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

Or you may find that publicising this appalling behaviour - similar to that which goes on in many schools - may lead to a proper regulator which enforces the law being put in place like in every other profession and then teachers like these will have a very nasty shock.

hear hear.

Right, so now you hopefully see that whatever you thought you were reading into my posts, isn't there.

Why has SEND become the focus of this thread? The harassment was regarding a recruitment decision. It seems to have been that that got the patent banned in the first place. The child's epilepsy only became the issue (he claims) when he was banned from the premises.

This isn't a SEND parent against the teacher issue. This is a previous governor sounding off aggressively about a recruiting decision he didn't like. There are no excuses for that.

I notice that you didn't answer my question. Do you think that there are headteachers out there that are genuinely subjected to hate campaigns and harassment?

It's also unclear why you have decided to make this couple a martyr to your cause, insisting that they were unfairly demonised by the school for legitimate concerns about the education of their child with SEND when the article is clear that their main beef with the school was about the lack of transparency around the recruitment process for an acting headteacher.

Indeed.

Nah. Not sure how arrived there. But also not interested.

True

Probably round about when Gordon Brown got completely slated for calling a bigot a bigot!

Exactly. People are really de-railing this thread. I listened to the parents being interviewed on LBC. Forget the WhatsApp conversations for a second or two... They didn't dispute sending 80-odd emails to the school. They also made multiple phone calls. They accosted staff in the playground. They made personal approaches to the Chair of Governors, which the father as an ex-governor would have known to be wrong and unfair. Eventually when they were banned from school grounds the father still made his way into the school - Headteachers don't make the decision to ban parents from school premises lightly, but that would indicate that it was a good decision in this case.
The school can't respond publicly in detail to the allegations being made (but I bet they would love to). Not because it would be 'bad form', but because there would be GDPR and confidentiality issues. However we can be sure that they tried to engage with these people and responded to them on multiple occasions before deciding that their complaints were 'vexatious'. Their definition of a vexatious complaint should be in their complaints procedure, but even if it isn't, they can look to DfE and NGA guidance and apply that.
The father, as an ex-governor, would have had some idea of the financial cost of all of this. Ultimately coming from the same pot of money that pays for 'books'. The governance professional would have been working extra hours and billing them. Even a relatively simple complaint can easily cost £3-£4k in clerking. Then there is the cost of staff time, taking them away from educating children.
On LBC the father in particular was bleating on about a 'lack of transparency' around the recruitment of the new headteacher. I'm sure that anyone who has been involved in recruitment knows, there can never be total public transparency in recruitment because candidates have a right to privacy.
The parents didn't like the fact that it took a while to start the recruitment process and meanwhile they weren't satisfied with the deputy headteacher taking the reins. This is not unusual. In some areas headteacher recruitment is very difficult. Before proceeding with headteacher recruitment schools might consider various options such as academy conversion, possible partnerships or federations with other schools. That takes time. Governing board minutes of these discussions could arguably be considered to be confidential, at least for a period of time after the meetings.
If an individual was subject to a prolonged campaign such as this they would be advised by everyone here to seek advice from the police. That is what the school did. What happened after was not their decision.

I'm sure I've wasted my time typing all of this out, but I thought worth a try. 😁

you need to read the article.

They didn't warrant having 6 officers. Utter ridiculous waste of public resources.

I'm going to add that the press focus on the WhatsApp group is relevant in relation to the police action - possibly. However it does mean that the prolonged harrassment carried out against the school by these people is being overlooked.
No, I don't work for the school. I'm a recently retired governance professional, ex chair of governors and ex National Leader of Governance.

3 police cars - 1 for each of the arrested because they aren't allowed to travel together. Plus one to ensure that there were police on site to make sure that the child in the house was cared for. Each police car has to have two police people in it.

Being disturbed by six police officers turning up to arrest some parents who have been slagging off a school online and by a school needing “advice” from the police on how to respond to parents’ complaints does not equal supporting parents “trolling”.
I’m very concerned by the lack of professional judgement in this instance.

Obviòusly I, like most people here, don't know the details of what's been said in this case, but the whole point is that 6 police officers attended to arrest them for things they wrote. You would be lucky to get ONE officer to attend a burglary, shoplifting, or most other everyday crimes that affect people much more than 'hurt feelings', which while horrible is surely not something to be prioritised. Still, easier and less threatening to police rather than confronting actual criminals as per their job description.

It was a complete waste of resources and money.

Shops are drowning with the cost of shop lifting and the police rarely respond. Our family member was burgled, no police officer attended. People are being attacked on the streets and the police refuse to intervene.

When the public phone the police for assistance for actual criminal activities and get no assistance, then they see them attending mob handed to some mums being rude online, it affects the public opinion of the police.

We are seeing people being sent to prison for writing threatening things online for longer terms than people actually DOING the things they wrote about doing.

It’s a complete mess.

We’re sleepwalking into a society that is lawless in terms of violence and theft etc. but authoritative over what we are allowed to say in public. It’s disturbing.

Thank you for the feedback on that interview with the parents @Canterranter . I hope people will read it and see that it was not unreasonable for the school to seek advice from the police.

So many people concentrating on the school being 'slagged off' online and completely ignoring the campaign that happened before that. We don't know if the school sought advice from the police just because of the WhatsApp messages, that's pretty unlikely.

It was a complete waste of resources and money.

If so that needs taking up with the police. It was not the school's decision to send that officers and cars out and have them arrested.

Given the full context - the 80-odd emails, the abuse of staff and governors, accessing the school after being banned - I would have advised the school to speak to the police for advice. They did the right thing. The police decided on their course of action, not the school.

No, not a waste of time at all. Very interesting to hear the details that were left out of the Times piece! And I can see why they did leave it out. Leave out 'going onto the school site and harassing teachers even after being banned' and put in some snarky WhatsApp messages and pretend it's a free speech issue.

They have a child with specific needs. They’re going to need more frequent contact with that child’s teacher.

That involves numerous emails, speaking on the yard etc.

None of that is unreasonable, never mind illegal.

And when you have 50% of the school with ‘specific needs’?

I do blame the police.

I’m not sure how you’ve not gathered that from the rest of my post/s

Or were you trying not to?

You think the more children with specific needs a school has, the less responsibility of care the teachers have for maintaining contact with the parents?