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

I hope you don't have responsibility for safeguarding. All individuals in contact with the child should have all information. The parents say once [and on a daily basis if required of course] but through the correct contact point to avoid silos of important information

So a school “not wanting to hear from” certain parents means they are justified in implementing illegal communication policies and ignoring the law and statutes governing their profession and also breaching their own professional standards and ethical code set by their professional body? Responding to parental communications “is part of their job”, whether they like it or not.

Christ.

Whether the staff considered the communication “welcome” or not is totally irrelevant. It’s part of their job to communicate with the parents and open, regular and transparent communication between staff and the parents of children with SEND is a legal requirement, particularly pertinent when the child has a potentially life-threatening medical condition and their medical care while in school requires parental oversight and consent.

If school staff find complying with the minimum legal obligations of their roles “unwelcome” then they had better go and find a different job, where they don’t have a duty of care to vulnerable minors.

I don't think you are a teacher, Hameth, and I don't think you have any personal or professional experience of what you are commenting on. Is that right, and if so, why are you commenting?

Obviously you don't have to say, but it would be useful to know who are teachers and who are Clapham omnibus bystanders!

What? I specifically stated that of course the institution and all people who work with the child need to be fully informed and have all of the relevant information. Are you struggling to read? I also stated that this does not negate the requirement for those working directly with the child to have open, regular and transparent communication with the child’s parents so that their provision and any treatment that might be required in the school day can be regularly reviewed and time-critical information relayed between school and home. Risk factors and changing severity or the condition over days or weeks must be communicated between school and home with direct and clear communication between all of those involved which very obviously must include the regular class teacher when we’re talking about a primary school child with a potentially fatal health condition.

There are legal and regulatory requirements requiring this communication which the school deliberately prevented. Many EHCPs mandate it specific additional requirements around this for individual children with serious health conditions like the little girl in question. No reasonable person would expect the parents of a child with such a condition to place them in the care of someone for 30 hours per week who had refused to even meet them or speak to them with no assurance whatsoever that they had been passed the relevant medical information by their employer (who had already demonstrated that they were behaving illegally and completely incompetently by that point) or properly understood it. If parents were prepared to go along with this then they would be failing to safeguard their child appropriately.

I hope that you don’t have anything to do with child safeguarding if you think that parents should or can be excluded from discussions about medical provision and treatment for their own children or should leave them in the care of people who have refused to even meet them in person. Any school demanding that parents do so has such poor safeguarding procedures that I can’t imagine any responsible parent would be prepared to still send their child there, even if the child were perfectly healthy.

Can you imagine seeing this case in the news and it being your child’s school? These are young children in primary school. Any sane parent would withdraw their child immediately. This is why I think this kind of dangerous and illegal behaviour needs to be publicised so that people realise how widespread it is, in too many schools across the country. If parents who haven’t been personally affected realised the scale of the misconduct and negligence then there’d be a public outcry demanding change and proper enforcement of the law, which is exactly why, I expect, school’s go to these lengths to intimidate and bully parents to try to hush it up and prevent them from speaking out about the reality.

That’s not correct. A Whatsapp group is a private group, not a public forum. There is an expectation of privacy because information is being shared with specific individuals and for a specific purpose. There is no implied consent for data to be extracted and used for other purposes. Gathering and extracting personal data from private conversations on behalf of an organisation and misusing it for the benefit of that organisation, for a purpose other than that which it was provided without express, written consent for this change of use from the person who the data belongs to is an offence. The only way this would be legal would be if the members of the Whatsapp group have agreed explicitly in writing when joining the group that their data can be extracted and used for other purposes, i.e. explicitly waived their legal rights. “Implied consent” applies to public posts, for example if somebody shares personal data in a public forum. The data in question here was from messages between a private group of a limited number of members, and data shared on a closed, private facebook group. No member of those groups therefore had any legal basis to assume “implied consent” for change of use.

Also you “if staff safety is an issue” is totally irrelevant, given that at no point has the school even alleged (based on the data publicly available) that the staff were threatened in any way, that the parents were violent or intimidating or even verbally abusive. A school obtaining personal data from spying on private conversations and processing it in this way for unauthorised purposes without consent is a clear breach, if that is what happened. Please do not spread misinformation because people need to be aware that if they behave in such a manner they are committing an offence and at risk of prosecution.

Look, I think you have a prior agenda on school behaviours and are energetically promoting that. I make no comments on whether these schools you are aware of have behaved badly,. Public services are underfunded and have flawed humans in charge so there are I am sure examples of poor behaviour. I am not sure that it is systematic, though,. I am also not sure the arrest was justified and there is an enquiry into that. The statement so far is that they thought the parents would not consent to voluntarily provide the phones etc. However, they had been banned from the premises and there was a prior visit from the police so relationships had broken down. But to claim the school placed the child at risk or that there was no evidence against the parents isn't right. Also, while its ok to request a a meet with key individuals for strategic care planning (start of term/year etc) it is also true that tactical updates must go to the single point of contact. Bear in mind, it is the institution that provides the care and there needs to be organisational knowledge. Eg important update sent to an individual who has let their phone run out of charge ... it doesn't bear thinking about.

