Safeguarding and child collection

[poolhayesjay]

Hi All,

I have a safeguarding query which is concerning me. I work in a school setting, in a reception class. At present we only allow children to be collected by a named adult who is over the age of 18 years.

 

A parent has spoken to me about difficulties coming to collect her child at the end of the day because she now needs to work, his dad is working and sometimes they might need his older sister to collect him. The older sister is 15 years old.

 

Where do we stand with this?

 

Thank you for your help.

 

J

[Rea]

Hi,poolhayesjay, this has been asked before and I recall somebody asking what you would do if the 15 year old was the parent? Sad thought but it happens. We allow 16 year olds but also allow ourselves to be flexible. Some 15 year olds are more capable than some 18 year olds.

I read many years ago there is no age in law when a person can babysit but if something happened and the babysitter was under 16 the parent would be responsible over 16 the baby sitter would be responsible.

[Guest sn0wdr0p]

If the parent deems their older child responsible enough then who are we to argue. It surely will not be the only time the older child is responsible for the younger. (My 15 year old son often looked after my 4 year old son when I popped to the shops during the day) I would suggest you get it in writing though.

[klc106]

We had a situation like this when I worked at school. We the head teacher to write up an agreement with parents that they signed to say they gave their permission for the child to be picked up by older brother

[sunnyday]

Hi and a very warm welcome to the forum :1b

I agree with above comments - but please do get this permission in writing :1b

[poolhayesjay]

Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to reply to my post.

 

It's been very helpful.

 

Jay