Mother blames school

Well perhaps this case will remind parents of the value of having a home phone, for their kids safety. If ever there was a brilliant argument- here it is.

While children should be taught to use the phone, we are very quickly moving towards a world where there will be no "land" or home phones as every adult has a cell, and more and more of the 30 to 40 yr olds don't see need to pay for a home phone.
This means children need to find the parent phone, know the parent password etc. before even turning it on. And now, many phones only "open" with a finger print or facial recognition, further complicating a possible second user.
So how does a child even phone for help?
Obviously, this IS tragic situation for the surviving children however it has much broader implications than just outlined in this specific instance.

Tragic situation. Would just add that when paw was working away we rang each other every day and the absence of a reply might have sounded an alarm.

Teach your kids to dial 999- any kid of school age can do that (unless serious special needs) - and teach them to press the number pre registered on your phone for a relative, friend, neighbour ...

I heard a snippet of this story, on the news, but clearly not all I didn't know the mother had blamed the school. I was just struck by the sadness of the family's situation. Very distressing for them all, I don't think the school can be blamed though.

I saw her interviewed and I don't think she was holding the school responsible. She was trying to make a suggestion that more than more then one person be contacted if a child doesn't arrive at school. Another interviewee went further and said that if nobody can be contacted it should be routine that a proper investigation is carried out until it is established that the child/children are safe.

I think anything that goes some way to prevent such a horrible thing happening again is good.

I don't think they would go to the house after one day's absence anyway.
Having three contact numbers is sensible and should be the norm.

The mother is obviously distressed and is trying to blame someone but I don't think that the school is to blame, just that perhaps they need to tighten up their procedures.
Did the mother not phone home regularly? Were the poor little girls with their father's body for two evenings?so presumably mother had not phoned home in that time.

What's happened to Education Welfare (formally Truant) Officers? Don't we have them any more?

I think what the mother is asking is that there is more than one contact number held by the school.
I have been either second or third contact number for some of my GC.
If no contact is made with no 1 then no 2 can be contacted.
I think it is a reasonable thing to ask.
The second case quoted on the news where a single mother , an epileptic, died and her child who had learning difficulties was found dead with her 2 weeks later.
Surely the school had a duty of care to the child to find out why
he wasn't at school.

I think when a mother sees her children in pain - physically or emotionally - it's an automatic reaction to find the cause and blame someone.
To be fair, I've just been watching a news report where she's been talking about this, and it doesn't seem that she is blaming the school. Rather, she is suggesting that there should be better policies in place in schools, i.e. two contact numbers, not one, and home visits if they get no reply from either number.
It was a terrible tragedy and those poor little girls have not only the tragedy of losing their father, but the trauma of having spent the night, all day, and the evening in bed with his body, too scared to go downstairs by themselves. My heart breaks for them and their mother.

Such a sad story Vampire all I can think of is the poor mum is in such a state of shock she is trying to blame someone and the school is the her first resort really,for all the school knew the father could have taken the child for an appointment or similar.
I hope she can come to terms with what has happened and gets all the help she can at such a sad time.