I do have relevant prior and current experience of schools and safeguarding principles in a public facing organisation but am not in education at present. However, I'm happy for you to critique any of my comments, rather than guess at my background. I have said that I am replying because there are some errors in posts and while I wont change minds I want this thread to stick to the facts.

When it was keeping the Epipen at home and assuming we'd have a stock of piriton to give to a kid with anaphylaxis?

OK, then

Furthermore, @Hameth , I don’t “have an agenda”. Throughout the thread I’ve been referring to the evidence that actually has been released in this case, evidence from other court cases and the statistics from tribunals. Objective facts, rather than the conjecture and prejudices we’ve seen put forward here by school staff posting that don’t correspond to the factual information available.

I have also stated several times that the issue driving this illegal behaviour from schools - which you would have to be living under a rock to genuinely believe isn’t widespread - is a lack of financial resources and that school funding needs to be increased substantially. I also stated that the majority of class teachers, in my experience, are excellent and not to blame for this. The problem is unethical Head Teachers and members of SLT in many schools who behave illegally and immorally and treat parents appallingly because they have a financial incentive to do so. The solutions, therefore, in my opinion are a large increase in school funding and putting in place a zero-tolerance regulator which investigates all cases of misconduct reported and which enforces education law very strictly, making it clear that illegal behaviour will have serious consequences for the individual staff, schools and Local Authorities involved.

When you write “to say there was no evidence against the parents isn’t right”, what do you mean? Evidence of what? There is a legal threshold for whether a crime has been committed or not. Either there is evidence that demonstrates there was a crime, or there is not. The police have stated that there was no basis for a charge for any crime having reviewed all possible evidence (since everything was in writing), so clearly there was no evidence of a crime. There seems to be evidence that the school staff didn’t like dealing with these parents so tried to circumvent their legal responsibilities to do so. There is evidence that the parents criticised them, as they are perfectly entitled to do. There may be evidence that the school staff found the parents’ communications “unwelcome” as you suggested, but so what? There’s no evidence that the parents did anything illegal and plenty of evidence that the school broke the law.

I think all of my comments have been reasonable and balanced and fair and objective. You may disagree, but unless you can actually provide some evidence to support that assertion then I will remain confident in my expressed position.

I have been on a few threads like this and it turned out that quite a few posters who initially seemed to be teachers were not in fact teachers, that was why I asked. I hear what you say - you have some related experience but you aren't a teacher.

In terms of critique my main takeaway from your posts is that you do not think that a school having a good working relationship with a parent of a child who has a medical condition is necessary for the wellbeing of the child. I think that you are fundamentally wrong, and your view shows ignorance about medical conditions.

Even mild conditions such as mild asthma or mild allergies require an open and continuous relationship. A child who has a mild allergic reaction to one thing may suddenly without warning develop an allergic reaction to something else. On this thread we are about a child with a life threatening condition.

Your example of a parent who has forgotten to send their child's epipen in with them is slightly odd - I have experienced staff losing my dc's medication before, but I wouldn't turn that into a world theory of discrediting all teachers and saying there is no point talking to them.

It is a shame really. There should be mutual respect and good communication between parents and teachers as standard.

I won't enter into a long exchange with you on this though - I can see you are entrenched in your views - I admire the patience of @TheCastleDoesNotReply !

"so clearly there was no evidence of a crime" isn't right. It just isn't. You can have prime facie evidence of a crime that turns out to have an alternative explanation or is insufficient to press charges or isn't in the public interest to do so..

This is also incorrect. The police were unable to provide a single example of even one message that met the definition of “malicious communications”. It wasn’t a matter of extent or frequency meeting a threshold for prosecution (in which case the couple may have been charged but the CPS decline to proceed to prosecution), rather that the police couldn’t find even one communication that fell within the definition of evidence for this crime to have taken place.

Someone reporting it to the school isn’t necessarily about “concern”. Many schools now try to implement illegal policies requiring parents who are also staff or Governors to report any negative comment about the school that they see. The person who did it may have erroneously believed they were contractually obliged to do so by these illegal policies when in fact such policies are unenforceable because contractual terms cannot override law or statute. If that is what happened, the school broke the law by illegally gathering and processing this personal data. Alternatively, a busy-body may have reported it to the school just because they wanted to, to try to stir up trouble. This is why I suggested the parents do an SAR and find out precisely what happened, then they can consider what legal action should be taken about this (if appropriate) and the other legal breaches that the school has seemingly inadvertently confessed to already.

