A four year old child got out of Longley primary school yesterday.
Although the gates are locked he got through a gap 12 cm wide and was able to escape the school parimeter.
Now the school has been checked by a safety officer and somehow the gap was rather missed or persumed not to be a threat due to its width.
12 centimetres is a small space but this lad got through it.
He was found up near the Magnet on a very busy road and had made his way to his Grandparents house in Southey Green.
With luck he was seen by a friend of the family and taken back to his Mother.
What is so worrying about this issue is that the Mother went to the office at pick up time and asked for her Son.
The teachers were not even aware he was missing.
Are our kids really safe in school.
Looks like perverts are'nt the only threat to our kids safety.

When I was a nipper, kids used to leave the school grounds all the time (there were no horrific metal fences imprisoning kids in those days) and none of them came to any harm. Neither did this boy, thankfully.

i went to pick up my son from nursery once ( hes 16 now tho) and there was no sign of him, the teacher hadnt noticed he was missing i was in a right state screamin and shouting, all the teachers were looking everywhere the police were sent for and then after about a hour he was found underneath a table with a big plastic sheet on where they had been playing with clay.
no harm done i know but i was gob smacked they hadnt noticed he was missing. it was one of the worst times in my life

Litha

when i was at school there were no locks on our gates too' but thats going back 20 or so years. There wasn't half as much traffic on the roads then and we'd never heard of a peadophile.
The way the world is today it is vital that we know where our children are and that they are safe and looked after properly at school.
So unfortunatly in this case its not a simple case of saying "Well it didnt do us any harm when we were kids"
Thankfully the little boy is safe and well but could have been alot worse!

Originally posted by Rachylou
when i was at school there were no locks on our gates too' but thats going back 20 or so years. There wasn't half as much traffic on the roads then and we'd never heard of a peadophile.
The way the world is today it is vital that we know where our children are and that they are safe and looked after properly at school.

I don't honestly believe that kids are in any more danger from "strangers" (as they used to be called) in 2005 than they were twenty, thirty, or forty years ago. The vast majority of child abuse cases happen within the family - kids are safer at school than they are almost anywhere else.

As for the point about teachers not noticing kids going missing, I imagine it's easy to lose sight of a kid for a split-second when you're in charge of a class of 30. Unless you want kids to be locked in cells this sort of thing will always happen.

for a split second yes i agree it is easy , but to not notice that such & such isnt around during the course of the day is abit wrong wouldnt you say. i expect that when my kids go to school they are still there when i go to pick them up... not mislaid.

Litha

I totally agree with you Litha and things HAVE got worse from 20 years ago. Why is it that parents wont let their children go far now but when i was little i was allowed to cross the main road and play in hillsborugh park from an early age. All of the children where i lived were allowed off their street.
I dont know what other people think but i blame the television most of the sick programmes they put on give weirdo's ideas.

Originally posted by Rachylou
I totally agree with you Litha and things HAVE got worse from 20 years ago. Why is it that parents wont let their children go far now but when i was little i was allowed to cross the main road and play in hillsborugh park from an early age. All of the children where i lived were allowed off their street.
I dont know what other people think but i blame the television most of the sick programmes they put on give weirdo's ideas.

It's just not true that things are worse. In fact, a quick bit of Googled research shows that child murders halved between the 1970s and the 1990s; 95% of those murders were committed by parents or carers.

Thanks to blanket media coverage and screaming headlines, the perception is different these days. But the reality is that kids are as safe now as they were back then.

yes things have got worse Rachylou. its totally silly to say other wise. yes there have always been criminals but there are alot more now. people had more respect and higher morals and there wernt as many druggies then. i didnt even know about such things as drugs when i was little. the law is crap and lets people get away with things so it is no deterent.
ooops im goin way off topic now so ill shurrup

Litha

Originally posted by Litha
i went to pick up my son from nursery once ( hes 16 now tho)
Don't you think it's about time you at least let him go to primary school now?

;)

If you have done your research then i am really happy that this is true. It just doesn't seem safe anymore and yes this might be because of the media and the news but what about all the abductions that ar'nt reported on tv?
All i know is that becoming a parent is one massive worry but your at peace a little bit when there at school' but now even thats taken away from us.

Originally posted by foo_fighter
Don't you think it's about time you at least let him go to primary school now?

;)

NO NO they do full days at primary... more chance of him been mislaid :(

Litha

Originally posted by Rachylou
If you have done your research then i am really happy that this is true. It just doesn't seem safe anymore and yes this might be because of the media and the news but what about all the abductions that ar'nt reported on tv?

