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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if you’ve ever complained about a teacher

398 replies

Justwondering14 · 08/06/2018 18:25

It seems the view is that this shouldn’t ever be done.

I have complained a few times. Once about a male member of staff telling my fifteen year old she looked like she was enjoying that in a suggestive way when she had a lollipop.

Is it always ‘wrong’, then? I’m not a teacher ...

OP posts:
SoddingUnicorns · 08/06/2018 18:29

Yes, when their incompetence led to DS1 being injured (trip to A&E and stitches) in the playground because they weren’t doing their job. I was less than impressed when their union rep turned up Hmm

I’ve also complained about the current headteacher of DS1s unit mocking a staff member (cleaner) with ASN behind her back to parents. Since she is the head of an ASN unit attached to a mainstream I was horrified at her attitude and told her so, bluntly. I also made a formal complaint.

That said, I’ve also made a point of writing to the education dept when a teacher has gone above and beyond or just done a really good job. It’s appreciated and if I’m willing to complain I should also be willing to say when something has had a really positive impact on my child’s life.

CheeseyToast · 08/06/2018 23:56

Yes, complained about Y2 teacher who told kids their "news" (in the holidays I went swimming) wasn't interesting enough and she wanted proper news like "I went to Australia"; blew a whistle in their faces when she was angry (often), told them to "suck it up" if they cried when hurt... I could go on.
She was sacked.

Fruitcorner123 · 08/06/2018 23:59

. I was less than impressed when their union rep turned up hmm

why? People are entitled to representation. The teacher will have paid to be a member of the union

HeedMove · 09/06/2018 00:06

Yeah twice..one who told my daughter to stand up and read her score out from a test. She was in the middle of being checked for dyslexia. Shed only scored 3 out of 90 and said so I have to its embarassing the teacher said yes thats your punishment for not studying dd said I did for hours with my mum (she did) she shouted you are lying at her. She knew she was being tested.

Then her maths teacher who had told me he only allowed her to use a calculator for tests, when it was in her individual learning plan from the ot and learning support she should be allowed it all the time, said to her I think your problem is you just arent paying attention and listening that is why you dont remember anything. Shes got very poor short term memory and processing difficulties as part of her dyslexia which I explained to him the night of the calculator chat, so he knew fine well. Prick. Hes left teaching now.

Original poster
Justwondering14 · 09/06/2018 07:44

Thanks, it does surprise me when people insist they would never complain because the child must be lying.

OP posts:
MoonsAndJunes · 09/06/2018 07:54

Thanks, it does surprise me when people insist they would never complain because the child must be lying.

You get both sides.
Put your child's version of events to the school, they will then speak to the teacher/other students who were there and everyone gets the full picture.

Most people recount events from their perspective only -children & adults alike..
Schools aren't calling children liars just by finding out the full facts.

acornsandnuts · 09/06/2018 08:01

A science teacher who at GCSE level sat with her shoes off, feet on the desk and told them to copy chapters out the book in every lesson . I assume I wasn’t the only parent to complain as she had many observation lessons after that and was eventually sacked.

Oliversmumsarmy · 09/06/2018 08:03

Yes when I found out ds had spent the previous term and nearly 1/2 a term kicking ds out of class for anything that she thought he did.

Final straw was when he returned to school after a 2 week absence due to pneumonia.

Dr gave him the all clear but said he would have a cough for the next 6 weeks.

All explained to the teacher (who walked away before I could finish) and teaching assistant.

Monday Ds coughed in class so was sent to sit outside. In the afternoon he was not allowed to return.

Tuesday ditto

Wednesday I found out from someone else.

Went into ht's office. Completely blazing and asking if I should keep him off for the full 6 weeks. I asked what was the point of sending him in if he wasn't attending class.

I think it was the straw that broke the camel's back. She was gone by 11am

Ds never recovered from that time because he missed out on the opportunity to learn to read and write. In year 2 they expected everyone to be literate and if they weren't they were left behind.

AndNoneForGretchenWieners · 09/06/2018 08:15

Only once, when DS was in year 11 and had a science teacher that openly admitted at parents evening that he couldn't control the class so had pretty much given up on them - he would send them outside and on one occasion there were 14 of the 25 pupils outside the classroom messing about. He also gave a scathing review of DS, calling him arrogant, immature and sarcastic, which was the opposite of what every other teacher had said, the general consensus was he was polite, charming and funny, but a little scatty.

DS wanted to learn but also because there was no discipline became involved in daftness with his peers. I thought he was exaggerating when he said more of the class were outside the room than in it, but when I asked the year head to investigate, there had been several similar complaints. I had mentioned my concerns about these things at parents evening to the principal, and he said that he knew the teacher wasn't ideal and struggled with the older pupils, but they were short staffed and underfunded so couldn't attract better staff. The teacher left shortly afterwards and one of the other schools in the MAT seconded a teacher to finish the year.

Pengggwn · 09/06/2018 08:20

Why would it bother you that someone got their union involved? That's what they're for.

Original poster
Justwondering14 · 09/06/2018 08:25

I would expect a teacher accused of something to have union representation to be fair

OP posts:
Skarossinkplunger · 09/06/2018 08:27

How do you know he said it in a suggestive manner?

Pengggwn · 09/06/2018 08:29

It does sound dirty minded to say that someone saying you're enjoying
a lollipop is "suggestive". It might be, but it would need to be accompanied by more than the words.

Metoodear · 09/06/2018 08:29

Well I complained my son and another boy told me the teacher swore in class went up all guns blazing and

they were lying

Original poster
Justwondering14 · 09/06/2018 08:29

He looked her up and down and said looks like you’re enjoying sucking that Hmm

DD was very embarrassed and quite distressed about it.

