AIBU for asking guidance teacher for a meeting about my son?

After a weekend, I'm dealing with the impact of domestic violence incidents on young children, those who haven't eaten or slept because they're in a hostel and are terrified, or have fled their home to escape an abusive family member. I am NOT dealing with a child who's fallen out over a spat on social media when they are too young to be on it anyway!

What’s in the cat is in the kitten. Mortified for you.

You seem to be approaching all this as if your son is the only child in the school.

You say he's "like any other s1" pupil.
In that case you can multiply your concerns by the number of pupils in the school. The number of pupils having a falling out at the weekend will not be just one - your boy. And have you any idea how long it would take to try to find out who the others were, the parents contact details, arrange calls and meetings with them all, and trying to sort out out? Multiplied by the number of kids who had spats or fights over the weekend?

It's not only not her job, it's entirely not practically feasible, even if she didn't have a teaching role, safeguarding issues and everything else. Her reply is absolutely what it should have been.

If you want personal attention, then you need your child to be educated at home by a tutor. But even they would probably refuse to get involved in weekend issues.

Considering your behaviour over the phone, she’s not unreasonable to not want to meet with you in person. Logic dictates that an aggressive person over the phone is probably going to be aggressive in real life. I would also argue that you didn’t ask for a meeting as per your title, you demanded one and marking prelims is more important than the meeting with you. Yes, it’s only 15 minutes of your time but she needs to research the facts and talk to people before and after the meeting so it creates hours of work for her depending on how many people she has to chase up.

The head of pastoral isn’t going to be able to explain the rest. If your son wants an explanation of why he failed despite studying then he needs to discuss this with the subject teacher. She will be able to explain what went wrong - was it the facts ? Not answering the question? Not writing clearly ? Etc

Have you considered the possibility that the primary school was too soft rather than secondary being the problem ? I’ve got older kids but behaviour in year 6 was very bad IME and I felt like the primary overlooked a lot because they wanted to pass on the problems to the secondary school (year 7) My experience of school in England is that secondary is far more strict with countless more rules eg uniform( !! ) which must get the teachers down too.

You are expecting too much about the incidents outside school too. If it’s not a police matter then you need to let it go. We live in a world where the police don’t come out for smaller crimes, social services are too overstretched to look out for low level stuff that could escalate to serious stuff by the time that the child does exams and schools can’t effectively punish kids because parents will refuse detentions on behalf of their kids and deny that they should delete social media stuff plus there’s nowhere to send the kids with persistent issues (who have a right to education ) because long waiting lists for diagnosis and no PRU and special school places .

That's literally your job. That’s so true.
I work in a primary school and absolutely winds me up when parents allow their children access to social media then complain to the school and expect us to sort it when bullying occurs on it. Ffs.

You swore at her on the phone. She has every right to never take a phone call from you again.

I left teaching and one of the reasons was entitled ridiculous parents like you.

..even my oldest son had to make an appointment with her to go through his UCAS application stuff! That feels ridiculous - surely she should just be there for when people need her?

This shows an extraordinary failure to understand the nature and purpose of the UCAS interview. It calls for an in-depth discussion of the personal statement, among other things. The only feasible way to organise this is by appointment.

I get it on one level - teaching is hard etc, but I can’t help but feel that she’s just a bit lazy and can’t be bothered.

This does not indicate laziness (extraordinary!), but rather the desire to focus on the individual student and their needs.
It would also be interesting to hear how you would organise the guidance teacher's timetable to ensure she is available to pupils at any moment when they feel they 'need her'.

Teacher here

She doesn't have to speak to you on the phone because you were abusive. No one needs to tolerate your abuse.

Schools don't have to sort out things that happen during the times parents are meant to be looking after their own children, e.g. at the weekend. That's literally your job.

What I see here is someone taking no responsibility for their actions, furiously wondering why their son's behaviour is problematic, while trying to blame everyone else. Get a grip. This is on you.

Either this is a wind-up or you need to take a long hard look at yourself and the way you are parenting your son.

I have 2 DC of similar ages at school in Scotland. Your DS 'ladding about' being a disruptive little shit is a prime example of why the children who do want to learn and who behave are being held back and why teachers are so stressed.

Get a grip on his behaviour at school by reading him the riot act and imposing proper consequences at home when you are told he has been misbehaving again. Supervise him at weekends instead of letting him get into even more trouble.

It's disappointing he failed a test but in S1 it's just a class test, not a formal exam or Oxbridge entrance test. Read the feedback you've been given, work through things with him, speak to the subject teacher at parents' evening for further advice if you need to - and most importantly tell your DS to pay attention in class to what his teacher is telling him rather than messing about with his pals.

