Tuesday 3 April 2012

Children Unsupervised Before and After School




What do you do about students who are at school too early or too long after school?


It's probably their fervent desire for knowledge that brings these little people to school at 8 am, and keeps them there until 3:30 or later. Probably - but possibly it's that their parents drop them off early and fail to collect them at 3 because of work or other commitments. These parents might assume that the school will provide supervision for the child while they are on the school grounds.


As I understand it, school boards are not responsible for supervising students outside school hours and most schools expect students to be at school no earlier than 8:30 am and no later than 3:15 – 3:30 pm.  How should a school deal with the issue of the early arrivers/late leavers?

What happens at YOUR school? Is it even a problem? Was it a big problem and you solved it with a Breakfast Club or similar programme? Do you have a rule that students are not allowed on the grounds before a certain time and must be off them by a certain time? Do you provide, or encourage the parents of regularly “overtime” students to use, before and after school programmes? Do you add a note to your website and print it in your newsletter about safety issues of unsupervised students before and after school? Has anything happened to students at your school when they’ve been there unsupervised? Should SchoolDocs write a topic about it that your school could use?

Please tell us your experiences and your ideas about this issue. 

1 comment:

Marriene Langton said...

We do have a problem with a small group of children arriving early and leaving late. Its the usual suspects. Our caretaker doesnt like it as he is often here alone in the mornings from 6am. If we leave to go on a course then there are children here unattended. Some parents have become canny and told the children to wait further down the road.