To ask if you’ve ever complained about a teacher

[Justwondering14]

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 ...

I take all comments about staff being sacked with a pinch of salt

In my case the teacher was gone within an hour after I complained. But I later found out I wasn't the only complaint she had. Including one from a TA from a different class in the school. And her class TA had voiced concerns

Ive complained about teachers and about a TA.

I believe my child and know teachers can be at fault. I ask enough questions before I complain as I don't want to look foolish.

One complaint was about the teacher being unclear about GCSE work and mimicking the class when they asked another teacher for help.

Another was because the teacher should have gone through the end of year 10 exams...so students knew where they'd gone wrong. We were told every teacher had done this when we (all parents of year 11s) were called to a meeting in October.

Guess what...the teacher still never did it in spite of assurances it would happen from the year head. DD has done that subject exam now... but I still feel like letting the year head know it never happened...for future pupils if nothing else.

The teaching assistant was sarcastic and rude to DD...so the HT got her to call me and apologise.

The problem with complaining about a teacher is that the child's perception of what 'happened' is completely different from what actually happened.

Just wondering how people find out teachers have been sacked? I'm guessing the school doesn't put in the newsletter "Mrs Jones is leaving us at the end of this term as she's been sacked."

I complained about 3 teachers.

One of the teachers work in retail and tells former students who pop in that she was sacked.
In another case I know a governor with a loose tongue.
The last teacher left the country and lists another occupation on social media. Pics on her unlocked profile suggest that she's in this new occupation.

Dd2s teacher and the senco have been great - theyll admit there are strategies ive suggested to help with her dyspraxia they hadn't thought of that they'll take forward to other children as they've worked. Think most SEN parents would kill for a school where you ask for something to be put in place or a bit of paperwork to be done and it's just done asap!

Dd1s teacher just actually "gets" dd1 who can come across as a very difficult child unless you realise that her confidence is pretty superficial and there's a lot of anxiety and struggling with change in there she hides behind her false bravado. Her teacher seems to have the line between when to back off slightly and understand her/tactically ignore and when it needs a light spot of "sitting on' just brilliantly down - better than I do myself really.

I do tell them all, plus the head, how brilliant they all are. Previous school being disgraceful was a blessing in disguise as there's no way I would have looked where we are now for places - out of catchment and normally oversubscribed so I assumed no chance!

I think that there's some projecting by teachers on here.

Nobody is saying that all teachers are crap but there are a few individuals who really aren't cut out for it and shouldn't be in the profession. I suspect that the number of PITA parents easily outnumber poor teachers.

I complained about 3 teachers. Between my 3 kids they have probably had at least 100 teachers

Only once, when a teacher a few days before the end of Christmas term allowed a year 7 class including my child to watch an 15 rated horror film in its entirety. I called and spoke to pastoral care and queried it, and was assured it wouldn't happen again. All good.

Two days later he showed the sequel 🙄. That warranted a complaint to the head.

Other than that I've spoken to teachers a few times to clarify details (teachers eye view is strangely often different to my dcs). That's almost always enough to resolve any issues without a complaint being needed.

''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.''

Well i am sorry but in that case the teacher was telling the truth and if he 'wanted to learn' he would not join in....

MaisyPops

''E.g. I had a complaint come to me regarding a team member. To be fair, everything the parent said was true (not much learning, poor discipline). They called up, got put through to me, calmly outlined their concerns and I said I'd have a look at that class and what's going on in mpre detail.and put some steps in place if needed. They were lovely and very polite. ''

How did you fix that situation?

''I think heads of years are heroes. I don't know how you manage.
Love the exclusion stories though. Exclusion is obviously appropriate for potential name calling in y7, but not at all appropriate for verbal abuse to staff in y11.''

Yea if you have a good year head-some of them are absolute rubbish and do more harm than good.

The difficulty is, a lot of the time a child's version of events is what they believe to be true, but actually, through an adult's eyes, isn't true, it is a distortion.

I have a class at the moment that is proving to be tricky (though improving). Several students went to their pastoral leader with a complaint that I was 'picking on' them and 'singling them out', because they had been told off for talking over me.

To them, because they are immature, being told off is the same as being picked on. If you asked them, 'Were you talking when Miss was talking?' they might say, 'Well, yes, but so was X.'

'Did X get told off?'

'Well, yes, but he didn't get a detention.'

'Was the detention for talking?'

'Yes'

Check back with the adult, and it turns out the detention is because the student was talking, received a warning, then was cheeky and back-chatting, then walked out of the room without permission.

