what the most hilarious and groundless parental complaint you've ever fielded?

Feenie- we've had a child change her name mid year before, now I don't mind people changing to different versions of the same name, but a completely new name! Please!
Also once had a dad come up to me a few weeks into autumn term to point out we were spelling his sons name wrong. We'd had different spellings on different forms and mum had told us on day 1 which version was to be used. Turns out this wasn't the version on the birth certificate, dad wanted the proper one used, mum preferred her version as it ensured correct pronunciation of said name. I told them to get back to me (mum won!).

Phew - OK - thanks - well shall do some more impressing upon her to make sure she is really, really certain. She has sort of grown into the longer form of her name as she's got older and uses it at swimming and so on.

Anyway - sorry all to divert from the terrible tales of parent misdemeanours. Please do carry on!

Aw, I wouldn't worry, Feltoverlooked, that's different.

Mum complained that I'd wrongly accused her pfb, aged 14, of swearing.

He'd left tutor time & proceeded down the stairs turning the air blue.

Me : GEORGE! That's quite enough of that language!

George : But miss! It's not me fucking swearing!

No, she wants to do the equivalent of going from Kitty to Catherine (which she already is on the register but not on pegs, etc). I have impressed upon her that if she does this there is NO GOING BACK.

Depends - is she changing it to Beyonce, or Rihanna? Was the equivalent at the time.

Oh god, Feenie. That scares me. My DD wants to change her name (from the NN form of her name to the full form). I am dreading speaking to the school about it as I know what a pain it will be. They are going to really hate me aren't they? She moves school sites in September, do you think it will mitigate the pain if we ask to do it from then?

In Reception, a child was allowed to change her name and choose what she wanted it to be. Reception teacher had already labelled trays, pegs, everything, but had to change it all to - Britney.

Then, in Y2, she decided she wanted to change it back! Parent thought this was all fine and we were entirely unreasonable to object.

Matilda, that's hilarious, my son just went away with school (aged nine) and my only request was that his spare glasses went in with the class medicines box rather than his own bag. Teacher agreed as she said "if he's jumped on his bag and broken his glasses, best he hasn't broken his spares too". Sad to hear such long lists of requests for secondary kids though.

Mum phoned the staffroom to complain that I'd publicly humiliated her son when I challenged him on his lateness (left a message as I was teaching, rang back half an hour later and complained that I'd not rung her back - apparently she was very busy and I should have come out of class to call her)

I listened to her rant about how hurt her son was, explained our policies and the importance of punctuality then politely declined further discussion due to the fact that her darling was an 18 year old ADULT!! --who had been late for the 5th Monday running mainly due to that fact that he is lazy, 'babied'and usually half high!!

I teach in FE - they STILL ring and complain!!

LOVE the astrology 15 year old and the extended family meeting the class bear.

Some great ones here. My mind is blank about parental complaints but I did have a great parental phone convo once...

Me: ah, hello, is that Mr x?
Other person: err who's this please?
Me: it's mrs sassy, from little Johnny's school. I was wondering if you could explain why he's not in today?
OP: errrr....well...
Me: johnny, is that you?
OP: no, no... It's me mum!

A parent didn't want us to read 'The Gruffalo ' to the playgroup children as it was going to be too frightening for her daughter .

I'm not a teacher either, but awesome thread!

At an induction meeting for P1 though a mum stood up and asked the head how he felt that she was having to quit her job because the school had 'failed to provide' wrap around care!

These are hilarious! I shall c&p them for my 2 sisters who are current and retired teachers. They'll love them. Will pop back when they've told me some of their's.

Request from a parent whose twins were due to start Rec in a two form entry school.
Felt it was too early for twins to be separated, but did want them to be separated eventually. So what would work was to put them in the same class for Reception, at some point between Y1&Y3 they would be ready to go into different classes (parents would kindly tell us once they reached this point). However we wouldn't be able to just move 1 twin into the other class as this would not be fair on them (I had to stop myself from pointing out that would be a Sophies Choice type scenario). Instead we could mix up the whole year group again. Surprisingly we didn't go for it.

Weirdly, our school's staff list is published with their degree (subject, not classification!) and university attended against their name. Not sure what this says about the HT!

Sends and to all teachers

I had a parent of a yr 3 child complain, several months after the event, that little X had not been awarded a credit for a certain topic, when all the pupils in Mrs Y's class had been. One of the (many) reasons little X had not been awarded a credit was that his project (a DT type thing) had been entirely done by his dad. Little X wasn't even really able to explain how the thing had been made. The parent didn't mention this to me but took the complaint straight to the head, too.