I don't think that these days there are any child abductions that you won't hear about on TV - not involving strangers anyway. It's very, very rare.

All i know is that becoming a parent is one massive worry but your at peace a little bit when there at school' but now even thats taken away from us.

The risk is so minimal, it's not worth worrying about (easy to say, I know!) :) I think it's really sad when kids are caged in at school, or not allowed to play out because of a threat that doesn't exist.

[



The risk is so minimal, it's not worth worrying about (easy to say, I know!) :) I think it's really sad when kids are caged in at school, or not allowed to play out because of a threat that doesn't exist. [/B][/QUOTE]



Try saying that to Holly and Jessica's parents!

well the school my youngest goes to started lockin every door and gate into the school because a weirdo was found wondering round the school. i would call this a threat that does exsist. it is really really silly to say there is no threat, im not calling you silly at all here cos everyone is entitled to thier opinian (sp?) but im sure a poll on this would have you very much in the minority with your views on todays safety compared to that of the past.

Litha

Originally posted by Litha
it is really really silly to say there is no threat, im not calling you silly at all here cos everyone is entitled to thier opinian (sp?) but im sure a poll on this would have you very much in the minority with your views on todays safety compared to that of the past.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I would be in the minority, because the widespread perception is that murderous paedophiles are absolutely everywhere. But looking at the facts, the perception doesn't match up to the reality.

I'm not trying to say that they don't exist - that would be silly - only that the risk is massively, grotesquely overstated.

4 years old, Longley?
whats he doing not driving a stolen car? Must be one of the brighter ones

I was taught that statistics are relatively the same but our perceptions and report of crimes is higher.
Children are taught to put themselves in less potentially dangerous situations and adults force it upon them but surely there are the same amount of nutters on the streets now as there were. Perhaps more due to 'care in the community'. I remember there was a nutter frequently stopping near my school when I was in primary and I was scared to walk home.
If children are restrained they are often even more likely to want to do whatever they are restricted from.
A 12 in gap, well, I saw a 2 yr old squeeze through the gap in a creche gate yesterday, perhaps its time to redesign these things?

Originally posted by viking
4 years old, Longley?
whats he doing not driving a stolen car? Must be one of the brighter ones Its not the Manor up here you know, mind you its close to Parson Cross.:hihi:

This isn't anything new my mum told me about when I first started at the infant school, She took me into school and I manged to escape and get back home before she did.:thumbsup: Then again never did like school lol:hihi: :hihi: :heyhey:

Originally posted by Zebra
Children are taught to put themselves in less potentially dangerous situations and adults force it upon them but surely there are the same amount of nutters on the streets now as there were. Perhaps more due to 'care in the community'. I remember there was a nutter frequently stopping near my school when I was in primary and I was scared to walk home.


I think that you are being a bit harsh there implying that child abusers/abductors are from the element of unfortunate citizens who have a mental health problems.

I think you'll find that most abusers are just like Joe Public, very ordinary and the ' you'd never have thought it' type. Some are even judges

;)

My boy got away from me once in Meadowhall.
He was about 3 or 4 at the time. I'd taken him into the Disney shop (or Warner Bros...) - it was the one with the play tunnel kids could go in & press buttons.
Anyway He was pressing buttons in the tunnel & I was stood by the tunnel opening where he'd gone in.
To this day I have no idea how he'd slipped out of the other opening & out of the shop. It was very busy & I'd noticed the 'beeping' sounds had stopped so peered into the tunnel to see nothing but fresh air.
The panic was immediate, my tongue felt bigger in my throat, or was it my heart that had come up to meet it & merged?
I felt cold. Then I went hot. I dashed round all the whirlygig clothes racks - no sign!

I went out of the shop & stood on a bench - there were people milling everywhere.

Then I spotted his little shaggy carrot top hair disappearring happily down the concourse. I shouted him at the top of my voice - luckily he heard & he started back.
He cried because I cried. It was horrible. I couldn't tell him off.



All this was at the time of the Jamie Bulger investigations.


What a vile memory.

around that time i once took my lad to the market, i had just let go of his hand to pay for some bacon turned round and saw someone bent over with their arm round him.. i screamed blue murder and launched 3lb bacon at them. the person stood up and it was only a neighbour LOLOL

but yeah it gets ya like that

Litha

The thing that puzzles me, and I expect that some of you on here can help me with this, is what do you expect anyone to actually be able to do about this?

