Being Alone With A Child - In The Car

[Guest jenpercy]

Have just been told that I should not pick up one child in my car to take back to after-school club, but should inform the parent that s/he needs to make her own arrangements to get the child to us.

 

so, if i find myself at school and one of 2 children has gone home sick and no one has told us - am I supposed to

 

a) ring parent - tell her to make her own arrangements ie a taxi which won't be available for another half an hour . If I wait for the taxi this would mean that I will need to get a taxi back to collect my car at the end of the day - and the setting will be one member of staff down until I get back and therefore ilegal.

 

If I don't wait for the taxi - this will ruin my relationship with the school who don't see it as their job to look after children after school, and will mean that the child will have to get into a taxi on a one to one with a complete stranger.

 

Oh just realised - my husband is at home and I got him police checked 7 years ago when I set up the business, I could get him to come and pick us both up - but isn't this pottentially at least as risky as my picking child up on my own. I mean if i was likely to molest child I would have thought that this last (which I haven't run past my advisor) was at least as risky.

 

If the idea is to protect me from false allegations - what does this say about the modern 8 year old - or modern society.

 

thank god, I'm over 60 and don't have to do this much longer!!!

[Cait]

Goodness that's a predicament! what does Ofsted advise?

[Upsy Daisy]

Who told you not to take just one child in the car?

[HappyMaz]

Who has told you this jenpercy? Have they been able to give you any suggestions about how to proceed in the circumstances you describe?

[Guest jenpercy]

My development officer told me that in no circumstances should I be alone in the car with one child. I should contact the parent and tell them to make their own arrangements for getting child to us. My feeling is that the parent would remove their child altogether if I started this performance. They have not bothered to think through what parnt would be able to do.

 

I was told that childminders can have only one child, because their insurance would be different to mine. so I rang my insurers who have no problem with it. Wil let you know what OFSTED say after they come out to see us next week

[HappyMaz]

Interesting. We don't generally have to transport children anywhere however on the odd occasion we have needed to so that a child could come on a trip without their parent, we would have two members of staff in the car. However in the past we have had a member of staff taking a child to school visits as part of their transition into primary school. Then we got the parent to sign a permission form, and kept copies of the driving licence, MOT and insurance certificates. We certainly couldn't have afforded to have two staff members accompanying the child, and the parent didn't want to take more time off work to take the child to meet the practitioner at school and then pick him up again and bring him back to nursery.

 

I guess it could be argued that it might not be ideal to have one staff member in a car with a child alone, but so long as the parent has agreed it and the driver's insurance covers him/her for business purposes, I can't really see the difference between this something a childminder does all the time.

 

I'll be really interested to see what Ofsted say.