Checklist 2 of 3
They are late. Here is what you do, in order.
Almost every "late" is a slow walk, a friend, a forgotten message or a flat battery. The plan below exists so that on the one morning it is not, you are already three steps in instead of deciding where to start. Fill in the numbers now and put the page by the door.
Before it ever happens
- The "no later than" time is agreed and written down. Not the departure time — the time by which you expect the arrival routine to have happened. Add ten minutes of slack to the real walk.
- You have the school office's direct number saved, and the office knows your child walks alone and how they check in.
- You have one other adult on the route — a neighbour, another walking parent — whose number you have and who has yours.
- The child knows the rule for delays: if something stops you, you keep going to school or you go back home; you do not wait somewhere in between, and you do not go anywhere else. Home or school, nothing third.
- The child knows what to do if approached or frightened: go into the nearest open shop, school or house with people, and ask an adult there to call you. Practise the sentence. If the child carries a phone with a family locator, show them the SOS button once — in Geopapa it sends you an alert with the reported location — and make clear it is in addition to finding an adult, never instead.
The plan
"No later than" time passes — check the routine, not the child
Look for the message or the check-in you agreed. If there is a location app, look at it — and read the time beside the dot, not just the dot: in Geopapa or any locator, an old timestamp means the phone stopped reporting (no signal, flat battery, restricted app), not that the child stopped moving. Do not call the child yet if the routine was a message: a call during a crossing is worse than a two-minute wait.
+5 minutes — one message, then call the school office
Send one message ("are you at school?"). Then call the office and ask them to check whether your child has been marked in. Offices can do this in a minute; it resolves most cases.
+10 minutes — call the child, call the other adult
Now call the child directly if they have a phone. Then call your route contact and ask whether they saw your child pass. If the school has confirmed absence and nobody has seen them, you go.
+15 minutes — walk the route from school backward
Walking the route the child would be on, from the school end toward home, is more useful than driving around: you see what they saw, and you meet them if they turned back. If someone else can be at home in case the child returns, ask them.
+30 minutes with no contact — call the police
Do not wait longer to see whether it resolves. A missing child is a reason to call immediately, and the police would rather be called and cancelled. Have ready: the route, what they were wearing, the last confirmed sighting, the phone number they carry.
When they turn up. Nearly every time they will, at step one or two. Say you were worried, say the routine matters, and do not attach a punishment to the routine itself — a child who fears being late will start hiding lateness rather than reporting it.
Fill in now
"No later than" time:
School office (direct line):
Adult on the route:
Second parent / relative who can be at home:
What my child was wearing today (glance at the door):
What the child needs to know, in their words
The child's half of this plan is short: I keep going or I go home; I don't wait in between; if something scares me I go into a shop or a house with people and ask them to call. If I'm going to be late for any reason, I tell an adult as soon as I can. It is on the family agreement so it is theirs, not yours.