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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I've just been berated by the school secretary

61 replies

UnquietDad · 05/03/2008 13:39

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.

OP posts:
Original poster
UnquietDad · 05/03/2008 14:34

port - no, but I wondered if, after getting a dead mobile line and a "she doesn't work here any more", a secretary who is aware there is a new sibling could have checked the younger brother's form to see if there were more up-to-date details on that. It's what I would have done.

OP posts:
Original poster
UnquietDad · 05/03/2008 14:36

I think you point about adding a post-it is a fair one, though. I would have done so, but i suppose I'd just assumed these records would supersede the others. Maybe I didn't think through the process of how. I think I assumed it was computerised.

OP posts:
SorenLorensen · 05/03/2008 14:37

UD, I hope you told her she should of got off of her bum and looked up the other details?

WiiMii · 05/03/2008 14:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

DoodleToYou · 05/03/2008 14:41

Message withdrawn

Original poster
UnquietDad · 05/03/2008 14:42

You wouldn't. But you might have washed up earlier, and have just finished a cup of coffee shortly afterwards and not had time to wash that one. Or not be arsed.

OP posts:
DoodleToYou · 05/03/2008 14:44

Message withdrawn

mrsruffallo · 05/03/2008 14:51

I think yabu. You didn't keep the contact details up to date. It could have been a very important situation. I would berate you too.

Monkeybird · 05/03/2008 14:51

Ah. UD, you are labouring under the misapprehension that School Secretaries are rational, sane beings who are able to deal with human beings.

When in reality, of course, they are trained by ninjas preoccupied with looking at every parent as if they have some damned cheek asking them a question and giving you the 'why don't you go use your telepathic powers to find things out like everyone else' stare. You were probably sent a reminder to update your details, but you missed it because it was sent by osmosis.

Looking it up and cross-referencing it for themselves would require a level of interest customer-facing skill that I don't think is on the essential qualifications list. What is on the job spec is keeping their back to you at all times when they are Doing Something Very Important and making you ask the same question 4 times in different ways while they feign ignorance and say 'Que?'

Or have I just got a chip on my shoulder?

mrsruffallo · 05/03/2008 14:54

You have a big chip on your shoulder. If only you appreciated how much intimidation and condescension they have to put up with from certain parents

WigWamBam · 05/03/2008 14:56

A whole bagful by the sounds of it, Monkeybird.

I'm with Twiglett and PortAndLemon on this one.

KatieScarlett2833 · 05/03/2008 14:58

In support of school secretaries, ours is wonderful. Extremely pleasant, knows the kids, their siblings, cousins, etc. She greets you by name when you go into the School. I don't know how she does it!

DumbledoresGirl · 05/03/2008 15:03

I don't go along with this idea that in a school of 210 ish children, the staff don't know who the siblings are. I have worked in many schools, many of them far bigger than this one, and of course we all knew who the siblings were. And I was a teacher and arguably focused on my own class. The school secretary would know far more about the families than I would.

It does seem ludicrous that you should have to update dd's record when you have sent in updated records with ds.

Original poster
UnquietDad · 05/03/2008 15:04

Monkeybird - I've met those!

mrs r - I did, as far as I was aware. And normally I am available so it wouldn't be a problem. She just happened to call when i was on the land-line, phoned by mobile (two floors down and I wasn't able to get to it in time) and then tried DW.

But I do understand how difficult the job is.

KatieS - I'd add that ours is very pleasant too and usually only too happy to do stuff.

OP posts:
Monkeybird · 05/03/2008 15:05

Oh come on Mrs R, I was joking. Mostly. I'm sure they are like most people facing the public while having to do lots of other things too. Some good, some bad. Ours is currently particularly unhelpful (pass the salt and vinegar). The previous one was wonderful.

I don't intimidate or condescend, I am perfectly polite to her and ask civil questions. She still looks at me as if I should already know the answer. I simply think with many schools there is often a mismatch between the different kinds of info each side needs from the other and there's not always time to communicate that properly when it's done at the beginning or end of the day. But it's fun jesting about it on MN.

