Are you ALWAYS available if school calls?

[m0therofdragons]

School secretary has been on the phone with a question about dd (age 7). Nothing major but she was really rude because she called both dh and I on our mobiles and my work phone which my manager answered and took a message.

Dh and I both happened to be in meetings.

We both called the school back about 25 minutes after they initially called. The third contact wasn't tried.

Usually I'm contactable. Her argument was I didn't know what the call was about and it could have been an emergency. My meeting was in a&e as I'm hospital management so if dd was being ambulanced in I'm in the right place but occasionally I have to go to other hospitals for meetings which could take me up to an hour and a half away. Less than once a month.

Do all other working parents work within 5 minutes of school and have their mobile on at all times?

Nope.
DH works in a factory where they aren't allowed mobiles on the shop floor.
I work in a school. I'm not allowed my phone in class. And any phone calls that don't arrive in my own break or lunch time can't be followed up until after the children go home - and later on staff meeting days.

No. The school have my email address and direct work number. I have told them, and written forms countless times explaining NOT to contact me between certain hours on my mobile as I will not know. My phone is turned of all day for security reasons. I have given them alternate ways to contact me. Email is definitely best. If there is an emergency, I am a 40 min drive away from the school and Dp a 80 min drive.

No there are times neither of us could answer phones. I suspect this is not unusual.

That is ridiculous. I also work in a hospital where reception is sketchy and 4 hours can whizz by in what seems like 10 mins and I wouldn't dream of looking at my phone - nor be able to tbh. I think some people just have no appreciation of how all consuming some jobs can be.

Well,it’s interesting to hear how many schools don’t allow staff to have their phones. Ours isn’t bothered, they must be on silent etc. But we are allowed to have them with us.

I have left details of how to contact me via hospital switch but school said that seemed too complicated - literally can't win.

Nope. I’m self employed so no manager or receptionist. If I’m driving or in a meeting I won’t answer. Dh same as me. MIL is third contact but only on her home number. She lives near the school but there’s no point speaking to her if she’s not home as she doesn’t drive.

Nope, part of my job I can be available by phone most of the time but the other art of my job involves client appointments which last for an hour each time during which I don’t have access to my phone.

I have missed calls from head a couple of times . The first my Ds told her I was at toddler group (I am a Cm) so she left a message on land line , second ironically I was on the school run. But she didn’t phone mobile.

I can’t get to school in 10 mins as it takes me longer than that to walk even if I am home . Funnily enough when I was unemployed I was told by job centre I required to look for jobs within a 90 mile radius of home.

When I’m at home, I can be at school within 2 minutes. When at work, it would take 40 mins, 20 for DH.

However, I’m going to come at this from another direction. I also work in a school and often have to contact parents. I would say that only half the time am I able to contact a parent straight away and that’s fine. If it’s an emergency, we would act accordingly. Otherwise, we go through the contact list and keep trying until we reach you (or leave a few messages). It’s unreasonable to expect parents to be ready and available within ten minutes of being called!

If they didn't cry wolf with phone calls for non time critical things that could be communicated by email then parents would see a phone call or missed call from the school and know it was urgent. Or it would be nice to know that you could put an emergency contact down who could there there quickly, with the guarantee that they would only be contacted in an actual emergency. Not everyone has grandparents or close family nearby who don't mind being called if a child trips and grazes their knee.

When I was a kid my parents worked and there were no mobile phones. If we were ill the school just kept us until home time. You would have to sit in the secretarys office. Yes a pain for the school. but doable.
And when I worked in a nursery before mobile phones, I had to once accompany a child to hospital as no parent around. Not ideal, but needs must.

Definitely not the norm for parents to always pick up the phone. We know they have jobs and appointments.

If there's an emergency then we would get the student appropriate emergency help and continue to attempt contact parents.

And if it really was an emergency, surely they could contact your workplace directly and say that?

@RomanyQueen your school sounds properly pathetic. I can only assume it’s private as a LA school wouldn’t be allowed to admit on that basis, and god knows why anyone would pay for that unprofessionalism and immaturity.

I work an hour away, I may or may not answer my phone immediately- I have it on me 80% of the time. DH wfh and is 5 minutes away but could easily be at the gym for an hour or at a meeting.

No one can guarantee immediate pick up. Not even sure why it’s necessary unless in an emergency- they can just leave a voicemail?

No, no-one can be on call for every second of every day. That's why schools hold emergency contacts

No, it was state primary school. CofE over subscribed every year, they could do what they wanted, was best in the area.
The others who didn't fit the bill went to a community school where there was a corridor with s few kids every day sat chucking up. Was awful for visitors.
The CofE school was small, I suppose kids could have sat in playground, ut wouldn't be good in winter.
Nobody was bothered anyway, if parents worked far away they had a close 3rd contact.

jennymanara We don't have lists of parent workplaces. We would call all emergency contacts and keep trying periodically until we got a response.

In the meantime relevant emergency professionals would make the best calls they can for the situation.

Of course not.
I'd have thought quite a small % of working parents could be answering their phone 100% of the time they are at work. In many ways, this is where phoning to the landline was better, in that you would usually speak to someone who could make the decision to come and extract you from a meeting etc if there really were an emergency.
From working in a school,I certainly wouldn't expect all parents to necessarily be available to turn up within minutes either. Even if they were a SAHP, they could easily have gone for a swim or be in the middle of having a tooth extracted, or driving somewhere, or visiting someone in hospital, or at a funeral, etc etc etc

That's ridiculous @RomanyQueen. Completely unenforceable, even if someone lied and said they would be. I couldn't be written in as part of an admission policy.

Nope and sometimes I can be abroad, can’t exactly nip back from Korea. They don’t even have their dads number as he lives 4hrs away.

Thy do have emergency contacts but I don’t think it’s realistic for everyone to be able to answer instantly. Even my emergency family could possibly be shopping or on the loo. 25m for a call back is nothing, she was rude.

I work within the NHS dealing face to face with patients and on the phone so no I wouldn't be able to answer if I was with a patient. I have missed calls from the school but as soon as I'm finished I'll call straight back. So think she was being unreasonable as you also called back so can't see her problem. Just ignore her, if she was talking to a child or parent and if she had children and their school rang her I highly doubt she would be able to answer straight away.

“No, it was state primary school. CofE over subscribed every year, they could do what they wanted, was best in the area.”

No they couldn’t, that could easily have been challenged as it was illegal

Ds's school is 30 miles away so takes nearly an hour to get there. We are not the furthest either. That's the reality of rural special schools. Pick up within 30 mins etc simply not possible.

I can answer the phone but I can be from 45 mins to 4 hours away and I have no emergency contact or help with pick up.

Surely no state school would be allowed to refuse admission to a child on the basis that it might take longer than 10 minutes for a parent / emergency contact to pick them up if the school rang?

Someone new to an area might not have had time to get to know neighbours / potential classmates parents well enough to nominate them as alternative emergency contacts before their child starts at their new school.