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 ...

What really broke my heart was that she kept asking for her mummy who was out of the country trying to earn enough money to keep our heads above water!

''She ended up wetting herself. I was absolutely fuming, I didn't work every hour under the sun to send three kids to private school for treatment like that! Honestly, even though dd just graduated it still gets my blood boiling.''

The problem is that though kids love to go to the toilet to waste time and if one asks they all ask, in some schools there are policies of no toilet. Seriously I would get over this,the teacher made a professional call and got it wrong but many many times requests for the toilet are ingenuine.

beepsheep

It's distasteful that you think this is basic decent treatment of a person, but you think that should somehow be more present in a private school.

Staples - in fairness, your first post left out some pretty damning details. And I suggested that the teacher might have been lying in the second scenario, but I didnt excuse his behaviour (the fact he was lying actually makes it worse). I never said you were lying, but without the details your first scenario in your original post didnt seem complaint worthy.

beepsheep

There is a troll on MN, who posts about children wetting themselves in class.

In 20 years I have had complaints for all manner of things - the latest being me bullying a Year 11 boy because I made him stay in and complete the homework he hadn't done

Notable ones: the parent who complained because I wasn't teaching her daughter anything as I let them play cards in class. The reality was they were in the library and a top set. They had books that were challenging to read and a series of exercises to do on them. I was working at the front of the room with a dyslexic pupil and my fault was trusting that a top set class that were quiet were on task - I walked round a few times and all were. Seems four girls were hiding some top trumps cards inside their books! I was not allowed to teach the girl again. Head pandered to the parent (who attended the same church as him).
Second one was Year 11 were sitting an assessment, reading paper one hour. Another top set. I was sat at the front and was preparing their next unit of work. This involved me reading sections of the set text. Parent complained as I sat and read all lesson and didn't help the pupils - during an assessment. Guess what from that day on I had to provide all my lesson plans and justify every thing I did. Another church going parent.
The main problem in many school and from reading this thread is that SLT do not back up teachers which make teachers almost afraid to admit to anything.

Oh good grief, MNHQ finally get round to confirming that my reporting of the PE in knickers troll was valid and they have now been banned, when the Wee Troll pops up!
Have reported so MNHQ can check as well.

Pengggwn try again, that's not what I was getting at all. I was just trying to contextualise my anger. Of course, there should be no difference in treatment.

I've, touch wood,never had a co.plaint against me. But i have always had an open door type of policy whereby parents can talk, email or phone me whenever they need to talk. A few things have been picked up early some that when both aides od the atory came out were funny rather than alarming.
I have however complained about other teachera i work beside. We have profeasional standards to upkeep amd not all were doing this so i put in a comlaint to slt. Nit sure if anything happened as they have a right to privacy but i hope they were at least spoken to.
I have also complained about dd1 teacher. Thia teacher didn't teach half the class juat left them to play? Was not impressed as dds confidwnce and self worth plummeted.

beepsheep

Contextualise it by referring to the fact that you're paying for it? Hmm, okay.

I agree to an extent pixie. I think the problem is that the genuine complaints get lost amongst the ridiculous a lot of the time. And at others the teacher is in the firing line for a problem that isn't their fault or within their power to change, but from the parents PoV the teacher is to blame.

Pengggwn no by drawing attention to the fact I was working myself into the ground to pay for school fees.

There are good teachers and totally shit teachers just like in any other profession. As a parent I think you have to be objective and pick your battles. Making complaints all the time or not letting little johnny take responsibility isn't helping anyone. However, whilst not wishing to give too much info, a few years ago I had a problem with a member of staff involving a safeguarding incident. She said to my DS "if you tell your mother I will say you're a liar". He did tell me. I actually reported it via a confidential help line with the local authority as I was so worried (there had been other incidents to give me concern) as I didn't know what to do. It turned out there was a whole file open on this teacher, her union was involved and she left shortly after. There is a fine line between teachers disciplining pupils and doing their job and those who step over that line. It does happen. then we all read about it in the press and people wonder why nothing was said earlier

beepsheep

But the paying of school fees should not be the differentiating factor in which children are left to piss themselves and which aren't. That's obvious.

Anyway, I'm not going to row about it. You said what you said, I interpreted it in a way you don't agree with. There we go.

Ds did stab him with his pen pen. No denial there. It was because he had him in a headlock and would not let go. The teacher taking the class deemed ds actions as part of the incident where he'd been assaulted while sat at his desk getting on with his work.
It was the following day when said science teacher returned and was informed of incident she made the decision that it must have been ds fault and gave him a twice as harsh punishment. Witness statements were sought and all kids at the table confirmed ds hadn't moved and responded due to fear. (Remember this is the child who was assaulted with a knife in class previously by a child who'd strangled him 2 weeks previously and schools answer to that was move him if I didn't like it!).

This incident with science teacher is new - extremely good and fair school.

The reason many remember the thread is I actually asked if it's ever really true that a teacher favours one hold over another to the point one gets an unfair hard time as I know ds and what was happening wasn't usual for him.

Others, including many teachers - as well as my teacher parents - all said something is amiss. Mostly based on the fact in every incidence she said my ds was lying but didn't actually have any alternative explanation or had witnessed any alternative version of events.

