My Home Call

04/06/2026

A thought from our Co-Founder and COO, David Scarisbrick, who brings 25 years of construction experience to My Home Call.

Construction teaches you the gap between a plan and what actually happens. A plan drawn in an office looks clean. By the time it reaches the people who have to build it, every assumption gets tested.

That lens applies to phone-free schools.

The policy makes sense. The evidence on focus, wellbeing, and learning is strong. The question is what happens next.

Children do not have phones during the day. Focus improves. Classrooms settle. That side of the equation is clean.

The side that is not is the small, everyday moments. Forgotten kit. Missed transport. A change in collection arrangements. The things that used to be solved with a quick text.

In many schools, that "some other way" has quietly become the front office. A teacher walks a child down. The administrator picks up the phone.

It works, sort of. But it is not a system. It is a workaround the office has absorbed on top of everything else.

On a building site, you would call this a sequencing problem. The new method has gone in before the supporting infrastructure was specified.

Phone-free schools need a proper answer to that long tail.

02/06/2026

Good safety is built in layers.

We accept this everywhere except, oddly, in family life.

A car has seatbelts, airbags, and crumple zones. A building has smoke alarms, sprinklers, and marked exits. Aviation is built almost entirely on redundancy.

And yet most families are quietly relying on a single tool to keep them connected.
The phone has become the universal safety device. The tracker. The communication line. The way you know your child got home.

Most of the time, it carries that trust well.

The trouble is what happens when it does not. Phones get lost. Batteries die. Phones get stolen. And in a growing number of schools, they are not allowed at all.

In every one of those moments, the single layer disappears.

The most useful question in family safety right now is not

"what new app should I install?"

It is "what is my backup?"

01/06/2026

Family tracking apps are one of the great unexamined assumptions of modern parenting.

You open the app, see the dot, and feel reassured. The map has become a kind of emotional shorthand for safety itself.

And mostly, that shorthand works. But there is one detail almost nobody talks about.

A tracking app does not follow a person. It follows a phone.

Nine times out of ten, that distinction is invisible. But safety is not built for nine times out of ten. It is built for the one time in ten.

The phone is left on a bus. The battery dies. It is stolen. Or it is in a phone-free school, where it is not allowed at all.

In every one of those moments, the tracker keeps showing a location. But it is the location of a device, not the location of the person you care about.

We have confused the visibility of a device with the safety of a person. They are not the same thing.

The question worth asking is what the second layer looks like.

27/05/2026

The First Minister of Wales said something this week that stopped me in my tracks.

He compared the harm social media is doing to our children to the harm caused by smoking.

To***co. That's the comparison being made now.

England is bringing in laws on phones in schools. The government is consulting on banning social media for under 16s. Australia has already done it. The conversation has shifted from "should we do something" to "how far do we go".

And as a parent, I get it. I really do.

But here's the thing I keep coming back to. Taking the phone away is the easy bit. The harder bit is making sure our children still have a safe way to stay connected to the people who love them when they need to.

That's the part the headlines don't really cover. And it's the part we have to get right, because if we don't, parents will quietly find workarounds, and we'll be back where we started.

Protect them from the harm. But don't accidentally cut the line home.

27/05/2026

So England is bringing in a law to keep phones out of schools. Wales has just said it won't.

Two very different approaches, but if you're a parent, the worry underneath is the same one.

If my child can't have a phone at school, how do they reach me when they actually need to?

It's the question that has held a lot of schools back from going phone free for years. Not the policy. Not the teachers. The fear from parents that they were cutting a lifeline.

That's exactly the gap we built My Home Call to fill. A safe, secure way for a child to reach a trusted adult from a school kiosk or borrowed device. No phone needed. No app. No password.

Just their face.

Phone free schools work when children still have a way to reach home when it matters.

Will your school be using My Home Call this September?

26/05/2026

What parents want to know

Every time a school goes phone free, parents ask the same question.

"If my child needs me, how will they reach me?"

It's a fair question. Phones have been the way kids tell us about late buses, lunch money top ups, last minute changes to plans. When the phone goes, that doesn't go with it.

What parents really want is a clear, simple answer.

A way for their child to reach them directly when something small comes up, that's secure, supervised, and doesn't involve queuing or waiting.

That's exactly what My Home Call gives schools. Your child types their name, scans their face, and the message comes straight to your phone.

With their location attached, so you always know where they are.

It works at school. It works on a school trip. It works if their phone is lost, flat, or left at home.

The peace of mind doesn't stop at the school gate.

25/05/2026

A new study from the University of Birmingham (link in comments) has put a number on something parents and school staff have been quietly noticing for a while.

Schools that go phone free are spending 102 hours a week dealing with the knock on effects. Reception staff fielding messages from home. Teachers passing on notes about forgotten kit. Pastoral leads relaying changes to collection plans.

It's not that the policy is wrong. The reasons for phone free schools are good ones, and from 29 June they're the law.

But when phones come out, the everyday "Mum, I forgot my PE kit" messages don't disappear. They have to go somewhere. And right now, in most schools, that somewhere is the front desk.

There's a better way to handle it. That's what My Home Call is built for. A safe, simple way for students to contact home without their own phone, and without bothering the school office.

23/04/2026

Do your kids know your phone number?

It’s a simple question, but in a busy world of shopping trips, days out, and crowded places… it’s not always a simple answer.

If your child became separated from you, how would they get back in touch?

This short video shows a smarter, safer way to stay connected when it matters most 👇
https://youtube.com/shorts/6CN_tkVfhMA

With My Home Call, there are:
✔️ No numbers to remember
✔️ No apps to download
✔️ No passwords or PINs

Just a quick, secure way for your child to reach you from any smartphone.

It’s peace of mind for parents and a safety net for real life moments we all hope never happen.

Take a look and let me know what you think.

Do your Kids Know your phone number?

17/04/2026

Last night My Home Call was named on the Ones to Watch 2026 list by Tech Climbers for the Liverpool City Region, announced at The Reveal Event.

This recognition isn’t just about us, it reflects a growing awareness that there’s still a major gap when it comes to keeping people safe, identifiable, and connected when technology fails.

What stood out most from the event was the wider picture:
The companies gaining real traction right now are solving very real, often overlooked problems. That tells you a lot about where the next wave of opportunity sits not in more noise, but in meaningful, practical solutions.

For My Home Call, it’s another signal that what we’re building matters.

We’re still early, and there’s a long road ahead. But momentum is building across schools, families, and real life situations where solutions have to work instantly, without confusion or delay.

Appreciate the recognition from Tech Climbers and great to be surrounded by so many ambitious businesses pushing the region forward.

Onwards.

27/03/2026

We’re looking for four more schools to pilot My Home Call’s phone free school’s solution from September.

We’d ideally like to work with schools in the North West of England, but we’re open to speaking with schools anywhere in the UK.

The pilot is for schools that already have a phone free policy, as well as those thinking about introducing one.

My Home Call gives pupils a secure and controlled way to contact home from an approved school device, helping schools support communication without reintroducing smartphones into the school day.

Best of all, during the pilot there will be no cost to the school and no cost to families.

If you can introduce us to a headteacher, deputy head, safeguarding lead, governor, or academy trust leader, we’d love to hear from you.

Please message us directly or tag someone below.