dilema on schools

[mushpea]

I know this is a while off but I want to be prepared,,,, at the moment I do runs to two schools that are 5mins walk apart,, school 1 comes out at 3pm school 2 at 3.o5pm so as long as they ar running on time there are no probs but somtimes school 1 is late like yesterday,, now at the moment thats not a problem as mindee is in the infants at school 2 and they will hold on to him but in september he goes up to the juinors and they just let them out wether you are there or not,,, so do i ask them to let him wait in the office (althoug i am not sure they would be happy to do this) do i ask for the 3 children from school 1 to come out 5mins early or do i ask the 3 children at school 1 to wait in the office for 20mins and collect them 2nd, or do i trust mindee to stand in the play ground and wait for me to come out,, there is a sheltered area where he can stand where another minder friend of mine waits for hers to come out but i dont want to burden her with him ifyswim
what would you do

[suzyblue]

I think by the time the child reaches juniors he will be fine to wait for you in the playground. It amazing how quickly they grow up and are ready for changes and more responsibility.

[sarah707]

I have a sensible 7 year old who comes out of juniors by herself and looks for me in the playground.

We have plan A... I'm there to collect her; plan B... it might be my partner (he's registered); plan C... if nobody is there go back inside to the office and see if there's a message from me; plan D... wait...

[crazyhazy]

not sure how old the child is but I have a mindee of 9 and she has permission to walk to my house after school (I live next door), if I'm collecting my preschooler we sometimes meet her in the play ground but otherwise she makes her own way. I also find she is always last out so you might find they won't have to wait long. Sorry basically I would get them to wait in the playground, maybe have a word with the first school though and explain it would help if they could get out on time.

[Goatgirl]

HI ,
Ideally, ask the parents to speak to both schools.

The first to make sure they're ready and out on time; the second to warn them you may be unavoidably delayed on a regular basis... Once child is older, depending on personality and how late etc you may be either let him wait for you in a designated 'safe' spot, but with school aware of situation; or ask school to keep him in the office.

I had a 7, then 8 yr old to collect who was a 'wanderer' and it didn't help that the scool often let them out up to 5 minutes earlier than they were supposed to and there was no playground supervision, just zillions of kids and parents milling about! I had to be able to collect him from inside the school or else goodness knows where he could have wandered to. Plus I just felt it was not a nice feeling to be in an empty playground on your own... just my opinion, not criticising anyone else's arrangements .

It also took some of the stress off me having to rush quite so much, knowing he was under adult supervision till I got there.

Luckily I now only collect from one school

bws,
Wendy