Police arrest parents who slate school on class WhatsApp

[noblegiraffe]

A primary school sought advice from the police after '“a high volume of direct correspondence and public social media posts” that had become upsetting for staff, parents and governors.' and the police response was to send 6 officers to their house to arrest the couple making the posts and put them in a cell all day.

Although the couple sound like an absolute pain in the arse who should pack it in, 6 police officers seems like a teensy bit of overkill, particularly with the amount of crime currently going uninvestigated. But with schools faced with spiralling numbers of vexatious parental complaints, something needs to happen. I think some unions are starting to offer legal advice and template solicitor letters for this situation.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/d8c8566b-99b1-45c6-814b-008042d74a3a?shareToken=6deab807d148cf7695ed4d9d3664c51e

Online misogyny, conspiracy theorists winding them up that they're being lied to and abused, rape culture when the majority of school employees they come into contact with are female. And because of the actions of men in particular, schools aren't as easy for them to enter and intimidate or get some lovely catharsis from reducing a woman to tears - meaning they are reliant upon somebody they barely see as human (whoever is on Reception) letting them in.

There's more recognition of the rights of staff not to be intimidated or made uncomfortable by others - and a woman rejecting the prospect of being in a room alone after hours with a hostile or overconfident parent is seen as a challenge to their right to intimidate.

It's got worse since 2020 - it's almost normal to have somebody send five emails between 10pm and 2am, another around 5.30am and then be screaming down the phone at seven thirty that they haven't had a response yet, demanding to speak to the head, emailing another three people to complain, calling four times, then contacting the local authority and Ofsted by quarter to eight about the moron retard bitch in the school who hung up on them when she was called a stupid fucking cunt who should have been strangled at birth. And that's just for a password reset.

Yes, definitely true that huge increase in the use of email is a contributing factor.

Parents going online after a drink late at night are far more likely to be abusive than if they had to talk to the teacher face-to-face or on the phone during working hours.

We cross posted.

I agree that’s terrible. More than twice the level of the general population!

I don’t think I said that perception of parental complaints was the issue.

I’m quite surprised that you don’t think things need to be improved for teachers (or maybe I am misunderstanding your POV). What do you think the answer is?

You suggested that headteachers were wrongly categorising genuine complaints as vexatious complaints ... abuse and assaults are not suggestive of parents properly following the complaints process.

I've had some batshit complaints from parents too, in my time. They are definitely a thing.

I'm not sure why you think I don't think things need to be improved for teachers. I already said that while I don't agree with the police marching around to this couple's house, I do hope that it might make some parents hesitate before making shitty comments on facebook or sending a full blast email at 11pm at night that might make them feel better but could easily push a teacher into handing in their notice.

Ah, yes you are right. I don’t believe that mis-categorising complaints is the root cause issue though.

And I don’t think making “some parents hesitate before making a shitty comment on Facebook” is enough.

I think more needs to be done to support teachers out of the hellhole situation that makes them understandably sensitive to those comments.

I’ll love us to support schools to the point that they are properly funded, head teachers not under extreme pressures, teachers not working ridiculous hours. I think this would be a better way forward than arresting parents who are being overzealous in advocating for their child.

It’s OK that we disagree though. It would take a huge amount of commitment and investment and I get that not everyone is up for that.

“So I guess it’s natural that people are taking it out on those around them.”

@noblegiraffe everyone except school staff, right?

And likewise, any sane person would hope that this article might make teachers think twice about bullying SEND children and their parents, underhand tactics to demonise them and force them to leave the school, attempting to enforce illegal reporting policies on staff in breach of GDPR, taking on Governors who do not understand the law and are insufficiently independent or giving them inappropriate or insufficient training about their legal responsibilities, that staff’s “hurt feelings” are not a defence for illegal behaviour, that serious reputational damage may occur if they break the law, that schools might start to understand that they do not have jurisdiction over other people’s private conversations, and that any policies they attempt to implement that attempt to circumvent the law have no legal force and they need to comply with their legal and statutory responsibilities to children like people in every other profession.

Yawn. You again.

Extrapolating from your self selecting sample that schools everywhere are full of teachers and leaders who don't care about children.

The self-selecting sample that 98% of courts country wide over a number of years have found in favour of parents in disputes between schools and parents regarding children with SEND?

Ok then.

Yawn.

Yes, I agree. We need to reintroduce the concept of shame and calling out anti-social behaviour. The concept of 'Be Kind' is getting us absolutely nowhere. A helluva lot of people don't deserve to be treated with kindness and will laugh at you if you even try.

When did we stop informing people that they're bloody rude and thick as pig shit (when, you know, they actually are). When did people stop being ashamed of being ignorant? When did they stop fearing other people's condemnation?

I've had batshit complaints that were nothing to do with bullying SEND children and their parents so this persistent attempt to categorise all complaints as merely righteous parents and terrible schools is honestly just background noise.

