Children’s Safety

Dear Parents/Carers

Please can I bring to your attention a growing concern over the safeguarding of some children who attend Cookridge Primary.

Firstly, I would again like to refer to ‘Loco Parentis’ – ‘In loco parentis is a Latin term meaning “in the place of a parent,” referring to a legal process where individuals or institutions (like schools, teachers, or guardians) assume partial parental rights and responsibilities for a child’s safety, supervision, and discipline.’ Loco parentis does not start until the children are passed over to a member of staff. On mornings, myself and Mr Maldonado are stood on the gate as an extra level of safeguarding and a member of staff/s are stood down near the classrooms welcoming children into school. Once a parent walks into the school or arrives at the gate and it is clear that you are handing the children over into our care, invoking ‘Loco Parentis’, we will assume our legal responsibilities.

However, some children (Years 1-4) are walking towards the school gates unsupervised. Today, I witnessed a child walking into school gates unsupervised, realised she had forgotten something and ran back over the road without looking and was metres away from getting hit. These incidents are quite frequent and, as a school leader, quite frightening to witness. It won’t be long before a child is hurt seriously or even fatally. Strictly your children are your responsibility until you invoke Loco Parentis (Hand over of responsibility that both parties are aware of), and if anything was to happen whilst unsupervised the responsibility would lie with yourselves.

Please can we ask all parent/carers (of children in to Years 1 to 4) to at least come to the gates if myself or Mr Maldonado are on the gate and if not to the members of staff waiting near the classrooms, before saying goodbye to your children.

Kind regards

Ben Kerr