System' is a really good idea - but it's something that will always be in need of regular Practise Reviewing. It deals with people and situations and as such is always open to 'errors and poor administration'. All that can be done is to keep working on it to make it 'High Profile Priority', make sure that staff are kept up-to-date with regular Team Meetings and never, ever cover up any mistakes. All mistakes, even innocent ones, must be openly admitted and dealt with to make certain that that situation doesn't occur again.

A big problem that Staff have to deal with at the moment, is that lots of places are reducing Staffing Levels. As 'work levels' aren't reducing, this means that everybody is doing extra duties - it can be seen how easy it would be for an 'overworked receptionist' to make a mistake writing down the name of a child when she's over-stretched with duties. What a pity that the people who, in this instance, set the 'Education Policies' can't see the possible consequences of their decisions.

 

Blimey!

 

I don't know how anyone can send an elderly man with poor eyesight to pick up a child even if he is the child's Grandad. If he can't recognise his own Granddaughter then he must have very poor eyesight. Surely his Granddaughter's parents would have been aware of this.

 

Ollie. the high ups who restricted staffing levels will also undoubtedly blame the receptionist. and its the same in allot of places. its a shame that they don't realise the consequences of reducing staff hours until something like this happens. its just good that no actual harm came to this child.

 

At my son's school, none of the kids go anywhere unless the teachers recognise the person trying to collect them, and have been told in advance that that person is allowed to collect them.

When I was off work over the summer, I had to go to the school with wife several times to get my face known, so that I'd be able to pick up my own son when the wife was having a day off due to being in the late stages of pregnancy and unable to walk far. This is how it should be. Someone didn't check good enough, and where young kids are concerned that is simply not acceptable. I wouldn't go so far as to say there should be sackings, but there should certainly be good tellings off, and formal warnings and things, combined with a massive revamp of their own security rules.

 

Wouldn't have happened if the kids mother had taken her to the doctor.
If she was ill, why was she at school?


What a strange world it is these days.

 

This happens too often as the parents don't want them at home when they are ill, they send them to school and pass on what they have to everyone else.
'she was sick this morning but he/she will be ok 'attitude. Inhouse Advisor sees it all the time.

 

Really??? Wow. Crazy all around. I am copying out the article and sending to my staff. Keep preaching that the doctor is not God that staff has to "think" (another issue)

 

Exemplary safe-guarding.

However, the system cannot be easy to operate. What if the regular teacher is away for some reason and the person in the classroom doesn't recognise the collecting person? Should the lesson be disrupted while security checks are made by the teacher? If it was a grandparent even the regular teacher may not have met them personally. If the school secretary/receptionist fetches the child and hands them over they might be even less likely to recognise the collecting person, and would have to go through a lot of formalities to be completely sure that no mistakes were made. In a busy school this would add up to a lot of time.

As far I can see this incident occurred, not because the school staff had been intentionally neglectful, but because several very unusual events happened together.
1.A weak-sighted grandparent
2.A parent who was apparently unaware how compromised the grandparent was
3.A 6 year old who was unable to speak up to tell that it was the wong person

I would like to know a lot more about the circumstances surrounding each one of those factors - especially why the child was so passive.

Schools will respond to this sort of event by ramping up their safety procedures even more, as they always do. However, even before the current mania for fortressing schools came in, a child being snatched from a school and harmed was an extremely rare event. It seems to me that it is more common (though still very rare) for children to be taken when they are in the care of their parents at home, or playing unsupervised. Perhaps both those things should be regulated, with parents being required to present written care and supervison plans to the Ministry of Child Safety in return for a grant enabling them to fully cage their back gardens.

 

I'd be more concerned about the fact that there's only one regular teacher.

In my son's school, the very young kids (which includes my son) are supervised by no less than 3 teachers. The main one and two assistants. How else would they manage with number of kids in a typically nursery/infant class size?

The system they operate is not over the top or high maintenance. You just get known because the teachers pay attention to who's who.

There is also a list, maintained in reception, of details of who can collect who. I believe it really comes down to it and nobody recognises the person, then if they can show sufficient ID at reception and they are on the list, then they can collect the child. I've never heard of anyone using that protocol though, everyone is just known to the teachers, and the parents/guardians of the kids just seem to make sure the right people go along.

As for the parents not realising the grandparent was so blind, I don't believe that. You tend to know the people you entrust with your kids. If the parents didn't realise this, then they should be getting scrutinised too.

 

I think they need photos in the childs records of Who can pick them up only.

 

As soon as children move out of the youngest classes the level of support will fall away. In Year 1 and 2 typically there will be a teacher and one assistant in these classes, and sometimes the teacher will be working alone for some sessions. If the regular teacher is sick or elsewhere (for training, prep, meetings etc) it is quite possible that their replacement will not know the children's families well. Also, for the first few months with a new class it is not reasonable to expect that staff will recognise all members of each child's extended family. The child concerned was probably in Year 2 if it is a recent incident, one might expect a year 2 child to have some common sense but by no means reliably so.

Staffing levels may be lower further up the school but one would also expect a higher level of common-sense from the older children, but again, this is something that could never be relied on so freak events will always be a possibility.

When seeking a replacement teacher, hard-pressed schools usually want to find someone who can teach effectively, knowledge of the local community is desirable but secondary.

Having registers of collectors etc, kept in the office is a good scheme, and doesn't need a heavy hand to make it work in a close-knit community school. However, none of the common-sense checks would have prevented this event happening. The grandparent was authorised, the parents would have reiterated permission if someone had phoned to check, visual recognition systems failed.

One system that would have worked would be to have photo banks of each child with their authorised family. I can see that being a nightmare to organise, and could still easily fail if material was not kept bang up to date.

I guess the receptionist could have taken a named photo of the child to the classroom and ensured the child chosen matched the photo. Still could go wrong where twins are concerned!

The receptionist should also have paid attention to the surname of the child, but there's still potential for error in the case of identically named children.

 

My friend in Holland (who is a one parent family) had asked his father to pick up his 6 year old daughter from school which he often did. When she came out she was having a bit of a tantrum and the Grandfather put her in the car and took her to the park before going home. When he arrived home the police was waiting for him as someone had seen him putting the upset child in the car and driving off. They took his car reg and reported it to the police. Obviously all was well but at least someone was acting on their feelings of concern.