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?

I got a call to say that my child had burnt her arm on a radiator. She'd been treated by the nurse and although a bit upset was generally ok.

The call I didn't get on the same day was that straight after I'd dropped her off she'd fallen down a short flight of stairs on her way into classroom and hurt her leg. I found this out when I picked her up at home time.
The poor child limped home slowly with her poorly arm outside her coat.
If they'd rung me about the stairs incident I'd have taken the car to pick her up.
Fortunately for her she fell in front of another parent who was a GP and he'd scooped her up and checked her over.

DD2 was about 6. I was in an appointment when the teacher called. DD2 had sliced into her face, right below her eye, with a plastic folder insert. The teacher, in her concern, told me “it’s worse than it looks, no, sorry, it looks worse than it is”

Also "hello, we've had to have a chat with DS about not buying the merch from his teachers bands website and doing a superman reveal of the T-shirt in the class" (with teachers face emblazoned on it)

This is my absolute favourite so far.

Couple of teacher friends in bands and can just SEE IT NOW.

This thread is brill, not even halfway through.

My cousin was once called in to school for a full on Special Meeting because his Reception child wee'd in a bin.

DD is 4 so I have all this to look forward to!

"Hello Mrs Goodie - your daughter has not turned up to school today". I thought wow, even tho she's in high school, she's not the sort to skive off school, so I phoned her on her mobile. "Hi - where are you?" "Sitting in the classroom - the teacher hasn't turned up yet".

Rang back to the school "Mrs Goodie here - I just rang daughter and she's sitting in the classroom with all the other kids and the teacher hasn't turned up yet, which is why the rollcall hasn't been sent to the office"

Did I get a thanks??? Noooooo - I got an angry "why did you ring your daughter - didn't you know she's not allowed to use her mobile in the classroom?" "Yeah, well I thought she might have been kidnapped after your call and wanted to know if I could talk to the kidnapper!"

@MildredPuppy

I get to make these calls. The oddest was 'your son ate a tulip for a bet. I have rung his gp who rang the poisons helpline and it should be fine as he mainly ate the flower and spat out the bulb'

Doesn't apply to Daffodils. They take about an hour to work, but then you are faced with Exorcist-level cascades of puke that, depending upon how small the area is (ie, toilet cubicle or classroom), generate enough force to create rotation.

I have had to do quite a few calls where the gist of the conversation is a part of their body is currently pointing in the opposite direction to normal or 'they're fine, you don't need to come and get them, but they're going to come home with a black eye/graze on the face from rugby/lacrosse/whatever and I didn't want you to have a fright when you see them'.

And children's nosebleeds - if you're being called about one of those, you're being handed a child wearing lost property and what looks like a bag of evidence for a murder investigation.

As a teacher I once rang a Yr7's mother to express my concern about something he had mentioned in class: "Hello Mrs X, I was wondering if you knew where your DS spent yesterday evening, as he claims to have been at his friend's house having sex with his mother,which is obviously very concerning considering he is 12."
No child ever used the term fucked your mum/shagged your mum or even just "your mum" within my earshot ever again.

Not a phone call but my absolute favourite accident form for DS1 (which I still have and will probably frame) reads 'hit himself on the head with a trumpet' DS1 has ASD and was in reception with speech delay so never did get to the bottom of how that one happened

Not my DD but a call from my school to my mum some 15+ years ago.

'Hello mrs disaster, we're just calling as we need you to come to the school please as disastermummy has had a small accident and needs to go to hospital.'

Mums reply was that auntie was on the way and she'd be there as soon as she could, teacher replied that it was urgent so mum made her way to the school. The 'small' accident was that I'd been ran over by a teacher who had then parked her car on my leg and broken it in two places.  didn't go down well with mum when she arrived.

An email to ‘confirm’ and ‘dispel rumours’ that yes 2 reception children were left behind in the park by the wrap around care provider but were found and returned by a member of the public

After school provider was shortly changed.

Deputy head: (Accusatory voice) "Your son is slouching across the desk, he says his sister wakes him in the night crying, CAN I PLEASE ask WHAT your circumstances are at home?" Me: "I have a four week old baby, yes, she does cry in the night". Deputy head "WELL, are they in the same bedroom?!!!" Me: "No, the noise tends to travel". Ds later admitted to me he was indeed just bored in that lesson and messing around, he was only six after all.

Mines more lack of warning phone call.

Brother went on a trip abroad with school and broke his arm. My parents weren’t aware until he walked up to them when they were picking him up. Apparently one teacher had thought another had called to tell them and vice versa —and it came out 2 years later one of them was an alcoholic—

Funnily enough he was moved schools the next term

Got a a call from dd’s school saying she had been sick. I dropped what I was doing to go get her. Her vomit bucket was in her lap and she was being sick. On closer inspection, I realised it was her chewed up digestive trick. Lo and behold there was a stack of digestives in her pockets. Full of tricks my dd is

"Please can you come and collect X from school. We were playing with traditional spices as part of National Day celebrations and it seems that he is allergic to something."

I rushed to the school to find poor 4 year old DS with a very blotchy face. Seems he's allergic to turmeric.

"Please can you come and collect X. He's refusing to eat his lunch and is complaining of stomach pains:

Again, I rushed to school to find DS happily tucking into the contents of his lunch box.

He told me 'I really needed a poo mummy so didn't want to fill my tummy with more food. But then I just did a fart and now I feel better and hungry."

I work 1.5 hours away from the school. DH works 20 minutes away and they have been told to call him first in an emergency.

I was in an important meeting when somebody interrupted and said Puffler, we have your DDs school on the line, they need to talk to you.

In a panic leave the meeting and take the call.