There was no prima facie (it’s “prima facie”, not “prime facie”, FYI) evidence of a crime that provided any grounds even for arrest and questioning. That’s the whole point. The police reviewed all of the evidence and discovered that they couldn’t find a single communication at all that fell under the definition of the crime of “malicious communications”, which the school had falsely alleged. The problem was that the police had all of the evidence before they made the false arrests for a crime that did not exist so should never have made the arrests in the first place, hence the Police Commissioner now launching an investigation into this misconduct.

What is troubling is the absolute silence from the relevant regulator and professional body in the education sector - OFSTED and the TRA - who so far appear to be taking no action whatsoever about the professional misconduct and illegal behaviour of the teaching staff involved.

did you get the bit where the parent refused to provide an epipen for their child? I mean, on what planet would that be OK?

The police made the decision to arrest and not prosecute.
Tell me what the school did that was illegal again? The police should also be dealing with the school if they've committed a crime...

The police made the decision to arrest and not prosecute.
Tell me what the school did that was illegal again? The police should also be dealing with the school if they've committed a crime...

@Hercisback1 perhaps I’ve missed it but who is accusing the school of doing anything illegal? Surely the point is the behaviour of the parents did not by any stretch meet the definition of harassment or malicious communication so the school should not have involved the police.

I have to admit, my patience is wearing thin now!

It is quite unbelievable that there are posters who still seem determined to try to defend the school staff in this situation, regardless of all of the evidence refuting their position and no evidence at all supporting it.

It’s very disturbing. I think it must be some kind of siege mentality because education is under so much pressure financially and teachers are at the sharp end of dealing with that problem. But to defend these school staff demonising parents when there is no evidence they have done anything unreasonable, their disabled daughter being forced out of her school and the parents wrongfully arrested, their disabled daughter vindictive behaviour to the family and deliberate and repeated breaches of the law by the school staff, is quite astonishing. It’s been a bit like trying to reason with members of a cult, this defensiveness and unquestioning loyalty to these strangers who’ve clearly behaved in an appalling manner simply because they share the same profession as you. This again, is very different to what you see in other professions. Professionals in the law, accounting or medicine generally stringently uphold standards and would condemn without hesitation misconduct on this scale because other members of their profession breaching the law and professional standards and ethics in such a manner would bring the whole profession into disrepute.

The fact so many teachers have reacted to these revelations in the opposite manner - performing somersaults of cognitive dissonance to try to grasp at increasingly implausible ways to attempt to argue that the teachers must be right just because they are teachers - provides an interesting insight into why the environment in schools is so toxic and such appalling behaviour continues largely unchallenged in so many schools: often it is other colleagues - their expectation that it goes without saying that all in their profession must uphold professional standards and the relevant laws and regulations - which holds people to account in day to day professional life. If there is a significant proportion of teachers who turn a blind eye to such illegal behaviour - even to vulnerable minors with disabilities - then this explains a lot about why schools are failing so badly and incompetent people remain in post when in any other professional environment I can think of this would not be tolerated. Anyone with any integrity, especially in a role where they have a duty of care to some of the most vulnerable members of society, would be making whistleblowing reports if they saw a colleague breaking the law repeatedly, not be seemingly oblivious to the requirements of the laws governing their own profession and then, even when these are explained, still trying to defend other members of their profession who have behaved illegally. It’s a very depressing state of affairs.

@Hameth sometimes it is necessary (and included in EHCPs) to communicate with specific staff (for example, the child’s class teacher or 1:1) rather than rely on messages being passed on.

There's shit loads of evidence the parents are unreasonable. Those of us working in schools can count on one hand the number of parents who have ever been banned from the site. This is an extreme measure taken after repeated incidents or one major incident (usually threatening staff safety). That alone is a red flag, despite the WA messages and number of emails.

What professional standards do think the teaching staff haven't met? I'm genuinely curious. I can only see teachers fed up with these parents who have waged a war of attrition in their verbal and written communication with school.

Two posters have made comments that the school/staff are acting unprofessionally. I'm sure they they have made comments about the school acting illegally, but I am not going back through what they have posted to find quotes.
As for that school not involving the police, why shouldn't they?
Anyone can go to the police for advice.

@Hercisback1 being unreasonable is not illegal. @FrippEnos they didn’t go to the Police for advice, they reported them for harassment i e they made an accusation of a crime.

What evidence is there?

In this case the communication was not with teachers. It went via email to the school office and the headteacher. And it was nothing to do with ‘teachers not meeting professional standards’, the complaints were that the recruitment process for HT hadn’t been followed correctly (if you’re a primary teacher you’ll know only too well how rules and procedures are frequently bent in recruitment) and that the medical information about their child wasn’t being communicated effectively to the new class teacher as the parents weren’t allowed onsite. There were no complaints from the parents about teachers.