Lost child

On discovering a child is missing, staff should ascertain where and when the child was last seen. Half the staff should start looking for the child while the other staff ensure that all other children are accounted for by taking the register and are kept safe and calm in one place.

Staff should search inside and outside of the school. If after five minutes the child has not been found staff should immediately make contact with the primary carer and if this is not possible use the
emergency contacts.

Staff need to inform the police that a child is missing and take their advice as to whether the remaining children should remain at the school or their parents contacted to collect them.

Should the owner not be present, she should also be immediatelycontacted.

Once the situation is resolved, it should be recorded in the Incident Log and the parent/carer asked to countersign.

A report should be written, recording the sequence of events.

An emergency staff meeting should be arranged to discuss how a child managed to go missing and what actions need to be taken to prevent this happening again.

This procedure should be reviewed and changes made if appropriate.