“Puffler, your DD is really upset as she has changed her mind about the book day outfit she is wearing and wants to wear her other one, are you able to bring it in? We tried your DH but he said no and she is so upset she asked us to try you”....

We had words.

Call from dd13 school.. "hi your daughter isn't in school today"
"Yes, I know"
" well it's not acceptable. You must call and let us know if she is going to be absent, if this happens again we will take things further."
" urmm hang on...my daughter hasn't been at school for 2 months as she has cancer, we are 2 hours away about to go in for her radiotherapy"
"Oh, well why didn't you call?"

I had been in touch with the school on a twice weekly basis since her diagnosis!!!

Really that's awful.

I've remembered I have one about "your child is not in school".

Except it was a text. Sent at 9.10am. Baring in mind ds is autistic and does flight when stressed. Get message at 12noon as I've been in classroom myself with my students. By 12.15am I cannot get anything other than voicemail from office so I call ds. He hangs up so I call again thinking he's somewhat and stressed. He answers and says he's in lesson on 4th attempt.
As I'm trying to call office back I get incoming call from office and switch.

Incoming call was to tell me ds had been issued a detention because he used his phone in a lesson.

I explained and they still wouldn't back down "because he'd been found as was fine" (he was in student support at the time).

I 'politely' pointed out he wouldn't be going to detention, they could have informed me he'd been found rather than giving me a heart attack and I'd be texting him to tell him and if they carried on with this ridiculous line of action for their mistake I'd be forced to take it further as a safeguarding concern due to 'losing' a vulnerable child.

The reply i got was "as this is ds first offence they'd let him off"

When DD was 1 I got a call from nursery to tell me she had a temperature and could I pick her up. She was sitting on my knee at the time! There’s a baby with a similar name.

I also picked her up around that time and received an apology as they’d lost her dummy. She’d thrown it out of the window into the trees because she was pissed off they wanted her to nap. I was impressed as the open window was very high up. She’s 2 now and still pretty wilful!

Got called to pick DS up from
Nursery when he was about 2. Very hot summer day. They said he felt very hot and were concerned he might be running a temperature. Got them and he was wearing a thick hoody from his spare clothes bag, with the hood up. I asked why he was wearing it since it was something like 26 C outside, and all the other children were in shorts and T shirts. “Because he really likes it” they said. He did really like it, it had Bob the Builder on, but seriously.

DS used to fall over a lot as a younger child - always after a growth spurt when he seemed to develop the walking skills of a newborn baby giraffe until he got the hang of the new height.

I work in education locally so know his school well and am used to the calls of "Mr Bump's done it again", to the extent that this appeared on his report one year! However, they have become fabulous at having the discussion with me about whether he's bumped and needs to go home (he often refused!) or he's fine to stay in school.

On my side, the rule is that any head injury needs to be reported to parents just in case (one parent threatened to sue because he had not been informed of a child's head bump - it was a split family, he definitely did not have custody, but we had to put this in place). The number of parents who, when I call to say xx had fallen and has a bleeding head wound and possible concussion, then say "and what do you want me to do about it?", is shocking. I can only provide first aid to stop things getting worse, and can't treat the injury (which also applies to splinters etc.).

Hello Mrs VR, DS2 has broken his front teeth.

Me: all of them?

School: yes

(International school, English was not the receptionist's first language).

Rush down, madly phoning dentists en route - we were new to the area and hadn't yet registered. Arrive at school to find a very distressed DS2 who thankfully has only broken one tooth! He was tickled by a friend. He's very sensitive to tickling so jumped and toothbutted a thick glass door. The door was chipped!

A very kind dentist with a three week old baby came in to do an emergency repair (family practice) late on a Friday afternoon. 🥰

I've had a call to collect my son from school for a shower on a couple of occasions! My son is the scruffiest kid in the school and can spot mud at a hundred paces!

School phoned at 1pm to ask why dd1 wasn't in. Massive panic as she had left for school as usual, turned out she was called out of registration to help the librarian with something (she is a prefect) and was marked as absent despite registering in every lesson since then.
Same school, a couple of weeks ago, a random maths teacher calls to find out why dd1 isn't in her live lessons or submitting work to be marked. Dd isn't in her class, is attending live lessons and submitting work to her actual teacher, who I had spoken to the day before because she was pleased with the progress dd has been making at home.

When DS was at nursery he used to collect accident forms, his record was 3 in one day.

My best call wasn’t from the school, but when DS (and DD) was performing in a West End theatre. I got a call to say he’d had an accident. He’d cut his head open, the chaperones were going to send me some pictures, I checked the pictures and asked if I needed to come to take him to the hospital. (I still had DD2 at home) I was told we were waiting on the theatre medic to assess him. Medic checked him out, said was really good the skin had broken to release the pressure from the swelling, didn’t think hospital was necessary, but would confirm at interval.

Interval came and went and they confirmed he should be ok, but watch for concussion signs, and did I know what they were? Had a huge bump and a cut on the back of his head, costume had to have a cap added for a few shows.

A few months prior to this DS had slipped on the slipway at a sailing club, banged his head and we’d got him checked out due to the egg on the back of his head. Left minor injuries with a concussion leaflet.

One month after that, he fell while with police cadets and banged his head. Did I know what concussion symptoms to look out for?

I think the only reason i didn’t have SS on the doorstep was because every incident happened away from us, in the care of third parties, everyone of whom was DBS checked, and one was all police!

@Garlicbagelmonster

Got a a call from dd’s school saying she had been sick. I dropped what I was doing to go get her. Her vomit bucket was in her lap and she was being sick. On closer inspection, I realised it was her chewed up digestive trick. Lo and behold there was a stack of digestives in her pockets. Full of tricks my dd is

this really made me laugh,

How old was she?