OP posts:
Elusiveone · 09/06/2018 08:29

Yes when my dd was at primary the school senco really took a dislike to me for no reason. I made a complaint and she stopped this in the end. I dont know why she disliked me as i was only ever nice to her and never rude.

BillywilliamV · 09/06/2018 08:31

Yes, incompetent supply . design tescher. Wouldnt necessarily believe 14yo DD about something like this though. Hes more likely to have been being sarchastic surely.

Pengggwn · 09/06/2018 08:32

I had a parent threaten to make a formal complaint about me once.
I basically said go for it, and this enraged her still more. It was fine, I hadn't done anything wrong and she knew it.

Original poster
Justwondering14 · 09/06/2018 08:33

What were you accused of

OP posts:
Yogagirl123 · 09/06/2018 08:33

Yes we had cause to make a complaint about a teacher once after our dyslexic son came home very upset, not just having a moan, he was completely unconsolable, which I have never seen him like ever before. It took me so long to calm him down and ask him to explain what had happened.

The teacher totally humiliated him in front of the class. I was so angry as trying to get DS to school at the time wasn’t easy as it was. His confidence was in shreds.

The school took it very seriously and supported us with the complaint.

The first and only time we have ever complained about a teacher, but we were totally justified in our complaint.

Pengggwn · 09/06/2018 08:33

Just bullying her absolute madam of a daughter. I wasn't.

Original poster
Justwondering14 · 09/06/2018 08:33

Luckily the school believed her Hmm

OP posts:
Original poster
Justwondering14 · 09/06/2018 08:35

Sorry x posts.

I wouldn’t ever complain without good reason but DD was in year 11 at the time (15 nor 14) and I did believe her.

Bit of a mockery of we believe you when we don’t believe our own kids.

OP posts:
ParentInCharge · 09/06/2018 08:35

DS's teacher. Y1 class. There's a boy in his class who is quite violent. An actually bully even at that young age. He always has been thanks to his passive parent, i swear, i reckon that if the kid stole candy from a baby his mother would praise him on his assertiveness and coo about him knowing what he wants.

So. DS was getting hurt a lot. The boy was doing things like pinning him to the floor by his throat, or repeatedly hitting him in the face with a lunchbox. Or spitting in his lunch 🤢.
My son n would tell his teacher.. other children would tell the teacher. My older children would tell his teacher. And the response every time? "Just stay away from him then"
She would rather make my son, the victim, move away from where he was playing with his friends every time the boy came near than deal with the boy.

I went over her head and made a complaint about the bully boy and more so, the teacher.
She's quite negative towards my boy now. His report was pretty crappy saying how he told tales/fibs etc. At parents evening my son was saying something that had happened recently and she did the head tilt, smirked and said, "Well that's not really true is it?" DH put her straight and told her it certainly was and had happened quite recently!!! So now we can't trust that she's not instantly dismissing my son as a liar like she did then. Funnily enough, his other teacher (they have a different teacher 2 days a week) actually came out at pick up one day to tell me what a wonderful, polite and well behaved boy he is. So obviously she's seeing a different kid to what the other one does. Roll on Y2 and I'll find out how my DS really is.

MaisyPops · 09/06/2018 08:35

It seems the view is that this shouldn’t ever be done
Teacher here. There are absolutely times where it is more than appropriate to complain or raise concerns.

What you've got to consider is that on MN 50% of the threads where people are raginh and going to complain are nowhere near complaint level and are just people being angsty because they don't think their child should follow the rules

Thanks, it does surprise me when people insist they would never complain because the child must be lying
It's not about assuming the child is lying. It's about getting the full picture

So for example:
I'm so fuming. AIBU to tell the school ny child will not be doing a detention because they haven't even done anything. The teacher has put them in detention for ASKING A QUESTION about thr work and then for helping their friend work out what to do. Seriously, some teachers are so up their own arse and love to bully children. I told my DC to tell the teacher they won'r be doing it but now my child is facing a meeting with their head of year and possible isolation. It's no wonder that students don't respect teachers when they act like bullies. I want to report these bullies to the head and the LADO for breaking their human rights and bullying children.
(At this point you have to accept that on a MN school thread that the usual cheerleaders of call ofsted, LA, governors comes up)

Now there are a few options here:

  1. Maybe the teacher really has been a total arsehole and given a detention for asking a reasonable question in class
  2. Maybe it was actually a test ir silent working so the 2 students talking broke the exam conditions and the sanction for that is a detention
  3. Maybe the student had been repeatedly disruptive all lesson, asking stupid questions for effect and was generally talking and not getting on. In which case the teacher may have escalated it to detention at the moment where they asked a daft question, but the detention wasn't FOR asking a question about work.
  4. The child has then told the teacher 'my mum says i don't have to come to the detention so I'm not', so teacher follows behaviour policy and moves it up after the child doesn't attend and the child gets put in isolation. Schools don't needconsent to issue detentions so whilst they won't force someone into a room, a missed detention is a missed detention and is treated as such.

What most teachers on here will advocate is saying in situations like that 'be aware you may not have the full picture so perhaps instead of being raging and complaining, you call the most appropriate person for a chat'.
Generally calling up raging somewhere (especially if you don't have all the facts) makes you look like an unreasonable wally and quickly schools will be here we go, Mrs Smith is raging again. Apparently Sophie hasn't done anything wrong... again.

And I've also put concerns in about colleagues for issues and backed students when needed

Swipe left for the next trending thread