Schools demand national campaign against parents who are abusive to school staff

[noblegiraffe]

A survey suggests that 30% of classroom teachers and 75% of headteachers have received verbal abuse from parents this year, a marked increase on before the pandemic.

The North East Schools network would like to see a national NHS-style campaign to highlight the issue and to say that abuse against school staff is never appropriate. Given that there are many public places that have signs up saying 'abuse against staff will not be tolerated' it always surprises me that this is not already a thing in schools.

Interestingly the article notes "While most interactions with parents were positive, there were small groups of parents “willing to be abusive towards school staff” – including complaints straight to external government agencies.
These bodies, such as Ofsted, the Department for Education and the Education and Skills Funding Agency “should only get involved once the school has completed their complaints procedure”."

Perhaps all those on here who rush to write 'complain to Ofsted' about some school incident should take note that they are part of the problem.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-demand-national-campaign-against-abusive-parents/

How much time did you have to put those requirements in place?
A secondary teacher will see the class for 40 minutes to 1hr per session. with another 22 to thirty pupils pupils in the class.
Each one required to learn a certain amount depending on various levels.
You can keep comparing if you like but its like comparing apples to oranges.

Anecdotal stuff Isn't evidence @noblegiraffe

Desecratedcoconut

If you think that teachers are thin skinned then you are way out of touch with what is going on within classrooms.

I see. What evidence would you like? I don't think there's data of how many schools implemented a Paul Dix approach and then abandoned it when the school went to shit.

There is evidence of schools swinging towards stricter behaviour models. Why would they do that if the Paul Dix fad had yielded positive results?

Apart from the information in the first link its all anecdotal.
And even then people will believe what they want to.

It sounds like you're really entrenched in your position and you're unable to take in evidenced based practice to make your practice better. It reads that you're unable to reflect and understand that schools are a big problem to a lot of children and their parents and you are doubling down in your position instead of reflecting on why parents are becoming increasingly fustrated with the opposite of relationship based practice approach that the zero tolerance school way has become. You can't force others to change, you can't prevent parents becoming upset that their child can't meet their basic needs of going to the toilet or taking their blazer off in summer. The school system as a whole needs to be much more child focused and practice in ways that evidentiary work.

It sounds like you're really entrenched in your position and you're unable to take in evidenced based practice to make your practice better.

It sounds like you are unwilling to listen to people who are actually doing the job.

You're not listening to the increasing amount of upset parents. You want to shut them up further.

You have not been listening to what teachers have been saying the 'upset parents' are abusing teachers about.

And I have never said that parents shouldn't be able to raise legitimate complaints, so you can get in the bin with that one.

It sounds like you are making stuff up to meet your narrative.

There is evidence of schools swinging towards stricter behaviour models. Why would they do that if the Paul Dix fad had yielded positive results?

There could be a million and one reasons I wouldn't know without asking them all individually. Is there any evidence they have done this because they previously trialled the Paul Dix approach and it didn't work?

Titicacacandle

Just FYI, It does sound from reading your posts that you are blaming teachers for being abused,

A very interesting position for a social worker.

Well gosh, you could read what a thread full of teachers have said happened in their school when it adopted a Paul Dix approach or you could choose not to and say that it is meaningless.

Forgive me if I've misunderstood but I'm not sure how these go together - your first paragraph suggests that Ofsted's inspection process is completely broken and is largely responsible for the poor mental health of teachers and contributes to the numbers leaving the profession.

None of that is down to parents because, as you say, Ofsted will not inspect based on complaints about teachers, hence they're the wrong people to contact.

You also say that having a complaint have against you is hard, but surely that only applies to those following the appropriate procedure because spurious reports made to Ofsted won't be persued so the teacher would presumably never even know about them.

You also say:

Because teachers cannot rely on being supported by management? Because teachers know that their job is precarious, particularly if they are expensive? Because a teacher may be inexperienced and not know how these things go? Because it is human to worry about complaints being made against you?