'Did you walk out of class without permission ?'

'Yes but because she picks on me.'

Etc.

Students do sometimes distort things in their heads.

DS had a brain tumour when he was 8. He was treated succesfully but the side effects of his treatment were short term memory loss, dyslexia and dyscalcula. His primary school was brilliant but when he transferred to high school it was a nightmare.

I wrote a detailed account of his health issues and what support he might need for the admissions team before he joined. Clearly nobody read it. He was being given detentions for not doing homework because he wasn't given time to write it in his planner at the end of lessons. He wasn't allowed to take part in specific sports due to him having part of his skull missing. But the PE teacher thought he knew better and forced him to take part.

I didn't go in all guns blazing but I was bloody angry. I had meetings with the HoY and the key teachers and once I had explained it to them they got it. But that shouldn't have been necessary. And the fucking irritating thing is that I had to do that every time he moved up a year group. No information was passed on whatsoever. His health issues came as a complete surprise to every new teacher he had.

But the final fucking straw was when he was asked to work on a project on a subject he was passionate about. He worked so hard and was incredibly proud of what he produced. Only to receive a comment from the teacher that basically said 'your parents have clearly helped you with this'. We hadn't. That's when I complained. Full apology received.

How does an adult think that saying this stuff is ok?

Excluding more 'relaxed' apologies for things like accidentally stepping on their feet or pronouncing their names wrongly, I've only ever apologised once to a student. Nobody had to ask me to do it. I accused her of doing something she didn't do. I didn't do that deliberately but I was wrong, so I sought her out and apologised to her in front of her friends.

I think most people (not just teachers) try to be fair and competent. There are some horror stories in this thread, but also some where I'm thinking it sounds like an honest mistake or misunderstanding.

@Pengggwn in the situations you describe I would contact the school to get the full story and then (in those examples) it would be my child apologising to the teacher!

SoddingUnicorns

Sounds totally reasonable to me.

I will always defend my child in circumstances like the ones I described upthread. BUT cheekiness, backchat, disrupting lessons is absolutely a no go. Ever.

Thankfully he doesn’t (part of how his Autism presents is being a real stickler for rules) but with DD and DS2 (not at school yet) I’d be the same. Low level disruption from kids who couldn’t be arsed (no SN) was the bane of my secondary education and probably the teachers’ lives too. There is no need for it and if my children did it I would come down hard, quickly.

SoddingUnicorns

It really is the bane of the education system, I agree. I'm somewhat left of Stalin (politically speaking) but I am seriously considering privately educating my child because I can't bear to think of her in the classroom with some of the behaviour I see every day at school. The sheer wasted time makes me so angry on behalf of the children who want to get on and learn.

''Case 3: Teacher can't control the class. Frequently had teacher in the next room come in and tell teacher to control the class. I've seen Snapchat videos of this class and kids are standing on chairs, headphones in ears and it sounds like a party. Teacher in next room admits to a group of kids in this class that a complaint from parents will be treated more seriously than a complaint from a teacher like her.

These are the ones that I really like.

Don't complain about the teacher, complain about the lack of support.''

Yep i laugh at how if a class is out of control it is automatically the teacher's fault- haha, not that black and white. Often these situations happen because the school is badly run with no behaviour system.

boilerhouse2007

That's true. A very good teacher will usually be able to control a class without a strong behaviour system in place, but the policies in a school should support all students and staff. 'Sink or swim' isn't a policy, but it's an ethos I have seen in several contexts.

The sheer wasted time makes me so angry on behalf of the children who want to get on and learn

That must be soul destroying as a teacher, I can’t imagine how bloody frustrating it would be.

SoddingUnicorns

It's horrible, yes.

I can’t understand why parents wouldn’t work with the school if their child was constantly misbehaving (again taking SN out of the equation as it’s a different situation to wilful misbehaviour). I mean, it’s not doing anyone any favours, least of all their child who won’t grow up to know how to bloody behave!

Pengggwn Yes the best schools are the schools where discipline and standards are set and maintained across the school and everybody is singing from the same hymn sheet, sadly in too many secondary schools these days there will be the teachers who get respect because of who they are and the teachers who will never get it.

SoddingUnicorns

Some people don't care. Some care but struggle to cope with their child's behaviour. Some like to make excuses for their children. Some dislike teachers. Some - and I think this is where the majority of issues spring from - struggle with the idea of anybody having authority over their child who is not them.