Phone calls home

[kscience]

Dear parents, I have been trying to call home since Tuesday for a couple of pupils who are not putting in the effort I expect in class (despite virtually standing over them and becoming a broken record of nagging) and who have important revision homework ready for their end of year assessment.

I just want to give the parents the heads up that the pupils have revision materials and ask that they could please encourage their DS to spend some time looking at them.

Would you be upset with a phone call from a teacher on a Saturday morning?

I wouldn't like this at all. Get their email addresses, or send a first class letter and for goodness sake as teacher should know that you don't need an apostrophe in the plural of GCSE.

Am astounded how the school manages to function without parent email addresses. How are reports/whole-school communications sent out? Please don't say by post! I think if you have children who aren't putting in the effort, nightly phone calls to parents and at least two voice mail messages left with no response, that probably gives you an indication of the kind of response you can expect if you ever do get to speak to a parent.

Wow, I didn't know schools didn't use email these days.

I hardly ever listen to my answerphone unless it's from a number I recognise & I don't answer calls from numbers I don't know. I'm an email and text only kind of person for most stuff.

That said I do have ds (primary) school number programmed in in case he's ill or something at school.

Strange as it might seem but not everyone has email. There are certainly children in my class who do not have Internet access at home.

You don't need internet at home to have email, schools can require an email address, then either expect parents to check it regularly, or contact parents and leave a message when an email has been sent.

yes yearofthegoat, you can lose your job for allowing access to your personal details, including phone number, or for ringing parents from a phone other than a school phone, or for emailing parents other than through the school account.

Can you explain how parents access email if they don't have email access?

Have yet to see a parent who is not clutching a smartphone - of course they have email.

I can introduce you to some if you're interested

There isn't a universal rule that teachers can only make calls from school phones.

If Karbon is suggesting our parents use an Internet cafe to access email I wish them luck finding one near where I teach or where I live. Perhaps a library ... Sorry just a mobile van that visits once a week.
I have an iphone6 but cellular service here is so poor it's too slow for email

No, but teachers really shouldn't be paying to make phone calls to parents from their own phone. Parents should not be given access to teachers' personal phone numbers either.

Barriers between a teacher's home and work life don't need to be broken down any more than they already are.

I wouldn't use my own phone to call parents but I've worked with teachers who do ...their choice.

Why is it an issue to call from a withheld number which doesn't happen to be a school phone?

Because it goes against the professional code of conduct

I have a 2:1 policy of my own - for every negative call I have to make to a parent, I find two positive things to call homes about. It makes me feel more human: telling parents their child is struggling I'd never easy or pleasant.

All this sort of "praise sandwich" " two stars and a wish" "2:1" policy etc has been shown to be very hurtful, damaging and destructive, leaving children cynical, and unable to accept or evaluate praise for a lifetime, becuase of the automatic assumption that developes that any praise is part of a cycle of leading up to something negative.

by all means, praise if it is GENUINE! but not if it is something you count up to "balance out" complaints.

There isn't a universal rule that teachers can only make calls from school phones no, it is a universal code of professional conduct. if you intend to break the guidelines for any reason, the normal thing is to have written permission from your school first, normally from the designated child protection officer.

mrz, your parents need to prioritise internet access for themselves and their children, as a way of participating in the modern world, whether that is taking the bus to the nearest library once a week, or what ever. Their children will be required to have internet access more and more, they cannot do work experience without it, for example, and they certainly can't apply to university.

I wouldn't use my own phone to call parents but I've worked with teachers who do ...their choice

It is not really their choice, it is classed as "unsafe practice" and is at best gross professional misconduct.

On the occasions when I have had to do it, ( eg, on a journey to assist a child who had been arrested abroad, I have not only needed written permission first, I have also needed to provide phone records and conversation transcripts to the school. Normally the school would provide staff with school issue mobile phones, but in this case the teacher who had it wasn't in a position to help or pass it on to me, so I had to use my own.

Karbon when you are prioritising food for your child over food for yourself the internet really doesn't come anywhere on your list of priorities.

Perhaps you can point me to where it says teachers can't use personal phones Karbon? There's certainly nothing in the terms and conditions document or in the guidance for safe working practice in educational settings

mrz, internet access isn't beyond anybody, it is often free, and is widely available, and as to using personal phones, just look in your professional code of conduct. If you are truly unclear about this, speak to the designated child protection officer at your school, it is their job to be sure that all staff are fully informed, and up to date,and this training should be repeated annually, and you should have signed a document to say you are fully aware of what safe and appropriate behaviour is. If you haven't done so, this would be enough for ofsted to warrent closing the school until all staff have.

Camelhump, I fully agree with you about genuine positive calls home, the issue is with the calls home that are just to make up a certain number, so that a criticism can be made without affecting the positive/negative balance - these are the calls that are so soul destroying to receive. And when I say soul destroying, they quite literally destroy the souls of children.