None of these us down to a parent to accommodate when making a complaint though surely. I agree that those are all issues, but surely the real problem lies with unsupportive management and budget cuts - parental complaints are symptomatic of that rather than an independent issue?

I think those were in response to a poster saying that teachers simply just shouldn't worry about parents threatening to report them to Ofsted (and if they say it to your face then of course you'll know about it), or those who make spurious complaints.

Teachers worry.

I'm not blaming. I'm saying as the adult with the responsibility it is mine/yours/etc to create an environment for children to not be treated like shit and be able to learn. My job involves a lot more 'abuse' than the examples given on this thread so I'm probably not that sympathetic. The issue with ofsted, again I'm not that sympathetic, complaints are part and parcel of my job and when ofsted inspects my LA they are interested in looking at the complaints - not in a worker blaming way, in a - do yp know their rights, did they access an advocate. If there were no complaints this would raise an eyebrow as we'd be seen to prevent complaining which would be an abuse of power. I do think a lot of teachers on this thread are not understanding of the power their wield and how upsetting children and their parents are getting with the ready to learn/zero tolerance approach so many schools are adopting. It doesn't work and yet the parents get blamed rather than the school environment.

I'm not a fan of a lot of secondary schools. Look at the cahms stat I said upthread. What schools do to children wouldn't be accepted in my role and wouldn't be accepted in a parental role and wouldn't be accepted if they employed these young people.

But yes carry on blaming the kids and their parents like school staff always do..

I'm saying as the adult with the responsibility it is mine/yours/etc to create an environment for children to not be treated like shit and be able to learn.

Wow, thanks for that nugget. 19 years of teaching and I never knew.

But yes carry on blaming the kids and their parents like school staff always do..

And...chip on shoulder revealed.

I'm saying as the adult with the responsibility it is mine/yours/etc to create an environment for children to not be treated like shit and be able to learn.

I agree. Which is why students who treat other students and staff like shit and actively prevent learning need to be dealt with.

Well gosh, you could read what a thread full of teachers have said happened in their school when it adopted a Paul Dix approach or you could choose not to and say that it is meaningless.

Theres a very strange irony with this whole thread you know....

What we forget is that school isn’t just a nice socialising opportunity for kids, we are producing the next generation of workers. If all the motivated kids who in previous years would’ve got an education are now being prevented by the bad behaviour of other students, what is going to happen? We need to concentrate on making sure these students get an education, not on making them a moderator of the other kids behaviour. I find the whole thing a real worry.

What's that, the refusal to accept what teachers are saying?

@FrippEnos actually the first one could have been significantly improved by simply putting them in different classes, of which there were three to chose from, by not repeatedly grouping them together in class work and paired exercises. Every year for 3 school years I discussed with teachers the need to keep them apart, which I was assured would happen and which never did. Oddly enough the school did finally manage to keep them apart when the police got involved - it should never have reached that point.

The third one was nothing to do with child centres practice and everything to do with a teacher not noticing a child being assaulted in the class (of 24 kids so a smaller class than usual), not listening to her when she tried to tell him what happened and not considering that sending her with the person who hurt her wasn’t a good idea. The very opposite of child centred practice by any measure.

My point is that spurious parental complaints to a body that you know will not investigate them are surely a drop in the ocean in terms of teacher stress compared to all the other things you listed that teachers are contending with.

Instead, it seems more likely that the increase in parental complaints is linked to all the things you have identified as being problematic for teachers - funding cuts and lack of effective leadership in schools impact on children and parents too so it seems logical that they are unhappy about it too.

And when the school staff were also likely on the receiving end of the other parents' raging that their child was being picked on by the teachers by thinking of moving them into other classes and the third one had them informed that the child was being victimised by the teacher by other children always being believed when they 'made up stories' about being hit by the child/it's an attempt to illegally exclude the child on the basis of their SEND and they were going to report the teacher for bullying/complain to Ofsted...?