How many children have been through Longley Primary through the years and haven't squeezed through the bars and run off? Hundreds? One child doing it is a miniscule percentage and, with the best will in the world, if you want to keep your child 100% safe 100% of the time then you are in for disappointment.

Keep them at home, home schooling (do you trust any teachers at all? what if they turn out evil? You'd never expect it...). Give up your job and social life to watch them. Don't let them touch, eat, look at, listen to or experience anything. You know, just in case it turns out to be the 0.0001% that are evil.

The fact is that one child out of a great number ran away. With the increasing class sizes I'm not surprised the teachers are under pressure. It turned out alright in the end. Yes, it's unfortunate, and yes it "shouldn't have happened", but it does not mean that our schools are inherently unsafe, it does not mean that stalkers, murderers and paedophiles are lurking round every corner, and it does not mean that our children should be caged like criminals or animals.

Get some perspective.

I have vague recollections of regular headcounts going on at various points during the day at our primary school. It wasn't unusual for the teacher to then ask the class 'where's Xxxxx?' The missing child would usually emerge from under a desk or from between the shelves of the wheely bookcase and the wall (often only when half the class had pointed them out). Our teachers did notice. The classroom door was too heavy for the youngest children to open alone though :D

I agree with spiffy and greenback but it's all very well to know these things intellectually - the perception is different and the actuality is a nightmare.

I can relate to Don's story ... my daughter once lost me in the Moor market... finally found her some fifteen minutes later in BHS ... a neighbour had seen her, the staff had her stood on a counter check out ... I aged about ten years in that quarter of an hour ... she was four at the time but she went back into reins that very day!!!

Originally posted by Litha
i screamed blue murder and launched 3lb bacon at them. the person stood up and it was only a neighbour LOLOL


Litha, you seem to do a lot of screaming, is your life one long moment of high drama?? :D It can be counter productive though. We were in one of the big supermarkets and there was toddler, absolutely heartbroken, running about near the door, so my daughter bent down to the child to ask what was the problem .... almost instantly this mad woman came screaming up to us and had a real go ...

because of her inappropriate reaction, we might not try to help again - and of course, sod's law, that might be the one time a child IS in danger...

Ive lost count of the many times my three lads have lead me a merry dance -running off when they were little.
my eldest who's 18 now , once went missing from beck rd school for 2 hours.
i wasnt contacted until he was found so i never knew.
they found him hidden in a giant smarty tube in the infant yard.
apparently he'd been there since morning break and wasnt found till lunch time.

my other son who's 16 now , went missing when he was 3 yrs old.
the police were phoned loads of times but never arrived.
i walked my legs off looking for him and had my friend searching all over on her moped.
hours later i had a phone call from beck road nursery to say that he'd been there ages and was given a drink of milk and a biscuit.(hed tried to find his big brother who went there)
the police finally turned up after id collected him.
the same son ,3 years on got his head stuck in the school railings and we had to get the fire brigade out, as there was a crumbling wall above the railing which wasn't safe so they had to act quickly.
Then some callous woman held them up trying to sell them raffle tickets while they were trying to get to my son.
(typical shiregreen)
the same son once walked out of school with another child and ended up in town - when he was 8 yrs old.
i cant begin to count how many times he went missing from meadowhall.

my youngest son who's now 11 once went missing when he was 2 yrs old.
i was so distraught i couldnt breath.
After a long search and imagining all sorts , i saw a police car outside someones house, further up the road i ran to it and they were just arresting someone.
So i told them about my son and they threw the man out that they were arresting and told me to get in. (must have only been a minor offence) lol
then after driving around a report came on their radio saying that my child was at ecclesfield police station.
someone saw him and took him there.
when i got there he was covered in chocolate they'd given him and he was chuckling away.

Yes you can say i was lucky on all accounts.

Originally posted by rubydazzler
We were in one of the big supermarkets and there was toddler, absolutely heartbroken, running about near the door, so my daughter bent down to the child to ask what was the problem .... almost instantly this mad woman came screaming up to us and had a real go ...

I was walking into BHS in Rotherham many years ago when the two young women infront of me held the door open so a toddler could walk out :loopy: :rant: - Straight onto a busy main road :loopy: :shocked:

I took the child by the hand and said 'shall we see where your mummy is?' as I led him back inside. Two ladies inside were looking about with a growing urgency. They were very grateful. They were very annoyed when I told them how he came to be with me.

