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

I miss teaching - NOT!

It is a comfort to see a parent suprised by these stories. There was I thinking parents were out to get us just as much as the kids

Lizzie you've just reminded me of another one. In my first term as an NQT i caught a girl with her hands down the trousers of the boy next to her (they were not a couple as far as I am aware). The parents of the boy were more vocal about the fact that the other pupils had heard me telling them off and what it was about than she was about the fact that her son had been given a hand job in his Maths lesson. They were year 8 .

I quite fancied being a teacher when I was little. Then I considered the police (until it was pointed out that I'd be hauling dead bodies out of sewers and getting shot at/spat on by lunatics). Soooo glad I didn't do either! (Am a 'creative' so only have to deal with clients throwing toys out of their prams).

My sister was a teacher (little kids) and the amount of times parents would march in ('to check her out') when she was new, or to bawl the odds when their little shit told a fairly obvious pack of lies ('miss made me stand in the snow without my shoesb for the whole of lunch break'). Still, better than when she moved to the US - in the UK it was knives she was threatened with (the kids), there its the parents with guns.

My sister is very small but bolshy, and even the really scary parents won't go up against her (the local Marshal says that she can handle anything).

Secondary school girl had been given a book to read with one or two minor swear words in it. Girl was one who could often be heard swearing loudly across the playground to her mates at break time. Father came in (swearing) about use of swear words in the book and proceeded to rip the book up in front of the girl's Engish teacher.

School billed him for the book.

at the 15 yo masturbating in class!!!

Now I feel very old and naive

Ooh - I missed one before (my actual favourite):

Very unpleasant man has two VERY unpleasant children. One year 11 (now left) and one in year 10.

Asst Head phones dad as she has given yr9 a detention which yr9 is refusing to attend. Father confirms that his children do not attend detentions because he's not f@$*ing coming out twice to pick them up.

My preferred way to deal with this was to give yr11 a detention (there was always something) on the same night but AH said no and gave out lunchtime detentions telling father he could some into school to discuss it if he wasn't happy. He never did.

They live under a mile from school - so could walk - and father doesn't work. Interestingly now yr11 has left, yr9 walks to school...

Reading this thread explains why, when DS's tutor phoned me this week to inform me that he would have to have a detention he actually thanked me for being so supportive! All I said was "if you think it's deserved then by all means go ahead". Thats it, but he sounded so suprised.. Now I know why. A little sad really (but some bloody funny stories

Ah, so many stories after 13 years teaching secondary..I'll pick a top 3:

1. The police inspector father who marched into reception and shouted in front of his mortified 13 year old daughter that if I, her form tutor, did not personally find her missing coat by the end of the day, he would report at as stolen when he went on duty that evening. The very stern Head of Year told him that if he considered that to be an adequate use of police time, that was his prerogative.

1. The parents, upon being told that their 15 year old son had been caught quite openly masturbating in class by my colleague, who said that he had "manly urges" and it would be unhealthy if we asked him to suppress them.

1. I worked at a school where there was a large contingent of fundamentalist Christians amongst parents. We invited a speaker from Stonewall to speak to Year 11 students about homophobic bullying. Cue lots of outrage, but in fairness most parents were fine once we explained how all the major religious groups had signed an agreement with Stonewall to fight homophobic bullying. On the morning of the talk I was confronted by 2 parents, one of whom yelled in my face "I do NOT want my daughter talking part in the Gay Pride march today!" and even more charmingly "I do not want my child learning about the practices of these animals! They are beasts!"

When mobile phones first came in (this was about 15 years ago I think) a friend of mine had a kid in her class who had his new phone out and on the desk. When she asked him why, he said his mum had told him to have it out and to phone her and let her know if any of his teachers gave him a hard time

"In my day if you got told off by a teacher, you'd get hell at home too. " Dunno, Mooms, I'm not that young, and a year or so after I'd left primary a parent came in and punched the Head Teacher in assembly after the HT had humiliated his child.

