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

That's a sad & dire situation, especially for the children. I don't know what they must feel like having a total relationship breakdown between their parent & the school they attend daily. Not to mention how difficult & impractical it is to not be able to have conversations.
I thought I had a nightmare with one of the schools my DD went to, it never got that bad though! Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Yeah I would be assuming one or both of these people have a record for violence. They wouldn’t send six officers unless they or their associates had records

ooooooo...... bombarded with emails!

Out of interest, which news outlets do you think are more objective and rational than GB News?

Well, this is demonstrably untrue.
Women, with no previous criminal record, have had this kind of treatment for stating “trans women are men” on twitter.

My friend did a SAR recently to help with an EHCP application. Apparently it’s something that is sometimes recommended in order to collect evidence that the school cannot meet need.

It was awful reading full of laughing emojis, disparaging comments about the family etc. Far worse than anything shown here. Tbh it had nothing to do with me but it made me feel hugely uneasy about school staff as a whole.

Everything I’ve seen about this is from the viewpoint of this couple. I can’t make my mind up about whether or not it’s an overreaction until I know exactly what has gone on, and we’re not likely to get all the facts here about why the police made that decision. However six police officers suggests a risk of violence to me. I would need to see there was definitely no basis for this before concluding it was an overreaction.

That’s terrible. Sadly it’s becoming more and more prevalent.

Yes. That's why they have the malicious communication act I imagine.

That sounds awful. No shortage of foolish teachers.

So, in response to your earlier comment, shouldn’t he be an ex Lib Dem counsellor? If the provocation to school staff was that severe, surely his position should be in question?

It’s certainly something that should be looked into, particularly if there is any suggestion that he abused his position to get his colleague to send a letter to the school on his behalf.

I’d be interested to know if that letter from the councillor came after the police warning to pack it in and that was their way of circumnavigating it.

Something must have happened between the police warning them to stop it, and the police coming round to their house?

They had explained to the school on several occasions before how this would be administered, The school knew how to administer, they just didn't want to expose another classroom teacher to them. In any case, the school would seek medical advice for anything like this to understand the risks not just rely on parental comments. . .

This is an interview with the parents. It is worth watching in full. I have to say I found the whole situation really distressing and incredibly depressing. The parents had moved their child to a different school one week before they were arrested. The child had epilepsy.

Wow, the parents come across as credible. Without any counter evidence from the school, it looks like the school were behaving spitefully.

With more SEN parents being forced out of suitable private schools due to VAT, state schools can expect more parent advocacy for their children.

That means absolutely nothing.

Yes, exactly this. So many people on here commenting, who have no idea about these parents and what they have been through. If some of the commenters above had met them, heard them speak etc then they would hopefully be ashamed at some of the words written higher up this thread.

We all know that the SEN crisis in our schools is alive and kicking, and with a sizeable number joining the state sector as they are forced to move schools, I think we can certainly expect to see a lot more parent advocacy. Schools are probably going to have to deal with a lot more parents fighting their kid's corner.
The sad fact is that so many of our schools are simply not equipped or able to cater to the needs of children with additional needs and what are seeing in this case. It's a lose-lose all round unfortunately, for schools, parents, children and our wider society.

Your question about head teachers being subject to hate campaigns and harassment because it is irrelevant to this case, given that the police found there was no such case to answer in this instance. However, I did explicitly state in an earlier post that you’d have much more sympathy if you started a thread about that issue and made clear that obviously, like any reasonable and decent person, I am against anybody being harassed or intimidated. However, in this case it appears to be the school that has broken the law repeatedly and harassed this family, making malicious false allegations against them.

I don’t know what you mean by “my case”. What case? I haven’t said anything about any “case” relating to me?

There are comments about SEND because:

1. the little girl forced to change schools by the schools behaviour has SEND;

2. it is well-documented (and indeed, set out in the person experiences some other posters have recounted on this thread) that unscrupulous Head Teachers often employ tactics like these to drive children with SEND out of their school (demonising the parents claiming that their level of contact to try to resolve issues is “unreasonable”, trying to get the LAs to prosecute the parents after the school refuses the provision they require so makes it impossible for them to attend regularly or at all, calling social services to make malicious reports about the parents to deflect attention from the school, although calling the police is a new and more extreme one, but clearly part of the same playbook;

3. There is a large body of evidence demonstrating that the vast majority of complaints from children with SEND that schools have deemed “vexatious” are, when tested in court, found not to be so and 98% of the court findings are in favour of the parents, therefore taking the school’s side of this without any evidence to support it (and indeed, the police having found none) is naive in the extreme;

4. What evidence has been released demonstrates multiple legal and regulatory breaches by the school in question regarding their legal responsibilities to a child and SEND and their family. There is no evidence of the parents having broken any law;

5. Various posters have claimed the level of contact the parents had with the school is evidence of unreasonable behaviour yet the fact that the child had epilepsy and other neurological conditions means that this is not the case and this level of contact might be entirely reasonable, and is in line with what is mandated in many EHCPs depending on the medical conditions, so it constitutes evidence of no such thing. There is no information on the content or purpose of the emails and it is pure supposition on your part that they all related to Head Teacher recruitment procedures (and implausible, given the many other matters that are stated - e.g. the school refusing to arrange parent teacher meetings, the school refusing to discuss the child’s medical needs and medication administration during school hours, the school refusing to let the child be collected in the normal manner, the school refusing to let the parents attend her Christmas play - which must have been discussed by email given that the school had deliberagely cut off all other forms of communication).