This incident was covered on GMTV this morning! Apparently the kid went off on a mission to find Elvis. As you do. :)

About a year ago I lost my (2 1/2 year old) son in M & S Meadowhall. I had a quick look nearby then started to panic. There were 2 assistants chatting nearby so I told them I had lost him and that he doesn't respond/answer to his name. I then carried on looking, and about 2 minutes later came back to the spot where the assistants were STILL STANDING CHATTING:rant: :rant: they had not moved or informed anyone what was going on! Luckily I found him wandering out of the shop, oblivious to the panic- no thanks to the bloody useless staff:loopy:

Yes, I know it was 'my fault' that he wandered off- lesson learned

Originally posted by Greenback
This incident was covered on GMTV this morning! Apparently the kid went off on a mission to find Elvis. As you do. :)

Yes, I get the impression that the mother is 'milking it' somewhat. Both my kids have run away before, either to try and find friends or relatives, or on a mission to the sweety shop. I've never really seen the need to get the national news involved for such a common non-incident, though.

Originally posted by spiffymonkey
Yes, I get the impression that the mother is 'milking it' somewhat. Both my kids have run away before, either to try and find friends or relatives, or on a mission to the sweety shop. I've never really seen the need to get the national news involved for such a common non-incident, though.

A 4 year old managing to get out of school is milking it :rant:

You leave your children (because you have to by law) in the care of a team professionals to find that they have left him in a situation where he is able to leave the premises. That is disgraceful and negligent and if I was his parents I would be doing more than going on GMTV I'll tell you.

Originally posted by Mo
A 4 year old managing to get out of school is milking it :rant:

You leave your children (because you have to by law) in the care of a team professionals to find that they have left him in a situation where he is able to leave the premises. That is disgraceful and negligent and if I was his parents I would be doing more than going on GMTV I'll tell you.

Kids have being doing this sort of thing since the dawn of time. For the parent concerned it's extremely frightening, but what can you do about it? Remove your kids from school, carry them around with you everywhere and turn them into social recluses?

Perhaps attaching a ball and chain to every school desk might work? Or maybe implanting an extra 30 pairs of eyes into teachers' heads might be effective...

Originally posted by Mo
A 4 year old managing to get out of school is milking it :rant:


No, taking it to national newspapers and television is milking it. There is still no suggestion about what to do about the situation, just repeated bleating of "it shouldn't have happened, it shouldn't have happened". A sensationalist parent who seems to want to bask in the limelight and bring down the reputation of a school for a single mistake (yes, a mistake, they happen. Live with it) is milking it.

It happened. It's unfortunate. I know that the school has had safety inspectors in, and I know some of the reaction of parents in the school (look at my location and take a wild guess at where my daughter goes to school). They are trying to improve the situation, which is more than the mother of this child is trying to do. She's just extracting her pound of flesh.



hat is disgraceful and negligent and if I was his parents I would be doing more than going on GMTV I'll tell you.


I have to ask, what would you hope to achieve by doing so? What would 'more than GMTV' be able to do except put you in the spot light for 10 minutes until something more interesting happened?

Originally posted by Greenback
Kids have being doing this sort of thing since the dawn of time. For the parent concerned it's extremely frightening, but what can you do about it? Remove your kids from school, carry them around with you everywhere and turn them into social recluses?

Perhaps attaching a ball and chain to every school desk might work? Or maybe implanting an extra 30 pairs of eyes into teachers' heads might be effective...

I am sorry to disappoint you but I have never known a child 'escape' from school, either when I was at school, at my children's school or any school that I've worked in.

When you leave your children in the care of others, they should be safe and secure and that means not being able to roam the outside world.

The school as part of its duty of care should be regularly carrying out health and safety risk assessments as I'm sure it does. Most educators do not have the blase attitude to child safety that you do (thank God) and things like holes in fencing should have been picked up. Though the report that I read said that the fence was too low and the child had clinbed over the top of it.

To be fair to the Mother its the media that contacts her.
She would have been invited to GMTV and hounded by the media for her views.
She rightly or wrongly is just enjoying her 15 minutes of fame which is again, the media's fault.
I went through the same thing when I was stopped for over taking a police motor bike at 40 MPH and getting knicked for speeding.
Nothing special about it but I was riding my pedal bike.
The media phoned me at work, home and I was all over the radio and T.V.
A camara crew were waiting in my living room when i returned from a training session despite refusing to speak to them in an earlier phone call.
I do agree with MO though that they are left there by law and your kids should be safe.
Greenback is living in the past.
You cannot leave the gates open or take any risks with children in this day and age, yes when I was a kid the gates were always opened and we were allowed to roam almost at will but those days are long gone.