Monkeybird · 05/03/2008 15:07

In fact, now you come to mention it, she condescends to and is intimidating to me, with her fierce stare of 'what? WHAT?'

Original poster
UnquietDad · 05/03/2008 15:08

One who I was phoning (not ours) about doing some work in schools - hadn't had answer to my email so followed up (courteously I thought) with phone call and to check G&T person ahd my number.

Sec: [snaps]"what's she going to so with that?"
Me: "well, I thought she might give me a call." Sec: [snaps again] "Doesn't that rather defeat the point of email?"

Me (thinks) yeah, and not bloody answering defeats the point of email too.

Some people just like being miserable bitches.

OP posts:
chipmonkey · 05/03/2008 15:30

One day ds3 was sick and the lady looking after him in nursery kept ringing my mobile number to get hold of me. When I have explained time and time again that my mobile has to be switched off while I am working and that if they ring the front desk in work (a) the message will be given to me and (b) work will then know that nursery have phoned and that it is likely I may have to leave and will stop booking patients in for me. But no, she kept phoning my mobile all day, obviously didn't get me and then I was met at the door by the nursery manager, clipboard in hand demanding my up-to-date phone numbers! All the numbers were up to date, they just weren't phoning the right one. Not only that but nobody thought to ring dh who is available all day. Clearly they are more my children than his!

Milliways · 05/03/2008 15:34

I changed job a year ago, and gave the schools my new numbers (and put them in the kids mobiles). DS had had loads of time off and I have been called on the new number, but a week ago someone from my old office said the school had phoned me there - so records must be in more than one place at the school - and not all updated.

Monkeybird · 05/03/2008 15:38

chipmonkey - ditto! but not to me, happened to a friend. She had left all her numbers, work, home, mobile etc for her and her DH. She works in an institution which is but a few yards from the school, where many, many (more than half I'd guess) of the parents of kids at the school work. The school knows this.

When she couldn't get woman in question on her work number, having been told that the woman had left that dept and transferred to another one, the school sec put the phone down, and didn't bother to ring any of the other numbers, including the husband's, nor to ask if the helpful old dept knew where the woman had been transferred to. Cue my friend getting a dressing down for not being available on her work number or updating her details - this being a couple of weeks after she'd moved job, within the same institution, for which there is also a switchboard... She asked 'why didn't you ring my DH?'. The answer was 'your daughter was asking for her mummy and she really needed you as she was poorly'. Such concern for the child's wellbeing! You'd think in such circumstances, a teeny bit of common sense might prevail, no?

VictorianSqualor · 05/03/2008 15:57

I had a similar problem when DD's after-school club was cancelled.
The teacher decided to ring me when the school finished and apparently she couldn't get hold of anyone.
In all fairness my mobile number had changed, but when I was asked to change it on the form when I picked her up (after she had been sat in the office for an hour) I see my home number, and both DP's personal mobile number and his work number are on there, yet none of those numbers were called?!
That really bloody annoyed me, to get a lecture on 'how important' it was that contact details were up to date, yet 3 out of 4 were!

LIZS · 05/03/2008 16:00

Unless you could specify siblings on the same form you should n't assume they will automatcially know to update a second child's records. Such tasks are often done by a temp or junior member of staff who may not know all the families.

bozza · 05/03/2008 16:09

Agreee with the DG re sec knowing siblings. Ours knew DD before DS even started school - and she is 3 years younger than him.

haggisaggis · 05/03/2008 16:27

My dcs attend a school with only 40 children. The "secretary" (ours has a much lesser title but does an absolutely fantastic job) knew dd well before she started school as ds was already there.
However I still happily fill in contact details for each of them at the start of each school year - one child, one record.

LIZS · 05/03/2008 18:12

On the other hand, you could be cross, quite reasonably, if she mistook your child for one a similar surname and updated details wrongly without it being specifically authorised.