Schools phoning mums as the default

[Throwntothewolves]

I've seen this plenty of times on here, and in my own experience the school will always call me and not DH when they need to speak about DS. This happened in primary school, and now in secondary.
I'm at work when DS is at school almost all the time. DH is at home. Even if I say to call him they don't.

Can anyone working in a school who makes these types of phone calls explain why this is?

School always call DH before me because I put him as the first contact and me second. They usually try him a few times before calling me. It’s odd that they’re not trying to call him at all when you’re not contactable.

I don't want to be removed altogether, just for the school to call DH if I can't answer. What's the point in asking for alternative contact details if they never use them?

What do you do if they don't answer? Do you call the second person, leave a voicemail and hope they get it, try again later?
If it's important enough to warrant a call then all contacts should be tried.

We phone first contact first or, as I generally know the families well, I ask the child about whether their parents are working that day and make a judgement call. My own children's school phone my husband as he is priority one. I didn't even get messages about events when they went over to their new communications app as I wasn't the primary contact.

These threads are really annoying as clearly manay schools don't just call the mum first but posters always declare it as though every school does.

The vet always phones my partner first simply as he's listed as default. They only try me if he doesn't answer. Not sure if it's the same at schools. If it bothers you, change the default number to your husband's. I couldn't get worked up about this unless I worked full time and he didn't work at all.

Suspect though that you wanted to have a whinge about sexism and roles.

It's absolutely not an urban myth. It happened to me, more than once. I told the school office that I was primary contact. I also filled in a form every year to confirm I was still primary contact. There was a genuine and well documented safeguarding issue that meant I had to be the primary contact. The school still contacted my ex because "oh, sorry, we just always contact mum first".

Thinking back......on my daughter's school form it was Name of Parent 1 and Name of Parent 2.
Not "Mum" or "Dad".
Surely if you just put your initial rather than your full name how will they know which parent is which?
If you need a title isn't "Mx" gender neutral?
So...
Parent 1 Mx J Smith
Parent 2 Mx T Smith
So presumably they would phone "J" and have no clue if that's Jane or John.

@HowardTJMoon if there was a safeguarding issue why did they even have your ex's number?

When we first registered the DCs at the school there was no safeguarding issue so we gave the school contact details for both of us. My ex's alcoholism reached crisis point a few years later and that's when social services got involved.

I know most of the parents of children in my class by their first name, and if I don't I ask the child.

Ok but if both parents had the same initial then you would presumably call "Parent 1".
If parent 1 is dad then dad will get the call.
You might know dad is called John and mum is called Jane but if they are both listed as Mx J Smith then there's no way of knowing which phone number is for which parent.

Can't they remove her details?

This happened in the past.

Even so I don't understand how if social services are involved with a child's safety then why a school would be allowed to keep a phone number for someone who is a risk.
I hope all is ok for your family now 💐

Schools uses different information management systems, but the main ones in secondaries specifically list priority contacts. If you filled the form in and put yourself first, you'll be called first.

As a teacher, not office staff ringing home to organise collection or some such, I ring the one I actually want to speak to, like whoever I met at parents' evening or has emailed me for a progress update.

If a child says my mum is asking about interventions after school, I ring the mum. If one can't behave properly and I let them know I'm calling home and hear their friend say their dad will ground them, I ring the dad.

I used to work in a school and would call whoever was the number 1 contact on the system first, unless it was a parent we knew would definitely be unavailable during the day (teachers, doctors etc) when we’d call number 2 first.

We had to make so many calls about head bumps it was just automatic most of the time, go into the system and call down the list until someone answered. If you want a particular parent as the default you have to put them as number one on the contact sheet when the child first applies to school.

Tbh most of the kids who need phone calls home were regular visitors to the office for one thing and another, and in one particular family with 4 kids the parents were called almost daily!

I would also call the dad in one case because he was a hottie, he looked like a viking so if a parent needed to come into school it was always nice to see him!

Most systems will have fields for Mr/Mrs/Ms etc as well as relationship to child. In some cases the first contact person will be a grandparent or carer so it isn’t just a random name/initial assumed to be mum or dad.

Forgive me if I don't give you the full details of what was a complex situation. There were reasons the school could not just pretend she didn't exist. The point was that the school had been informed that I was primary contact and ignored that simply because they assumed that the mother was always the primary contact.

Yes but these days you could declare you're both non binary parents and your title is Mx and you are "parent" not mum or dad.
Presumably then the school would just have to ring whatever number is listed first.

Apologies I didn't mean to sound nosy and I don't need details.
I wasn't referring to just your situation.
I am just shocked that for any children who can't have a certain adult in their life due to a safeguarding issue they can still have that person listed on their school information.

As I said - I hope everything is ok now for your family 🙂

As a teacher I’m not phoning to have a child collected - I’m either phoning home with praise or a detention. If they have voicemail I’ll leave one. If I have time and really want to speak to someone (or it says call both parents because they’re divorced/separated) I’ll call contact 2. Usually though at that point I’ll decide to send a quick email to contact one.

After raising a complaint with the school (or before), ask to see your partner's phone to make sure he isn't ignoring calls.

Funnily enough even the NB or trans parents (there were at least 3 of these) it’s always the female parent listed as number one!

If they're non binary then they aren't a female parent are they??