Originally posted by Mo
I am sorry to disappoint you but I have never known a child 'escape' from school, either when I was at school, at my children's school or any school that I've worked in.

It's not a disappointment! But it used to happen quite a bit when 'I wor a lad'. To be fair, at my old school they have now erected a giant 10-foot high metal perimeter fence that not only stops kids getting out but also stops them coming back after school to kick a ball around on the fields.

I'm not blasé at all about this, just a realist. Of course healthy and safety is vital and all schools should do as much as is possible to this end, and obviously if it was my kid I'd be demanding answers. But schools will never be completely risk-free places, as many parents seem to demand. Kids will be kids...

Originally posted by Greenback
I'm not blasé at all about this, just a realist. Of course healthy and safety is vital and all schools should do as much as is possible to this end, and obviously if it was my kid I'd be demanding answers. But schools will never be completely risk-free places, as many parents seem to demand. Kids will be kids...

This is my point exactly. The situation has been and is being dealt with, there is nothing to be gained by prolonging the hype. Kids will be kids and, as I have said before in this thread, if you want 100% safety you are in for nothing but disappointment.

I'm not blasé about child safety, and I think I would be appalled if my child had been allowed to wander out of school, but I do think that when the situation has been taken in hand and a solution is presented (as in this case), then that should be the end of it. There is no need to drag it through the mud once the issue is dealt with.

Originally posted by Rachylou Try saying that to Holly and Jessica's parents! [/B]
That was exactly two years ago though. Can you think of any since off the top of your head?

Originally posted by Tony
That was exactly two years ago though. Can you think of any since off the top of your head?

Actual abductions locally then no, but many reports in the Star over the past year of attempted abductions. There was a spate of them in the SE of Sheffield. I can specifically remember a girl being approached outside Woodhouse West End club at the bus -stop, another girl walking up Normanton Hill, a series of incidents involving a white car stopping girls around the Birley School and surrounding area.

It could just be that when we read reports we are very sadly becoming de-sensitised by it.

The Daily Mirror (spit-spit) report stated that he crossed 4 busy main roads some of them bus routes before he was found by the friend. Longley School to Moonshine Lane - 4 busy main roads some of them bus routes? Yeah, right.:loopy:

56% of all police recorded child abductions in 2002/2003 in England and Wales involved an offender not not known to the child. 23% of child abductions involved a parent. The remainder involved other people known to the child.
It is estimated that many of the stranger attempted child abductions where the motive was not known were also sexually motivated abductions

The offence of child abduction is part of the 'violence against the person' category of police recorded crime. It is only a small proportion of the total offences in this category (just 0.1% in 2002/03). In 2002/2003 846 child abduction offences were recorded by the police in England and Wales. This was a 45% increase on the previous year.

Attempted child abductions by strangers were the largest single type of child abductions (56%). In most offences there was minimal contact between the victim and the offender. The number of these offences appears to have increased dramatically since 2001/02.



Oh yes I would call a 45% increase being safer than 20 years ago......wouldnt you?.

Kids are safer at school. You cannot have eyes in the back of your head when they are at home. THIS (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/viking99/forums/dogknows.bmp) proves it.

Originally posted by Cycleracer
A camara crew were waiting in my living room when i returned from a training session despite refusing to speak to them in an earlier phone call.
Did they get in through a hole in the gate, or did they climb over the fence? ;)

When I was a lass our school had no gate - it never occured to me to escape as it was drilled into me not to and my kids know better too. Ok, as a parent I shudder to think what could've happened to this lad but there were 100 kids in the Foundation Unit. Very difficult to keep track on everyone especially when the child in question seems to have been determined to escape.

I also think that the mother is milking it. I'm told she got in touch with the media herself that same day. Personally I can't see what this would achieve apart from the notoriety. I'd be embarrassed to admit if my kids did this. ;)

I've read the views already posted in this thread and I think the biggest issue is that the teachers have a duty of care, which on this occasion has been severely neglected, I live in the Longley area and this has enforced for me the negative feeling I already have towards sending my own child to that school.

I shall be looking at alternatives.

I agree - I blame the teachers for not looking after the children properly

Originally posted by foo_fighter
Did they get in through a hole in the gate, or did they climb over the fence? ;)

Climbed over the fence as it was too low.

Also on the news today that ANOTHER primary school child has 'escaped' from a school at Darnall. :o


Story is here (http://www.thisissheffield.net/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=58&ArticleID=967370)

I don't think it ever crossed my mind when I was at school that I might 'escape'. Could be a reflection on how stimulating kids find school these days?

Then again I could have just been a goody 2 shoes!