Melbourne Father Speaks Out after 8yo Son Forgotten on School Holiday Excursion

40 kids were meant to board a bus in Melbourne’s southeast to go to a nearby rock-climbing centre during a school holiday excursion. Only 39 kids did.

One child was left behind – eight-year-old William. The little boy remained at Dingley Villiage Primary, allegedly for up to three hours on his own without access to a phone with no way to contact anyone for help.

The little boy was left in the school parking lot. He jumped the fence to get back into the school grounds and was found playing by himself on the playground.

School holiday excursion

Exactly how William was left behind is not fully understood but there is an investigation taking place. The school holiday program provider, Team Kids, however, has admitted that policies and procedures were not followed during the school holiday excursion.

Team Kids chief executive James Taylor says it was a result of staff forgetting to do a head check on the children before they left.

The four staff members who were responsible for the 40 children have since been stood down.

It was William’s nine-year-old sister who alerted the staff that she couldn’t find her brother at the rock climbing centre. At first, staff assured her that he would be “somewhere” among them but soon it became clear he wasn’t there.

A staff member then did a headcount and realised that they were missing one child. The staff member returned to the school, where they found him on the playground. He was uninjured and unharmed.

In disbelief

William’s father, Nathan Cummings has since spoken out about his son being left on his own.

They were supposed to go on a rock climbing adventure that day at about 12:30. I was at work just doing my day-to-day job … and I got this phone call and I was absolutely shattered and in disbelief of what happened. I was so confused and angry and I had so many emotions going through me at once.”

Nathan went and collected his children straight away and had a chat with the coordinator and the regional manager.

They said ‘this has never happened before’ and even they were very distressed about what happened so we tried to be calm and collected about it,” Mr Cummings added.

In a statement to 7NEWS, a Department of Education spokesperson also spoke about the incident:

The Department of Education and Training is investigating a report of an unsupervised child at a school holiday program run by an external provider,” the spokesperson said.

The health and safety of all children is our top priority. As the matter is ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”