That is why people have been talking about SEND: it is highly relevant to the case because the child has SEND and has now been forced to change schools. It’s notable that the teachers posting here seem almost entirely unconcerned about the impact on her.

The fact you view a child as “collateral damage” says it all.

You can’t just “seek medical advice” about treatment of a specific individual based on their diagnosis. The severity and treatment requirements will be different in each case and only the children’s doctors and parents would have the required detail. The Children and Families Act requires regular and transparent communication between schools and the families of children with disabilities for a good reason. The school clearly broke the law by attempting to override this with their illegal policies preventing effective communication.

Getting your child an education if they have an SEN has always incredibly hard. I don’t think those with children who don’t have a child with an SEN can understand the sheer frustration of trying to get your child an education

People saying that primary school teachers can’t be expected to teach at different levels during the day need to look at what happened during the 1960s when with the latter part of the baby boom, classes were over flowing.

My primary school class was 2 year groups and 58 children in a class at all different levels. 1 teacher (No TA’s in those days) managed each class

They taught a subject to one side of the classroom and depending which level you were on you had work set for you to get on with whilst the teacher taught the other side of the room.

I think the real problem teachers have now is that they are expected to work at a level that doesn’t take account of those children who might not achieve that level.

The curriculum is set and if your child can’t read then there is nothing in place to alter anything so your child could access education

I completely agree.
I have three children who are all NT. I never speak to their teachers besides parents evening and “good morning”.
I’m grateful that this is the only contact we need.

The youngest is about to start nursery and I will be expecting a quick run down for his first few days and then a quick chat when necessary after that.

I am, however, very aware that other children have very different needs and a daily update with the parents is very necessary.

Doing an SAR is very good advice provided by many advocates supporting parents who are dealing with obstructive, malicious or illegal behaviour from schools. The resulting data can often reveal extremely unprofessional and quite shocking behaviour from staff which gives a real insight into their lack of integrity, their disrespect for the law and their contempt for children and their parents. It is baffling why such people decide to work in education.

One positive thing that often comes out of an SAR is that once the school staff know that the parents now have full oversight of their behaviour, motivations and the things they have said and done, the lies they have told, and the staff subsequently tend to realise that the parents have the evidence to make formal complaints which the Board of Governors can no longer gloss over, and complaints to the TAR about unprofessional conduct, and miraculously school staff often then cease their illegal and obstructive behaviour and start being much nicer to the child and parents and more willing to comply with the law.

It’s sad that this is necessary before some people to show any professionalism, but it is effective and it is a very good idea for parents to exercise this legal right to access all data held in relation to them or their children.

Thank you for posting this. It is definitely worth watching and clears up much of the incorrect supposition/ conjecture on this thread. The statement from the school in particular was very interesting, stating that they “sought advice from the police because of a high volume of emails/ messages in conversations with other parents on social media and this was becoming upsetting for staff.”

Firstly, don’t snoop on other people’s private conversations if you don’t want to hear what they’re saying. Secondly, the police don’t investigate something if no allegation has been made and you have simply “sought advice”. And thirdly (and most importantly), someone being “upset” about something you said in a private conversation is not a crime. It’s also astonishing and rather hilarious - if it weren’t for the impact on these parents and their child that resulted from this incompetence - that the police didn’t even know the legal definition of the alleged crime for which they had made an arrest, or understand the distinction between civil and criminal offences even if any evidence of either existed, aside from them not being able to produce any evidence to substantiate any offence at all.

The interview also makes very clear that the emails the couple sent to the school were almost entirely about their child’s medical needs, the impact on their child of the school’s illegal “communication policy” which was preventing the school from complying with the Children and Families Act 2014 and the statutory SEND Code of Practice 2015, and was totally disproportionate and actually quite vindictive to this disabled child, to frogmarch her to and from the gate every day and to prevent her parents even attending her school play. The interview also, as I suspected, confirms that of course a large volume of emails was necessary because the school had banned the parents from communicating with the school in any other way and therefore it was the school’s own illegal policy that necessitated such a high volume of emails because the school had deliberately obstructed all normal, informal communication channels and this made it impossible for the care of a disabled child and her medical treatment during the school day when the school staff were in loco parentis to be co-ordinated properly. So the school effectively accused this couple of harassment due to a situation created entirely by the school’s own behaviour.

The parents appear to be very reasonable people and I find it very unlikely they’d have been prepared to publicise this matter in the way that they have if there was any evidence of any wrongdoing on their part as it would likely destroy their own reputations if any such evidence came to light. This appears to be a very clear case of school staff bullying the family of a disabled child to try to force her parents to withdraw her from the school which, as I’ve said several times on this thread, is much more common than many parents who don’t have disabled children might realise. It’s disgraceful and I feel so sorry for these parents and even more so for the vulnerable 9 year old whose life has been disrupted like this by this appalling and illegal behaviour from the staff at this school.

School staff should be aware that they also have personal safeguarding and duty of care responsibilities to all children in their care during the school day, and additional ones to disabled children, as well as the code of ethics and professional standards set by the TRA that they must follow, and that “my boss told me to do it” is not a valid legal defence if these matters ever come before a court. Likewise many school Governors don’t seem to understand their legal responsibilities.

I hope that an effective regulator is put in place to stamp out this kind of disgusting behaviour and these brave parents should be thanked for having the courage to come forward and expose the disgraceful behaviour of this school to public scrutiny. One can only hope it will make other teachers and schools think twice before behaving similarly and disabuse them of the mistaken belief that they have a legal right to prevent parents having private conversations about the school even if they find this inconvenient, that merely being criticised doesn’t constitute “harassment”, being “upset” about something doesn’t make it a “crime”.