I've just been berated by the school secretary

[UnquietDad]

Well, admonished anyway - for allegedly not keeping phone contact details up to date. (When she couldn't get hold of me she tried DW and got old work number and old mobile.) "It is important, you know....." Yes, I know...grr...

The thing is, we have two children at the school. And we did send in our new contact details - on the form we filled in when DS started this year in Reception.

But as it was DD (Y3) I was being asked to go and collect, they obviously took the numbers from her form which still had the old details on.

So... is it my fault if they haven't cross-checked and amended DD's as well?

You tend to assume that if you've sent a piece of information into school, it's in, and that you don't have to send it again.

You got bitten.

Crazy, you would have thought they'd cross-reference.

And sometimes they wonder why I double-and triple-inform them about things.

How many children at the school?

Yes, I wouldn't assume cross-checking.

in total vanilla? 210, give or take. One class per year.

Well, you would have thought they'd use their brains and checked DS's details, yes.

Its easily forgotten tbh. I always used to realise DD's plimsoles were too small, when she couldn't run in them on sports day!

ours send forms every year to update details, and shouldnt it be computerised.

I know they are our children, not theirs but I do get a feeling there is often a culture of "assume parents have nothing better to do than constantly monitor every small detail of every aspect of their school lives"...

good point slarty - surely there is one contact or set of contacts per family, not per child?!

NO!! I love it! maybe I'm just very picky.

I doubt it would be better anywhere else!

Hmm, just wonder if this is a factor. That is a lot of families for the secretary to know siblings etc.....
Having said that if she is anything like our very odd secretary (ignores you answering texts while you are waiting to speak to her) then she is a jobsworth on a power trip....

It would here. I was once phoned on my friend's mobile phone, because mine had run out of puff, and someone at school knew I was going to a toddler group, and knew that this other parent would be there, so tried her mobile.

that would be it vanilla.
jobsworth.
berating uqd cos made a mistake.

odd in our school it all computerised and we have all family on same system and would also check any realitives i.e cousins at school etc. Also send copy of this out each year to be altered if necessary.
Although we have had to keep children in school who have been unwell and i have even accompanied a child to hospital when we have had no contact details so understand where she coming from , but you would still expect them to check siblings details.

As far as I knew, though, we hadn't made a mistake! We pride ourselves on our obsessive diligence about taking stuff in on the right days, getting Parents' Evening slips in on time, etc....

(It's a bit those situations when your spouse calls you on the one dirty mug, when you have in fact washed and dried 99% of the crockery without an acknowledgement.)

They'd have to do it (maintain set of contacts) per child, though -- you get all sorts of complicated blended family arrangements so the definition of "a family" is flexible, and potentially one child in a family could be living with parents while another lives with grandparents, etc.

At least, from the point of view of database design I don't think you could do it other than by maintaining details on a per-child basis, although you could have software that prompted you to consider whether to update siblings' details as well when you changed information about one child, I suppose.

It would depend how your database was organised I suppose. If it was manual (index cards) and by class rather than alphabetised by the whole school, you would not necessarily know that there was a sibling.

with that small a school i bet the secretary knows the siblings.
she should have cross referenced.

I think you're being unreasonable actually

If you actually saw the amount of work that goes on in school offices, and the amount of hassle they have to deal with for low wages.

Most of them are using antiquated systems so you're assuming an office staff member knows every single child and their relationship to others within the school .. bollollollocks .. they go to the file and pull out the information

we are sent a contact details form for every single child and have to fill out same information on each .. because they're held by class

OK... differing views here...
She knows the siblings, I'm quite sure of that.

It rankled, and rightly so, because you usually send all the forms etc back on time.

She's obviously in awe of your organisational skills and thought 'I'll get the bugger'...

happy - yup, that's it

Mmm, so they should have seen your DS's form, used their powers of eidetic memory to think "hang on... (whizzes through mental records) that's not the same telephone number that I saw on UnquietDD's form a couple of years ago now..." and therefore known to have updated your DD's records?

Or they should automatically check all records for all siblings every time a new one starts at the school, even though 90% or more of the time the information will be unchanged?

Adding a Post-It to the form saying "These are new contact details -- can you update DD's records as well, please?" would probably have avoided the need for photographic recall or a policy of mind-numbing double-checking of everything.

Mind you, at DS's nursery we get asked to check and update contact details at every parents' evening, which strikes me a sensible way of ensuring records are up to date.

applauds use of 'eidetic'

looks up definition of word 'eidetic' and applauds again