Standardising procedures would provide a safety net
THE journey to school and home again has long been a grey area in terms of responsibility. Are parents, schools, children themselves, or the wider community responsible? The responsibility is in
fact a shared one, which depends on effective communication and trust between all parties in the interests of children's safety and independence.
Education, road safety and health-promotion schemes rightly encourage children and young people to walk or cycle to school, ideally with a responsible adult to start with and then independently. Making familiar and practised journeys alone, or with friends, is an essential part of growing up.
No guidance is given to parents, however, as to when a child is ready to walk to school without an adult, as this clearly depends on the maturity, experience and road-safety awareness of each child.
For parents, that judgment call is always a scary business. Nothing can be gained - indeed, danger on the roads is made worse - by driving children to the school front door. We must allow them the freedoms they need and seek, but we naturally wish to minimise risk and reassure ourselves. How can this be achieved?
A standardisation of same-day procedures for absence would be a good first step. This would involve an effective partnership between parents and schools. If a child is off ill, the parental responsibility should be to phone or e-mail and to notify the school of absence first thing in the morning. If a child does not appear at school, and no such absence message is received, the school should contact the parent. This happens informally and formally in some schools and nurseries.
The technology appears to be available, using text messaging and mobile phones, to notify parents that their child is not at school. The Scottish Executive needs to investigate rolling this out in both secondary and primary schools. For parents who do not have pagers or mobile phones, contact via landline phones, as happens informally now, would be more labour-intensive, but would be worth it. I can see no downside to this early-warning system.
Parents want to know where their children are - especially if they aren't where they are supposed to be. This applies for truancy and child-safety concerns. Only schools know if a child has not turned up in the morning; only parents know if a child doesn't come home in the afternoon. This is an issue which really tests the commitment and responsibilities of parents, schools, education departments and the Executive. To effectively monitor unexpected absence, we all have a part to play. I believe parents are willing to do their bit; many already phone in to schools promptly to explain their child's absence.
Councils and the Executive need to put in place and standardise rapid response monitoring procedures. This would reduce risk, not entirely remove it, but at least children and young people would retain freedom to journey to school independently. Parents would have a safety net which might discourage them from over-protecting children or instilling a culture of disproportionate fear.
Tina Woolnough chairs the charity Parents in Partnership, acting on behalf of parents' interests to create a support network on a range of issues
NO: Judith Gillespie
There is no simple, foolproof way forward
THE suggestion that Rory Blackhall would still be alive if the school had contacted his home immediately about his absence is totally unreasonable and utterly unfair.
He went missing straight after the school holiday and many youngsters would not have turned up because they had moved or were still on holiday. It takes time for school records to catch up.
The most common reason for children to be off school is illness or a medical appointment. In such cases, it is generally understood it is the parents' responsibility to tell the school; if the child is likely only to be off for one day, it is quite common to send a note with the child when they return.
With my own children, I would never phone in if they were off for one day, partly because it was usually impossible to get through to the school office, which is not a call centre and can't cope with a large volume of calls.
Even when you know a child is going to be off for longer you don't always phone in immediately: you wait until you're more certain of what is wrong and how long they might be off. Meanwhile, parents tend to rely on informal messages being carried to the register teacher by their child's friends.
Schools have tried hard to be proactive about truancy and set up various automated phone systems. But it is wrong to see this as a catch-all solution which alerts parents immediately. Firstly, teachers have to take the register.
Absences are collated across all classes and the names then need to be checked off by the office against lists of children whose absence is already accounted for.
Guidance staff might want to point out problems with particular families where a text alert wouldn't be appropriate.
This is all part of a process of checking which takes time - and automated systems depend on someone being able to take a call or receive a message.
In this case, Rory's mother would not have been immediately available to take a call or receive a text as she was teaching a class. For automated systems to work, parents need to have mobiles with them, switched on and in range. This won't always be the case for perfectly good reasons.
I don't think there is an easy way forward. We must remember this is an exceptional case and so high-profile because it is so rare.
There are over 70 million primary pupil "arrivals at school" each year in Scotland. There is a great danger of rushing in a complicated structure on the back of a single tragedy, although I'm aware that for Rory's family this single tragedy is their whole world.
But what can happen in these cases is to concentrate on shutting one particular stable door only to leave another one open.
Each school does need to look at its systems, but I don't think there is a simple foolproof answer. It's no good putting in place a system that will collapse with the first flu epidemic.
If parents are seriously worried, the burden is on them to deliver their children to school.
Judith Gillespie is development manager with the Scottish Parent Teacher Council
YOUR VIEWS
We must do it
I know it will be difficult but we cannot have a system where a child can go missing for seven hours and no-one know it. As a registered childminder, our local primary school phones me if one of the children I care for has not turned up, but that is because I have a close relationship with the school through my job. There is always more than one carer for a child - grandparents, friends or neighbours who could take responsibility for passing the message on to the parents so the school doesn't waste time. It may not work every time, but at least it will be better than nothing.
NICOLA MACDONALD
Tillicoultry, Clackmannanshire
Life and death
Schools should have a policy of calling if a child does not turn up for class and no notification is sent by the parents. Parents must play their part by taking the responsibility to take that call, or nominate someone who will. In these days of mobile phones, it can't be difficult to arrange. Those hours could have meant the difference between life and death.
JULIE S EDGAR
Perth
Common policy
It is common practice, if not policy, in Canada for schools to call home if a child does not turn up for class in the morning. Most often, it is a case of parents forgetting to notify the school the child has been kept home sick. If a procedure like this had been in place at Rory's school, he might still be alive.
TOM FOTHERINGHAM
Toronto, Canada
Too much to ask
To hunt down every child who is a bit off-colour, has a dentist's appointment, or has slept in, is too much responsibility for schools. I would expect a school to be responsible for my child from the point of handover, 9am, and to inform me if that child subsequently goes missing. But to expect the school to be responsible for a child who never arrived is wrong.
KIRSTY LOWE
Broughton, Edinburgh
The full article contains 1458 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
