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

Good- it’s about time school staff get some back up. Every other workplace has notices about poor behaviour not being tolerated. The amount of stress this constant drip feed of abuse causes is a main cause of teachers leaving the profession in droves. There is no let up either, as they turn up every day.

So having worked in public services my whole career, I am in two minds.

On one hand, legitimate complaints are an important part of accountability.

On the other hand, in this digital age there are two problems.

Firstly it can result in a disproportionate amount of limited resources going on a handful of vexatious complainants. Some people are just genuinely a pain in the arse, and time taken dealing with them is simply time not taken actually sorting things out for everyone.

Secondly there can be a "pitchfork mob" effect where things get out of hand and people wind each other up. This can verge into slander/libel amd can be very damaging.

In the case of schools, and the increasing incidence of special needs diagnoses, we are at a juncture where we have to decide on what basis we allocate resources. Are they needs-based (ie school assessed needs) or diagnosis-based?

The problem with diagnosis based is you can complain and lobby the school to your heart's content but if it's not bringing in resources, its just taking from otger children.

And I'm sorry but I have friends who are very entitled and sharp-elbowed about everything and their expectations are out of synch with reality.

So I think vexatious complainants are a real issue that needs a solution before we lose some of our most dedicated and caring public servants. To.all.of our detriment.

Those of you not in teaching, what would happen if a customer or client kept entering your offices uninvited and berating your staff about an issue that is not of their concern? At what point would your manager or company say that's enough and not allow them entrance?

And if after being refused entrance you became aware that they were planning to defy the ban, what would your manager do?

Add to that scenario that there are young children present, and that the client can get to your staff at your premises before passing through any security measures (the playground in this case, but you may have some equivalent space before any card swiped doors etc).

Can you see why the headteacher contacted the police for advice? And all that's without the WhatsApp and email stuff.

I wonder why attitudes. have changed. When I was sent away to school 81 years ago (!!!) the headmaster was seen as an important figure. Actually the one I had was a narrow-minded shit, and I ran away, to be brought back, but that's another matter,

Starting backwards, it is concerning that a large group of police officers arrested parents with young children, kept them at the station for several hours and then had no evidence to charge them. That does read like complete over reach, however irritating the individuals concerned. For me this is compounded by the fact that one child is disabled. There are many less invasive ways of determining whether there is actually a criminal offence involved. The reference to their devices and social media are also a bit unconvincing. After all, if there was evidence of, e.g. malicious comms, the people who received the offending comms presumably had that evidence and could give it to the police. Then I understand the parents, one of whom had been a school governors, were using the school's complaints procedure so it's not clear what made the police decide to go after them. The fact that the man works for Times radio presumably means it won't die down. Think the Hertfordshire police commissioner has asked for an investigation. So maybe we'll know more.

your first paragraph is irrelevant because the answer is in the second - in most workplaces (dependent on policy) if the behaviour escalated it would result in a ban from the premises, as it did here. I can't see that anyone has argued that the ban itself wasn't appropriate?

Where does it say the couple were planning to defy the ban? I couldn't see anything to suggest that. They'd already taken their child out of school for a month by that point so there was literally no reason for them going there.

And if unless there was any actual evidence of a credible threat, no I wouldn't phone the police on the off chance they might turn up. You're talking about a local councillor, the chances they are going to storm the school and injure children is minimal, to say the least.

I would assume the options are to charge them with malicious communication or harassment. It sounds like a bullying campaign. I support all schools to protect themselves, their reputations, the staff and children.

I think that its been posted several times that the father defied the ban. Most recently by Canterranter who was quoting the LBC interview with him.

We are forced by law to educate our children. Most people cannot afford private school and cannot realistically home-school. The state system offers little choice for families. If children don’t show up, parents are fined.

With all of this coercion, and a child with serious health needs, I am not surprised that hysteria ensued.

There would be less friction, if people had more power over their own children. Nothing grates more than to hand your children over to people who you think are letting them down, neglecting or abusing them, and to have no effective recourse or even the power to walk away.

I don't work in a school, but I'm absolutely disgusted by the current culture to blame everything on schools. People can't be arsed to parent their children but expect schools to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to raising their entitled offsprings.

There is a parent at my kids school who posts almost daily on various social media platforms slagging them off and trying to drum up support to remove SLT because she didn't like the way school dealt with a issue. This has been going on for nearly a year and the staff are so done. I'm a teacher and would absolutely hate for this to happen to my school.

