to wonder if school staff rooms involve much parent bashing?

[lottielou39]

A comment below (in the thread about childcare being too expensive for people to do poorly paid part time work) from someone who worked in a nursery and said the weekly meetings were mostly about parent bashing, got me wondering. What are school staff rooms really like? I'd love to be a fly on the wall. Are parents slagged off on a daily basis? Which parents cause the most dread? Is it ever possible for a parent to have a valid gripe (in the eyes of the school staff room) or are they always stupid and annoying?

What really surprised me when I became a parent was how much time they spent talking about teachers! It had never occurred to me and as a young teacher I can't remember talking about parents at all-unless there was a particularly nutty one.

I like parents on the whole. I am one. And some of my best friends are parents.

Exotic - it never occurred to me either that parents would spend so much time talking about teachers, and I was a parent at the time. I usually like parents. Some of them give me a right good giggle come parents evening, and others make me go all embarrassed when they start telling me how wonderful I am

Lol @ hot dads discussion.

Mind you I have had similar with pals re School-gate totty at primary

(There wasn't much sadly, and the only one there was was well aware of it )

I have known hot dads discussions! Some are looked forward to at parent's evenings!

Shrinkingnora you must have been in the same school as me.

Primary here:-
Not so much parent bashing but laughing at the fibs they tell. Remember primary age children tell the truth so no ringing in ill when you have taken your child away for the weekend, saying you have left homework at home when you coudn't be arsed to help them because you were drinking. The best one is the child who told staff about the films mummy and daddy make; apparently you can get them sent to you in a brown envelope. I never did dare ask the parents for a copy!

We also discuss the yummy daddies and the inappropriately dressed mums.

Also there are the parents who tell the head (in teaching for 35 years) how to run a school. Yes I think your three weeks at the chicken factory gives you a wealth of experience in running a school.

Sixth form here - if we talk about parents it's because we pity them their lazy arsed children or envy them their lovely children. We generally bitch about senior management having nothing to do except have meetings where they plan how to give the teachers more work and themselves less work.

I love a bit of parent bashing me. Some parents are needy, obsessive, disinterested, paranoid, violent, abusive and frankly totally out of touch with what happens in a classroom these days. Most of the parents of my class view it as childcare. Send your kid to school dirty and without breakfast? why not? Reading? Pah, let Mrs Teacher do that? Homework? Whassat? PE kit? Read letters?
Sometimes this stuff needs to be vented in the staffroom.

I also got a file showing myself bashed as a parent if a child with SN. The HT had informed the governors before Ds started that I was in denial, difficult, recorded conversations in secret, claimed DLA fraudulently and had been banned from internet sites, namely MN.

Ds made no progress during his year at that school. I made suggestions and received hostility and refusal. I removed him, put him in an independent that listened to my suggestions and Ds learned and developed at twice the rate of his peers.

I take offence at the poster who says that her SEN family member gets shouted at because parents can't accept their children's disabilities.

What parents can't accept us their children being written off due to their SNs, and the lack of data-driven evidence-based cheap though effective provision and 'professional opinion' being considered more valid than either parental input or more significantly research and evidence-based-practice.

Spinkle you are scaring me...you sound rather like ds1's previous teacher.

Lovely she was.

Well not really coco. I could on,y get him into a nursery and he is reception age. We're now in the middle of a tribunal to secure him a place in an independent school with specialist provision as I have now plenty of evidence that he can make progress with the right strategies.

The ridiculous thing is that in actual fact the strategies that work for him are CHEAPER than those insisted upon by the school/LA.

That's how dumb it all is.

I see that some teachers have defended their stance in terms if funding/budgets but that I not the parents fault and they should not be bashed when they challenge it.

and I say that as a needy, paranoid and obsessive parent with dirty children who refuse to eat breakfast.

Hot sixth formers
I eat pussy like a fat kid eats cake

I need a lie down.

One question... Why does teaching not have the same professional standards as being a doctor? I cannot believe its acceptable to discuss individual children and their parents in a staff room? IMO teachers need to buck up their ideas and maintain a higher level of professionalism.

You really think doctors don't discuss their patients with one another?

I've known parents get labelled as awkward, pushy or deluded because they have applied for a statement themselves - particularly when the school hasn't wanted to. Usually it's because the staff don't understand or recognise the nature of the child's SN. Doesn't happen in good schools but I have come across it.

Well 8.15 this morning I get a phone call "Are you the f b who put X in inclusion today?"
"Yes" I say "can I help you?"
"Well I'm not having it he only told that w** the truth, he needs to be in class he has his exams soon"
" I am afraid telling your teacher to f""" off and disrupting a lesson means automatic inclusion afterall the other 23 pupils in the class are also sitting their exams in May".
"You stupid b I f hate you t who do you f think you are to tell my son what to do "
So I hang up.
The worst thing is I wouldn't think of bitching about her, tragically she is the norm all to often.

Doctor generally don't as they have respect and other things to talk about, plus they are too busy most of the time.

Plus it's deemed as unacceptable in their profession and frowned upon, rightly do. Teachers should work towards the same culture.

In fact I have little faith in the teaching profession if they Cmr even have respect for the children and families they work with.

Of course we talk about students and parents in the staff room. We don't do it on the corridor, or in the street, or on the internet. That would be unprofessional. But let off a bit of steam in the staff room? Yes.

Though as others have said, our real ire is certainly reserved for SLT (sorry to any senior leaders on the thread...)