If one parent has quietly dropped off the school's records since the separation, it is almost always an accident of paperwork rather than anything anyone intended. Schools are built to send everything to one address, and after a house move or a change in arrangements the file simply falls behind. This is one of the easier things in co-parenting to put right. A short check of what the office holds, plus one calm email, usually sorts the whole year.
How a parent slips off the file
Most schools store a primary contact and default to it for everything. If your child moved home after the separation, or if one of you handled enrolment, the records can still describe a family in a shape that no longer exists. Newsletters, trip permission slips, photo day reminders and the "your child bumped their head today" phone call all flow to one home.
The other parent then hears about sports day from their child, two days after it happened. That stings, and it is fixable. Schools generally want both parents informed. They mostly need telling, clearly and once, what the arrangement is now.
What to ask the office to update
Worth working through at the start of the year, and again whenever something changes:
- Emergency contacts: both parents listed, current numbers, both available to be called first.
- Addresses: both homes on file, so letters and reports reach both.
- Mailing lists: both parents on the newsletter, the class list and year group updates.
- The school app: a separate login each, rather than one shared account.
- Collection: both parents authorised, plus any grandparents or regular helpers from either home.
- Reports and parents' evenings: copies and invitations sent to each parent.
- Consent and medical forms: agree between you who signs what, so nothing sits in one home while a deadline passes.
If a court order sets limits on contact or collection, give the school a copy so their records match it. A family lawyer or mediator can help you work out what the school needs to hold. If you have any worry about your child's safety, tell the school directly and contact the police or your local emergency number, rather than trying to handle it through office paperwork.
The note that does most of the work
You do not need a meeting. A short, warm email to the office covers nearly all of it. Something like:
"Hello, I wanted to check that our records are up to date. [Child's name] in [class] now has two homes. Please could you list both of us as emergency contacts and add both addresses to the file? We would each like to receive newsletters, reports, app access and event invitations directly, and both of us are able to collect [child's name]. Thank you for your help."
If you and your co-parent can send it together, or copy each other in, better still. It saves the office wondering who to check with. If things are strained between you at the moment, either parent can send it alone. School staff see this often and are used to it. What helps is a plain, unhurried message with no history in it, and the free tone check is there if you want a second pair of eyes before you press send.
Keeping the records true through the year
Records drift. A phone number changes, a new app arrives in January, a trip list gets built from last year's spreadsheet. A quick check each term keeps both homes in the loop, and it is a small enough job to take turns on.
It also helps to hold a little of this yourselves rather than depending entirely on the school. Photograph forms as they come home and share them, note deadlines somewhere you can both see, and agree who handles which recurring tasks. If you are still working out how the two homes divide school life, the free parenting agreement builder gives you somewhere to write it down. For the wider picture, from parents' evenings to what teachers actually need to know, there is our guide to schools and separated parents.
Why it matters more than paperwork
None of this is really about forms. A child who spots both parents' names on the collection list, or sees the parent who was not at drop-off arrive at the assembly anyway, learns something quiet and steady: both of my parents are still fully my parents, and school is a place where that is simply true.
So send the note this week. It takes five minutes, the office will be glad of the clarity, and your child gets a school year where nothing important falls into the gap between two homes.