AIBU to think teacher and possibly school way out of line and WWYD?

[AstoundedandConfounded]

Name changed in case I somehow out myself!

I was mistakenly sent an email by a teacher from DS's school, which said about me "Don't you just wish you could tell her to piss off. It's clear where DS gets it from."

Just to clarify DS is in 6th form and I've emailed the school 3 times in his 6 years, so I'm not an annoying helicopter mother.

I am not happy about any of this, to say the least. I've been in touch with the head, shared the email and said I want to discuss it and received an apology back.

I have a meeting set up for this Thursday and am struggling to know how best to handle it. The issue I originally emailed in about was handled so badly that I think that is still my priority but I'm really hacked off that teachers are bad mouthing me and my DS (who is a good pupil) in emails.

WWYD?

OP, you say you have a handle on the bullying side of your son. Has it stopped? Why were you raising the issue of them not following their policy/procedure? A point of principle or was it because the bullying hasn't been resolved effectively?

CosISaid
The OP has said that it is clear-cut.

Most parents do say this. In many years of looking in to bullying it is not always the case.

The bullying happened.

I have no doubt that it did

What didn't happen is the school following their policy

It may seem that way but we don't know that as we don't know all the facts of the case and I suspect that neither does the OP.

and what did happen is two senior school members bitching about the OP and her son.

And everyone has said that it is wrong.

The bullying has now been dealt with. All parties are aware of what happened. I’m not going to say any more because a number of young people and some adults were involved. It wasn’t edifying but it’s over.

In all of it there were very many failures and that is what I haven’t got to the bottom of and what the email exchange was about.

Yep, that raises the bar SIGNIFICANTLY.

You don’t sound seriously soft, so I’m going to assume that the bullying was actual bullying and not what some on here consider bullying.

They have not only not followed their own bullying policy, they have made it very clear that they don’t think they need to.

Given you’ve sent 3 emails over several years, you don’t come across as the ‘that parent’ type and given DS hasn’t had any issues at school until now (good reports & parents evenings etc) I would definitely want to know why the HoY was behaving as he was AND why the HoPC thinks you and DS are both a pain in the arse. Either the HoY needs sorting out or they need to tell you why the first you know of any issues with DS (suddenly 🤔🙄) is THAT email.

Grrrrr

PS. DS sounds great.

Good grief! Just stop. OP has said what she believes happened and that, whether she agrees with the them or not, different perspectives have been useful.

She has no need if the Spanish Inquisition

Well it sounds like a shit school OP. Good luck for your meeting on Thursday.

A teacher in my school sent an email to a parent by accident that had nothing inflammatory in it at all. It was basically all departmental guff. He was disciplined and eventually left the school as it was deemed so serious.

@CosISaid

But in reality you've got to work out what that actually means. Youve completely lost faith in the school and their ability to safeguard your child.

Theres no point going nuclear at that point because youve already accepted they will not do right by your child.

Your two outcomes are "im withdrawing my child" or "head down clear the Alevels and get out of there. The meeting is therefore practically pointless in the first place, theres nothing the head is going to be able to do to facilitate either of those two outcomes. Whats the point?

But it doesnt spund to me like the OP has reached that stage at all.

@CuriousaboutSamphire I'm sure she has found your doubting and consequent strop helpful alright.

@GreenEggsHamandChips There is a third option. That the school fucking reins in their renegades, disciplines the perpetrators and actually deals with their initial inadequacies in the first instance.
DS sits his A levels, gets a reference that doesn't reflect the teachers disliking him and his Mum and he moves on with no disruption to his studies.

Huh? Parallel universe??

That assumes mums understanding of the events is the only interpretation.

The email suggests otherwise. And by going in with a dogmatic punitive approach you are only likely to alienate staff further. Unless you are prepared to remove the child next day, a more outcome resolution based approach does something to promote good home school relationships.

His report card suggests the teachers know what to write in a report/reference even if they dont an email.

Two recall messages is the sign of a teacher crapping themselves.

I would make sure I added as icily as I could, ‘I hope that the school will be more professional in your dealings and written communication about me and my son in future.’