I work in education in a non teaching role but dealing with complaints. This perfectly sums up my experience, I wish i could have written it so eloquently. I fear how many dedicated, passionate and caring staff will be lost.

They got a lynch mob together? Their aim was to publicly murder the per

I think another problem in society today is that extreme language, sorry to pick on your Lola, especially as the rest of your post I would agree with, is used out of context and loses some of its meaning.

What does bullying and harassment mean anymore? I'm not longer sure when I read much of what is said here and elsewhere?

Lot of teachers on this thread...... 😂😂

We saw 'school' in the title and flocked here 😁

My head was as resilient a person as I've come across. Tough as old boots really. She and I didn't have the smoothest relationship, but about six months after I retired I had cause to visit the school briefly to drop something off. She saw me arrive and came out of her office to ask me if I had time for a chat when I'd done that I was there for.

I went in to see her, and it all spilled out. I'd never seen her so stressed and upset. At one point I thought she would cry.

It turned out that a parent had spent the last few months in a vendetta against her and the school. The parent was not only coming into school and aggressively accosting any staff she could find, but she was sending multiple vexatious and totally untrue complaints to the council and OFSTED. In addition she had managed to convince a small group of other parents of the validity of her complaints, and encouraged them to think the worst of the place too.

They had been putting terrible reviews on the OFSTED parent view site and basically trashing the outstanding school's name.

The head was at breaking point. She wanted to fight back, but knew that doing so could make things worse, as any action she took might well be reported inaccurately. She said she was close to resigning.

There was nothing I could say to help. She just needed to vent to someone. But I was really shocked at the effect that this one parent and her influence on others, had on her.

I'm sure that this parent could very easily have portrayed her actions and the 'need' for them in a very different way, to a sympathetic journalist. Schools really don't stand a chance against a truly malicious parent.

It’s clear from everything that’s been communicated that they harassed the staff directly.

The whole article is so biased towards the parents and portraying them as victims -
which makes sense when you realise it’s in the Sunday Times and this guy works for Times Radio - which is owned by the same umbrella company as The Times. Oh and they also own the famously rational and objective GB “News”… But surely the real issue is why he hasn’t been arrested for that hideous yellow jumper, and did his wife have to suck a lemon to make her face look that sour? She’s taken the tabloid “sad face” look to a whole new level.

Well said

In nearly 20 years of teaching I've only known 2 sets of parents get banned from the school site, they were vicious and relentless in their abuse of staff and were responsible for at least 6 teachers leaving due to poor health.

But including these two sets of parents I have known six sets where the SLT/HT informed the staff that they were not to communicate in anyway with them, and that all emails, phone calls and letters were to be sent to the designated member of SLT who with the schools/LEA legal team would reply to the parents.

Its not a new thing but then again neither is the relentless support that they get from certain types of people.

6 police officers does sound excessive so my first thought is that they must be known already and backup prepared.

A single person n who moans on whattsapp is a big difference to the ones who threaten.

Respect that this has been taken seriously, SM bullying can lead to a whole load of unnecessary stuff like breakdowns, others jumping on the band wagon with no idea or perspective of teaching and caring for their children.

Absolutely! This parent has clearly too much time on their hands and spends it obsessing about the school. So sad that one person can have the power to put on SM, report to ofsted, complaints everywhere rather than addressing the issue with the school.

Some people aren't in control of themselves for whatever reason and will project the blame onto others. They should be invited to step in place of the teacher (who is nearby) and see how i it goes! Xx

My cousin's GD left her primary school teaching post a couple of years ago, mainly because of the abuse from parents. The last straw was when a mother yelled across the playground and called her, "A fu*g c*t". Appalling behaviour.

When my two DC were at school, I always gave their teachers my upmost respect, and supported them 100%.

My boy went to a school that was absolutely horrifying- obviously had no idea but it became more and more clear and very quickly became so bad the school was shut down. Just because you had a situation where the head teacher was the victim, doesn’t mean they always will be. Just because I had a situation where the parents and children were the victims, doesn’t mean they always will be.

Oh one of the school staff obviously are related to one of the police. That's really over the top for a few WhatsApp messages. I'm not surprised nfa was taken.
The parents might not be happy but it's a free speech country & I didn't read anything that indicated they were abusive. The entire situation needs some sort of intervention, ridiculous that it got to that stage & now it has, it's not going to stop there.