PS you have an S6 doing prelims at the same school - was it that hard to understand that teachers would be busy marking prelims?

You really have it in for this teacher, don't you? She can't do anything right. I am actually gobsmacked that you object to her asking ds1 to make an appointment for his UCAS form.
The school are not responsible for the behaviour of dcs at the weekend. The teacher's response was the best she could do. If your dc is having problems on social media, I highly recommend getting him off it. He doesn't need it.

How many times do you need to be told you are wrong before you look to your own behaviour and realise you've been behaving like an entitled loon?

• soley

Your son is misbehaving and you want to blame the school. This is your son’s fault , so let his fault . Tell him to man up and stop being a little shit at school. He improves his grades and attitude to school or you will punish him at home.

The teacher could speak to the boys who all deny it happened. What then? The teacher has no proof other than your son's word. What is she going to say to the other parents? It's opening a can of worms that would take hours of her day and achieve nothing.

This parent cannot be real. 99% of people are giving appropriate advice and answers and she just adds more shit to it. I refuse to deal with anything outside of school. Any social media posts outside school is advised to be logged with 101 if appropriate to do so. I am there to support and help learners progress not to parent them. That is the parents' job.
No wonder we are leaving in our droves. 3 more years and I am out.
I would also refuse to speak to you on the phone unless on speakerphone on an office with other staff or with another member of staff in person.
🍎 👇🌳 indeed

I think OP is winding us up now, OP are you a 15 year old looking to get a rise out of MN?

This is getting silly! If there are problems in the park, stop him going. If there are problems on social media, get him off. Do something yourself instead of expecting others to sort things out for you.

This staff member has to deal with looked after children, vulnerable children, children at risk, keeping them safe both in and more often now out of the school walls - managing relationships with police, social workers, LEAs and witnessing the worst that society has to offer in child rearing....

And she's got you shouting the odds effing and jeffing because your lazy son won't pull his fucking socks up and you can't fathom that its his fault.

Since you like swearing...

Go and fucking look at yourself and your parenting in a fucking mirror. Your son is being a fucking little shit and it is no ones fuckibg fault except his fucking own. Instead of fucking expecting everyone else to sort it out. Do some fucking parenting and lay down the fucking law.

And apologise to this staff member. Youre bang out of order.

Even if it happened at the weekend I would expect her to contact the parents of the other boys and make them aware of it, and give them a detention or whatever punishment they give?

So you want her to be on call 24/7/365? Would you agree to that?

The incident happened outside of school, the teacher was not there, the only evidence of what actually happened is
your account (which you got from your son, so likely not the whole truth). And you want the teacher to contact a load of other parents to discuss their child’s behaviour based on this?

She offered to monitor their behaviour in school, that is the correct response.

And if you have no idea what a pastoral/welfare teacher in a secondary school might be doing all day, you are either extremely naive or being wilfully ignorant. It’s not a job many people would want to do.

I’m not even going to call you unreasonable because that’s not strong enough. Your behaviour is appalling. It’s great that you’re concerned and want to support your son but hounding and swearing at staff is completely unacceptable. That teacher will be teaching up to 300 students alongside a million other responsibilities. You have been offered a meeting, just not RIGHT NOW. Neither you nor your child are the centre of the universe and an internal assessment is not the teacher’s primary concern. Stop wasting their time, wait for your meeting and then apologise profusely for your terrible behaviour.

Out of interest, what do you do for a living??

She didn’t refuse to meet you, but she said you would need to wait until the department teacher was less busy with exam marking and that it would take a couple of weeks to find a time that all 3 of you were free. In the meantime she sent written feedback and pointed out that parent’ evening is coming up.

She hasn’t refused to help with fights or bullying- she has pointed out that issues outside of school can’t be dealt with by school, but they’d keep an eye on the boys involved. As for the TikTok thing, surely that depends on the content as to the response that’s warranted.

I honestly don’t know what to say to you. You have described these behaviour incidents as minor, so your son is being unfairly targeted, but you also think they’re serious enough that this teacher should get involved in sorting them out. Which is it, and what would you expect her actually to do? What would a meeting between her and the parents of these boys achieve?

I have to say I have never been involved in a meeting like that over a friendship issue, and I qualified in 2007. Issues in school are dealt with via the school’s behaviour policy (which you have undoubtedly been given). Issues outside of school are outside the school’s remit and she has no power to do anything other than watch for issues developing in school.

Now you say, the kids were just ladding it up and being stupid….so what’s the problem? Why do you need support from the school.

It sounds like you could do with some resilience training yourself.