What's the strangest call you've ever had from your child's school

[listsandbudgets]

Pancake day always makes me remember this one.

You know that cold feeling when the phone goes and its school? Is my child ill, hurt, in trouble etc. etc.

A few years ago mine went on pancake day. The school receptionist said "we're sorry about this Lists but Lists-junior has been hit over the head with a frying pan"

(turned out thankfully it was only a very light, one and they'd been having a pancake race when he tripped, the boy behind him tripped and somehow in the tangle the frying pan whacked him on the head!)

Has anyone had a stranger call than that?

Call from school telling me ds aged 7 had found our house key in his shoe!

I had to call a parent when one of our kids remembered that she’d lit a candle before going to school that day because it smelled nice and hadn’t blown it out. Phoned Mum at work - you might need to go home to blow out a candle....

"Hi, Ms. X?, we caught your elder son playing hooky. He cut his last four classes. We've had him in the office for an hour now, and he keeps telling us that the Mother Ship beamed him up, and he has been cruising the galaxy. The story is so detailed that we're starting to believe him. Can you please come in and try to get to the bottom of where he's been?

Beats me...for all I know, he WAS cruising the galaxy. That was 35 years ago, and his story STILL has not changed!

@heartcurrent1

Had a call to tell me eldest DS had tripped in class and was feeling very emotional about it could I come and get him, he was 6 at the time. Got there to find him with the most massive horrendous black eye I've ever seen in my life, I said maybe he was emotional because his face hurt and the teacher bizarrely said it's probably more the embarrassment I went it's absolutely without doubt pain. Took him to hospital thankfully no fractures or breaks around the eye socket just really bad tissue damage I was just astounded. Even now over a year later I can't bring myself to look at the pictures of it.

We had one like this. My then 8 year old daughter tripped in the playground. She ‘bumped her chin but was ok’. They were letting me know in case she tried to tell me later and wanted to clarify details. Didn’t need collecting as it was just a bump.

When I collected her the whole of her lower face from her left ear to her right edge of mouth, down to the turn of her neck was literally black. The didn’t mention she’d ‘bumped’ it on a curb stone. She was vomiting, but they didn’t really count it as a head bump.

We took her to A and E where they suspected a broken jaw and bought in a maxilo facial doctor to have a good look, and immediately diagnosed a concussion. Her jaw was just chipped fortunately!

I’ve had so many this year as a teacher! “Sorry E’s Mum, think the washing has got a bit mixed up” there was quite a bit of Anne Summers esque underwear in his PE bag.
Parent asked me to have a word and issue sanctions bc the child called their dog a dickhead and they must have learnt it at school. The same mum swore at me down the phone when I suggested it wasn’t age appropriate to drop to the floor and growl when asked to put the whiteboard away.
We have to ring for any head injuries even if it’s completely minor but parent asked me very seriously if I considered it was a safeguarding issue after their child wasn’t looking and walked into the door. Umm... no!

My pfb was in year 10 or 11.
I got a call from the head of year saying he was wearing an "unsuitable slogan t shirt for p.e."
My response, in the moment, was "WHAT? That cost 20 quid!"
not my finest hour...
(I never found out which one he had on, but it was either "drink beer, smoke crack, worship satan" or "my inner child is a mean little fucker")

Another from ds school. Actually loads from there and he'd left by end of year 7 because of it.

"Ds has been banned from drama club. A girl was giving him some hassle and pushed him so he pushed he back r. She's now refusing to attend if ds attends so we've banned him because she's doing gcse drama"
So she was 16 and ds had started secondary 2 months previously

Ds was being bullied. Head teacher told me to "move him elsewhere if I don't trust them" after a meeting to try and find a way to solve it. All logged as I minutes it and she didn't refute it.
2 weeks to the day later.

"Hi miss weird, it's x here from y school. Just to let you know there's been an incident and pulled a knife on him in class today and so is suspended for next 2 days. Ds is fine so it's just a courtesy call to let you know"

Ds wasn't fine and had a breakdown including trying to commit suicide and school marked him as unauthorised a sense following day as he had medical support because "we don't think he has any reason to be anxious as the kids isn't in until Thursday"

Safe to say ds never returned to that school and it went to fisted and everything.

Not a phone call but an announcement to all the parents waiting to pick up at DS nursery (3)

There has NOT been a fire.

Turned out they had a practice fire drill and all the children were talking about going outside because of the fire.

Never will forget it 😂

For contrast my parents still love the story about how aged 10 I missed Friday afternoon art to go to Amsterdam and see my dad and go to the Rijksmuseum for a Van Gogh exhibit.
Obviously the school can’t really agree to missing school for a holiday but they weren’t expecting the snooty letter lamenting the academic learning and experiences I would be missing out on for missing 2 hours on a Friday...

