Bit confused with DD’s School

[Hoppinghops]

DD’s (new) English teacher called DH instead of me today. DD was upset in her class about friendship issues and she wanted to check if DD was okay. Very lovely but why call DH when I’m the first point of contact? We both work full time but DD is closer to me so we put me first.

DD is Y8.

I’m not annoyed at all; just very baffled.

Could she not get through to you first?

I remember once the school called my parents who were down as an emergency contact after me and my DH, neither of us had a missed call not sure if they pay particular attention to the order when in a rush.

She’ll have asked the office for a number and the office have probably just given your husbands for some reason. If the school uses SIMs the numbers are often listed right next to each other so easy to mix up. Equally it might be that yours was copied wrong or something so didn’t go through. I wouldn’t give this another thought.

Maybe they couldn't get through
Maybe your phone was engaged
Maybe they accidentally misread your DH as first contact
Maybe your DD wanted your DH called

Does it really matter? At least they got hold of someone!

Wow you’re easily baffled aren’t you Op?!

If we have an incident at school the DC are always asked which parent they should call. This means they can factor in "local" knowledge e.g. DS knew I was at work but DH was at home, so DH was better to ring at that particular time. So perhaps your school does the same?

I actually think it’s quite good that they didn’t call the woman first out of habit.

@CruCru Exactly.

Office know me quite well and it's easier for me to respond when they call but I'd be well chuffed if they called his dad first occasionally. (Which they do if they can't get hold of me)

There was a club cancelled at my daughter's school last week some time, she's only year 3 and they asked her who to call and she just said ring my dad today because my mum's at work, it could be as simple as that, i might have been worried if they called me and i missed it with being at work and not even supposed to have my phone on! So your daughter may have asked them.to call dad

Was always the other way around when mine were at school. DH was down as 1st contact as he was self employed and about 4 minutes from school in an emergency. I was nearly an hour away, and only contactable through a main switchboard. They always rang me because "it's usually mum that's the 1st contact".

How are they supposed to know who the child is closer to?
Not seeing anything baffling here, when I taight unless there was a court order against contacting a parent, I would ring either parent, depending on whom I could contact first. Sometimes there was no signal/line, sometimes your phone may not have reception at that time, it's not magic.

Is he her dad? If yes then why wouldn’t she call him?

On SIMS (the school database) the 1st contact comes up on the first screen, next to the pupils photo, and is listed as emergency contact, but if you hit 'pupil details' the contacts are in a different order and sometimes the emergency contact isn't listed (probably depending on the person doing the data entry). I imagine as this wasn't an emergency the teacher went into the second screen and your DH was first contact there?

I wish one of my children's schools would call DH first. Particularly if it's about bad behaviour. But nope. It's always me.

Sometimes 'Mum' isn't bio Mum so it's more appropriate to call Dad.

Is DHs first name before yours alphabetically? Could be this on the system?

Honestly, it'll be a slight admin error of some description, or they tried and couldn't get through. It's easy to overthink things but try not to. There'll be a simple and dull explanation. Hope your dd is ok though.

Baffled? Really?