Which is a shame because obviously the SEND system is horrendously failing children and needs discussion.

But this set of parents twaddling on about recruitment processes and snarking about the head with their mates on WhatsApp isn't that.

You think I'm not in favour of properly funding schools and reducing teacher workload?

You must be new to Mumsnet.

It isn’t uncommon for there to be a lot of communication for DC with complex needs, so 45 email threads alone shouldn’t be considered harassment. In fact, it is good practice for parents to follow up verbal conversations with emails so they have a paper trail. Obviously, none of us know the content of all emails.

Vexatious reports involving schools need to be considered from both sides. Professor Luke Clements’ research in conjunction with Cerebra found more than half of the families involved in the research who had had FII claims made against them had the claim made following them making a complaint about a public body, including schools.

As has been pointed out, most complaints schools class as “vexatious” regarding children with SEND (like the child in this case) turn out not to be when tested in court by an objective judge. 98% of them. Therefore, schools’ reports about how many “vexatious” complaints they receive aren’t worth the paper they’re written on until a proper regulator is in place which removes all such incompetent and immoral people from the teaching profession and imposes significant fines on all schools and LAs that break the law to weed out these people. Then some trust between school staff and parents might be restored, when only decent and law abiding people are left in the profession. Respect, however, it a mutual thing, and teachers must extend it if they expect to be treated with the same in return. It is very clear that in many cases this doesn’t happen, despite the teachers being the ones with the professional and legal responsibilities in this situation. To expect to hold parents to a higher standard than themselves, complain about “mean” comments and call the police about it when they themselves are actually breaking the law and there is no evidence that the parents have done so is beyond ridiculous.

In the meantime I’m not sure why you expect people to shed tears for the staff finding it “stressful” to inflict such long-term damage on children and their families and anybody who has a clue about the reality of how the system functions would be far more concerned for the children being denied access to a suitable education, or indeed one that they can access at all, and the poor parents who have to deal with the fallout of that and are then demonised by school staff for having the audacity to complain about their children having their basic human right to education violated; a right which enshrined in international law let alone UK law. It’s shameful and the UK education system in many ways is now not much better than that in many developing countries. Teachers need to take a long, hard look in the mirror before they sling any more mud at parents.

I’ve been here about a decade.

Are you “MN famous” then? Sorry, I don’t tend to pay attention to user names. (To be fair, I don’t notice celebrities in the street either.)

And no, I’m afraid it doesn’t come across from your posts at all. It comes across like you just think parents should stay quiet and stop upsetting teachers, and then everything will be fine.

It sounds like you are trying to defend parents assaulting headteachers, @TheCastleDoesNotReply

Your terrible statistics assume that every SEND vexacius complaint ends up in front of a judge.

No, more the usual complaint is that I won't shut up about school funding and teacher workload. As you appear to be interested in that, I'm surprised you haven't seen any of my threads.

Here's another thread I've got going at the moment. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5303582-schools-to-cut-teachers-gcse-courses-again-in-funding-storm

What an absurd accusation. I’ve said nothing of the sort, and neither was there any such incident reported in the case being discussed.

What a vile and ridiculous comment. You’ve lost all credibility now, I’m afraid.

You literally quoted my post where I specifically mentioned one in ten headteachers being assaulted by parents in the last year and then responded with blather about "Respect, however, it a mutual thing, and teachers must extend it if they expect to be treated with the same in return"

Did you not read the post that you quoted and responded to?

They should be considered terrible statistics if you are part of this profession. Shameful statistics.

And no, nobody said every case ends up in front of a judge. In legal proceedings and complaints procedures generally, people usually concede before court when they know they don’t have a hope of winning, so the prevalence if parents being in the right is most likely higher than 98%. These are the ones that went all the way through to court that presumably the schools and LAs thought they were more likely to win, and yet they still lose 98% of those. It’s quite clear who is legally in the right almost all the time (the parents) and who is in the wrong (the schools).

I see. So if I respond to one part of what you’ve said you can take that comment out of context and apply it to something else that I didn’t comment on and pretend it’s about that instead, in a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what I actually said?

It’s frightening that so many manipulative and dishonest people work with children.

Most SENDIST cases are against the LA rather than a school because most are about refusal to assess, refusal to issue and content/placement in EHCPs and all those cases are against the LA with an LA success rate of 1.3%. Some disability discrimination cases are heard by SENDIST and some of those involve schools - sadly the statistics don’t break cases down.

What about the complaints that never go any further because they were bollocks to start with? Parents with SEND children make those complaints too.

You're always here to bash teaching and education and make teachers feel shit for trying. Looks like you've got your wish, most of us are leaving!

The sad thing is that most people would support you in that, I think. I certainly have in my posts on this thread. But your disgraceful attitude towards parents and trying to blame them for the situation completely undermines your position if you wosh to change that because you need parents onside so I suggest you stop blaming them for the failings of the school system and members of your own profession.