How would you handle this situation?
A mother has taken to Mumsnet to recount a story about her daughter’s school. The mum says that she was called to say her child wasn’t feeling well and asked if she could be collected.
By the time the mum got there, staff at the school couldn’t find her child. She made a passing comment once her daughter was found – but now regrets that she was over-reacting.
The mum wrote:
“Received a call from DDs school saying DD has symptoms of the cold virus doing the rounds. Can I collect. I say of course but I am 40 mins away.
“The lady at reception greets me but seems unaware of the situation. She calls the class teacher who says she is somewhere reception end of the school waiting for me. We walk up and down the hall way but can’t see her. She asks me to wait while she looks. I do.
“In that time I start to think ‘well hold on… if her teacher thinks she’s here and reception are unaware then where is she and is she ok as she sounded quite poorly’.
Then the reception lady comes back and says I think she’s in here and looks a bit more. Turns out she is in the assembly room with another class. At this point I say calmly ‘I have to say, I’m very unimpressed that no one seems to know where my daughter is’.
“As I say that a teacher comes out of the assembly room with DD. She starts saying how they knew she was in the school. I said ‘well that’s the bare minimum I’d expect, for you to know shes within school grounds’ and started talking to DD. She then said ‘well there’s no need for that’ as if I had kicked up a huge fuss rather than a passing comment and I felt disregarded. “
She added that the reception lady was very kind but the teacher was quite rude. She then asked if she escalated the situation by passing comment.
Many mums commented on the piece, with debate breaking out about whether she was right or wrong.
One mum said:
“I think the TA was chippy because you were right – none of them did know where your DD was and they ought to. Why was she in with another class and not her own? That seems a bit odd to me.”
While another wrote:
“I think the second comment, given that it turns out she was fine and with a teacher, was a bit rude.
“Schools in general seem to run on a barely held-together system. I wouldn’t have panicked, just assumed she was with an assistant or teacher somewhere. Which your DD was!”
What would you do? How would you react?