As a poster above said, there is UCAS and references which will need to be provided. Perhaps if the HoY and pastoral care can’t be professional, someone else more senior should provide this.

Neither of them would generate ucas refs. And it is just scaremongering to suggest that they would deliberately falsify them if the could.

We had a similar situation with our dd. She is all the words that MN hates - spirited, opinionated, feisty - but she is also scrupulously well mannered and very bright. Her teachers have always loved and praised her and she has never had anything but excellent reports.

Her last teacher, however, didn’t seem to click with her. She didn’t receive any negative feedback, in fact she received excellent reports as always, but she was overlooked for absolutely everything to the point where she asked to move classes. To my eternal shame I told her that she should just get on with it and accept that she might not get on with every teacher. At the end of the year she had hardly progressed at all - she felt so overlooked and undervalued that she just stopped trying.

Now I am ‘that parent’. I’m sure the teachers absolutely hate me, but I will not have my dd treated like that again. I have put in a complaint about the teacher, and while the school have not commented on any action taken, they have bent over backwards to ensure I don’t remove her, which tells me that she can’t be all that bad!! Either way, I am proud of the strong, confident little girl she is, and if a middle-aged man is threatened by that, it is his problem and I won’t have someone else’s inadequacies affecting my dc again.

These teachers are very unprofessional and if they are foolish enough to commit their indiscretions to email, they probably shouldn’t be in a position of trust in the first place. I do agree that you can rise above this in order to get the outcome you want for your ds. But I would make it clear that the behaviour displayed by these teachers makes it clear that they cannot be trusted to behave in an impartial or professional manner, and they should not teach ds, or be involved in his education or care in the future.

Thanks for sharing that LuaDipa

I’m quite surprised by the number of posters who think opinionated and prepared to challenge equates to pain in the arse. I keep thinking about all those suffragettes and racial equality campaigners, and all the places in the world there is no freedom of speech and I think how disappointed they’d be and I can’t help wondering what we educate our DC for, but that’ll be a thread for another day off!

I’m very grateful for all the opinions shared though. I have a much better idea of how I’m going to handle the meeting.

I’m sorry that your son was bullied and let down and then when you stepped in you were insulted as well.

Don’t envy them having to explain themselves on Thursday! I think I’d request the two heads of department be there too so I could speak to them (watch them squirm) direct. Good luck x

Thank you Teddy

Well, it was a horrifying mistake, but I disagree that it was unprofessional. Perfectly commonplace and fine for professionals to vent to one another. I’m sure they will learn to do this verbally though, from now on. I think CuriousaboutSamphire had it on page 1, tbh.

You do deserve an apology, however, for any distress caused.

But I think you need to stop and question why your son is perceived in this way as teachers don't take against children for no good reason

Why would teachers be totally immune to irrationality? What makes them so different from everyone else? This really isn't correct - witness any thread on here about mad games teachers.

It's unfortunately only too common for schools that are ineffective in dealing with bullying to start regarding the victims as a nuisance, precisely because they become an inconvenient reminder of the school's inability to operate its own policies. It looks very much as if this email was a product of that mindset.

It's clear to me you were desperately searching for anything which might make a head of pastoral care say such horrible things which is why you mentioned your son has - shock horror - opinions. From the sounds of it he hasn't been a troublemaker before or you'd know about it.

Regardless they've been incredibly unprofessional and I actually would want to see them face some consequences (while the original problem would be a priority).

AstoundedandConfounded

I’m quite surprised by the number of posters who think opinionated and prepared to challenge equates to pain in the arse.

That depends on the time, the place, how they are conveyed and who you are expressing your opinions too.

It is unprofessional effyouseekaye not least because every teacher should know that should a Subject Access Request be made to the school then every piece of documentation hard or soft needs to be disclosed . I work in education and we are regularly reminded about this and about the care that needs to be taken when discussing children in email.

What astonishes me about all this is how a teacher could ever ever write such thing.

Emails 101: at work, never write anything you would not be happy for anyone else to see. I've seen some corkers in my time.