She simply kept repeating it must be him who's wrong because he's socially immature and doesn't write legibly.

youarenotkiddingme

I see. Well, it's hard when you're not there, isn't it? I've seen kids grab other kids in a 'headlock' and not let go and would definitely have punished anyone who introduced a weapon into a play fight. Equally, I have seen bullies bully and wouldn't. I can't comment, really.

I will also say I didn't make any formal complaint. I didn't actually need to. As soon as I spoke to HOY and mentioned phonecall I'd made to her 2 week previously asking what he was doing as always in trouble and how we could work together to improve things - and what she'd said - the HOY simply replied "well first things first we need to move him to another teacher".

I didn't need heads to roll or someone to be bollocked - I just needed my ds who never gets into trouble in any other lesson to start learning in science again having gone from exceeding to lower than expected in the 6 months she taught him.

She predicted him a "4 if your lucky".
He's now predicted a 7+. He recently got 83% on his end of year exam and told his TA "Ha! And Mrs X said I'd never be able to learn".

Well it's hard if you aren't there

Totally agree. And his science teacher wasn't there! She wasn't even in the school grounds that day. The teacher who was saw the child get up, walk across classroom and hold ds in a headlock. She knows he would t let go when ds was yelling and asking him too (it was this that drew her attention to the incident). She saw ds hit his hand with the pen he was holding and deemed it a response to the situation.

The teacher who was not there deemed it as a serious assault on another pupil by ds.
She would not budge on the idea that if the other child had remained where they should have been, had not assaulted my son, had let go when asked to - or that supervision was adequate enough that all this had been prevented or a teacher intervened effectively when ds was being assaulted - then ds actions wouldn't have happened.

I actually recorded a voicemail from her one day along lines of " as ds has failed to attend a detention last week and failed to attend the 2 I set as a result I'll now be referring him to slt for inclusion"

3 important things.
A) the day she says she set detention he was not in lesson as at hospital appointment.
B) the other 2 he'd apparently failed to attend were 1 before the next science lesson (so she couldn't have told him) and one that day - when she rang me at 11am

It honestly was the most ridiculous situation where after HOY overruled the headlock incident punishment she seemed determined to increase his punishments.

Honestly, if a teacher rang and said "I saw ds do X and he's getting Y consequence" MH my reply would be - "he'll think twice about doing that again then won't he!"

Well I must have been incredibly lucky reading these threads, I have 2 dc in a school that requires improvement and have ever really had cause to complain about much. I don't know why someone would be a teacher it's not an easy job not very well paid and has minimal respect.

I'm sure there are awful things that go on and of course teachers should be accountable but I wonder how much responsibility parents take.

IME parents take a lot of responsibility and also question whether what they are hearing is the truth. Complaining and confronting a school is not easy. You worry about how it will affect future relationships and how it may affect your child.

I also believe most parents are sensible and when they see an obvious change in their child they know there must be a reason - and if child identifies that as something at school then parents don't have much reason to disbelieve them. After all - usually you've spotted something's wrong long before they tell you what it is.

I'm lucky with regards MH son and science. His HOY was quick to solve it. New science teacher then told whole table that if anything of ds was found out of place or any of his experiments went wrong the whole table would receive a group punishment of 1 hour detention.
Funnily enough it never happened - and had never happened in any other subjects lesson before or after then.

Other students are quick to pick up on students teachers dislike and can be just as complicit in creating further agro.

I also believe most parents are sensible and when they see an obvious change in their child they know there must be a reason - and if child identifies that as something at school then parents don't have much reason to disbelieve them. After all - usually you've spotted something's wrong long before they tell you what it is.

They tell you what they say they believe it is. Even if I assumed every child who told their parents what 'the problem' was was telling the truth, that doesn't mean they are right. They might be, but obviously you need the facts and some parents don't get them.

youarenotkiddingme

I'm not saying the HOY was wrong or that you were wrong. But if a parent rang a head of year about me and the HOY said, 'First things first, we need to move him to another teacher', I would be going to SLT about that HOY. That is not an appropriate response. An appropriate response is to look into it, including speaking to the teacher.

I'm sure you were right about this particular teacher, but I have been in similar situations where parents have thought similar things about me and they really weren't right at all.

Pen I totally get that. HOh only became involved because I asked them to look into the incident - HOY I totally told me punishment stood as was as teacher made a judgement on what she witnessed. I highlighted that she wasn't even on the school grounds at the time 😂.
His investigation alongside the elaborate increasing punishments and her not being able to say she saw anything - just didn't believe ds is when he made the decision that firstly moving classes is what he needed.

I have to say HOY was very professional and fair to both ds and teacher. He also was very impressed I'd gone up through the chain correctly and tried initially to address it with teacher. I think it's the teachers response in this case that sealed the decision.
After the phonecall she made to me after he'd been moved I'm suspecting the school were quite firm with her.

She ended the call with "I'm sure ds will be perfectly fine in another class and do well" which I responded to with "I'm sure he will as yours is the only lessons he's ever had trouble in"

Not my finest comeback but I wasn't expecting to be rung at 8am and have a teacher be so arsey and rude to me