(To be fair, I think there was general agreement in the village that the parent had a point - the HT definitely had form for bullying behaviour.)

That's so true Mooms. I would have been grounded for embarassing the family; "I didn't bring you up with no manners!"

Nowadays as soon as you give a kid consequences for over stepping boundaries you prep yourself for parent intervention whilst the kid sits back watching you both argue.

I have a colleague who had the parents' lawyer turn up to a parent-teacher meeting because the parents couldn't believe their child was failing.

agree with moominsarehippos my mum got into hell when she complained to her mum about being caned at school - no questions asked!

i went to my son's school after he got a bad report to say that, if he wasn't completing work then he could have the work sent home to finish or be given a detention. his ht was surprised!

Bamboostalks Parent wanted child to sit only at lunch table where children were not consuming meat.

At our school this happens. Meat eaters at one table, vegetarians at another and pure vegetarians at a third.

In my day if you got told off by a teacher, you'd get hell at home too. Nowadays it seems that the first response is hammering on the school head's door (with a lawyer in tow) demanding blood or you'll hear all about it in the press/parents blog.

The family who sent an absence note 'because they had all been up all night trying to catch a mouse', the clearly forged PE excuse note which when I rang the mother I got the response 'doesn't everyone sign 'Mum' then?' - the student in question was 15.... And the family who thought that rather than discuss their child's A level progress, preferred to spend the best part of half an hour complaining that when their child was too hot I declined to open a window and instead asked that they take off their large woolly sweater. They also felt it was unfair that I complained about lack of homework - 'he works 4 evenings a week so doesn't get much time'......

A mum who will take her son's word over any number of staff member's.

A girl who stayed off because her favourite bra was in the wash.

A 14yo whose dm complained to the school because his form tutor had suggested that going to a mid-week guns'n'roses gig was prob not the best plan if it meant he would need to miss two days of school.

A dm who justifies any nasty thing her ds does by saying ah well he holds grudges and that other child was unpleasant to him at first school.

parents who complain to the school when their (under 13) child has something negative posted on their facebook page by someone they've friended.

and since I'm a cub leader - parents who come in and chat over end-of-meeting notices. parents who drop their children off ten minutes late (v disruptive) but complain if the meeting finishes 2 mins late as a direct result. Parents who tick the no additional needs box on the membership form when it is crystal clear that ds has a number of quite severe additional needs.

Not a teacher but my Mum is. All teachers in her school had to fill in a diary recording any bad behaviour for a specific pupil. When the parents were called in to talk about the lack of improvement in his behaviour the mother produced a diary from home where the son was encouraged to fill in his opinion of his teachers, so when specific incidents were talked about she announced that her son thought the teacher had been rude in that lesson and so it wasn't her son's fault.

I once taught a student who claimed I was 'picking on her' - the classic all purpose whine of the numpty She started truanting school etc. Parents had just gone through messy separation and mother of child had decided they were going to have a 'best gal pal' relationship rather than a mother-daughter relationship.

So I was hauled into meeting with EWO and my (supportive) HOD and child and mother. Child put on impressive performance saying she wasn't coming into school because of her terror of me. Mother accused me of all sorts

Then we looked at the days she was in school and the days she wasn't. The days she took off were days I didn't teach her and she came to school on the days I did

When EWO pointed this out to her she was then then wept that the EWO was 'picking on her' too.

Poor EWO was suitably apologetic... Mother of course swept out without a word.

It's a funny one, swastikas. There's something about them that seems to really appeal to a certain type of teenage wanker.

One of the final nails in the coffin which led to me leaving my last school was the time one of my Year 11s drew a massive swastika on his book and displayed it to the class during the lesson. I'm pretty sure it had a reference to me as Hitler too. I had him removed from the lesson and referred him to his Head of House. My Head of Department said I had overreacted and it should have been dealt with with a quiet word after the lesson.

Sorry for the unrelated rant there!