@FeatherInTheWind if your DS is who I think he is from your list, he's an absolute staff room legend

Not so much strange but
I dropped my 5 year old off at school. About 9:30am when I was at work I got a call from the school asking me where my child was! When I said at school, I got a quick, Call you back in 2mins! I knew he was safe at school but the doubt that crossed my mind in those 2 minutes. Did I really watch him go into class?
Anyway I got a call straight back to confirm he was safe. Teacher forgot her glasses and recorded the wrong child as absent. Took a few years off me that did.

When we'd just started in a new school and my ds's class had a healthy eating topic and were making smoothies. Ds claimed he was allergic to all fruit and the lovely TA called me because there was nothing on his admission forms. I politely explained he was a lying little s£&t.
There was also the time dd had a splinter and they called me at 2pm to come to inspect it and confirm they couldn't do anything about it. Home time was 3.15. Really? You couldn't have had that discussion at the classroom door? P.S. I'm a TA.

-Mrs Karma, your son here says he needs to go home because he feels unwell

• Is he ok?
• I’m sure he is faking it but we have him in the office for you to pick him up.

Got there 20 minutes later to find a very pale and ill looking little Karma, who proceeded to vomit on the feet of the nasty woman who made the call just as we were leaving the office.

@ImnotCarolineHirons eeek!!

Wales?

Friend once got a call telling them “your child has fallen in the toilet and hurt their head”. Races round with a towel and change of clothes expecting a wet child and some sort of bizarre freak accident. Turns out “child has fallen over in the toilets and bumped their head” was slightly misheard by the office staff when they were asked to make the call....

Just last term at a new school, ds age 5 had squashed the red waxy coating from a babybel cheese all into the front of his fringe. I would rather they hadn’t called to tell me as i of course saw their number and panicked. But I laughed when I heard why they’d called. The wax didn’t come out for days.

That my then 14 year old DS's school bag had to be searched for a gun.

I had to ask the head of year for repeat themselves to check I'd heard right.

Apparently my DS had a argument with some little twat in his year and said little twat decided to get revenge by lying to a teacher saying my DS said he was going to shoot him and he was scared because my DS has a gun in his bag.

Later had a phone call from head of year again to apologise as little twat had admitted to lying.

My DS was left bemused by the whole incident

@Rachie1973 how long ago was that? One of my friends at primary school did just that and I remember spending all lunch break with my other friend looking for her chin in the playground as I thought she'd lost it somewhere...

@StarrIntheSky

I can certainly vouch costochondritis certainly does happen out of nowhere and isn't the result of trauma;I suffered for months with the resulting musculoskeletal pain from this beauty;I now 3 years later still have a section of one rib that still hurts if anything touches it;it's never healed;it's the gift that keeps on giving.

3 days in a row, the teacher spoke to me at pick up to tell me DS (4 at the time) had cut his friends hair. 3 days. I suggested after day 3 that they should stop giving him scissors

My nephew used to get accident forms every day from nursery. My sister's favourite was the time when he stood on his own hand

Got a call to say dd had been sick and to come pick her up. When I got there found out that she had suddenly felt sick, didn’t have time to ask to leave class and proceeded to throw up over two of her classmates. I took dd home, the classmates had to be taken away and showered and their school uniforms put into the school washing machine.

Not my dc but me.

'Unicorns had an accident and smashed her adult teeth out'

'Ahhh she'll be fine till 3 I'll collect her then'

@mimi14

3 days in a row, the teacher spoke to me at pick up to tell me DS (4 at the time) had cut his friends hair. 3 days. I suggested after day 3 that they should stop giving him scissors

My nephew used to get accident forms every day from nursery. My sister's favourite was the time when he stood on his own hand

So many excellent contenders, and one day we'll see great things from feather's DS, but "I suggested after day 3 that they should stop giving him scissors" has broken me

Got a very angry call at work from DS2’s Reception Year teacher saying that DS had damaged a tree by climbing it and breaking a branch off it. She was absolutely furious at him damaging the school environment and left the offending branch at after school club for them to show me. The staff were very !

Same DS (undiagnosed ASD and LD’s) at secondary school, he’d apparently eaten raw chicken he’d taken in for cookery and they were worried he’d have an upset stomach.

Same DS in 6th form, they wanted my permission to search his bag for an AXE he apparently had taken to school. I almost fainted with horror until I realised we didn’t own an axe and there was no way he could have got one anywhere else. It was actually a foam scythe from a Halloween costume!

Lots of texts about him not being at school all through secondary when he was actually hiding in the loos.

I had a call that my non verbal son with ASD had been involved in a incident at school and taken off site. They couldn't say any more than that, but felt they had to tell me in case he seemed upset.

So I asked another mum if she had any clue what it was. She told me to look at the front page of the Mirror or daily mail. My sons send school had been evacuated for a bomb threat and the SLT somehow decided it was better for parents to find out second hand from a grotty national rag.

Nice