To start this thread about teacher's experiences of OTT parents as there are frequent posts by parents about teachers!

[Mammajay]

I was in my class with a group of students when the door opened and in stepped an angry parent with an Alsatian dog pulling on the lead. The mum was demanding I returned her 12 year old daughter's radio which I had confiscated the day before due to her disturbing the lesson with it. I wanted to tell the mum to p... off but being a professional, I carefully removed it from my desk, returned it to the mother and asked her to ensure it was kept at home in future. That girl dropped out of school later. In the majority of cases, parents need to support teachers who are trying to maintain discipline so that they can teach and students can learn. Other teachers' examples of OTT parents???

Perhaps just as there is a national curriculum for subjects, there should be a national set of behaviours or requests by parents to teachers or a school that are reasonable, and a set that are deemed unreasonable and a school is not required to meet.

My son's at an average school in an average town. Nothing special. On a daily basis I witness the efforts everyone at that school makes for the children in their care, their families and the wider community. You teachers make my little boy feel safe and happy every single day. And you teach him stuff too! I salute you.

@arlard???

I think that @Arlard has done one of those "let your predictive text write the rest" things.

Not a teacher just joining in to praise. My dds are 6 and 9 they go to a school in the suburbs of Plymouth. The teachers there are wonderful. I wouldn't dream of speaking to any of them in the ways described. I've had two meetings with the 2 headteachers where I was very angry. One was when they lost dd1 and the other was repeatedly posting their photos on Facebook. Non teaching issues.

I work with teachers across the city who are the safeguarding leads. I think the ones in deprived areas do about 25 jobs at once.

I appreciate you all and thank you for what you do x

We’ve got an ‘interesting’ parent in DDs class - she has three children and is very very intense with them. Told me in the playground (in all seriousness) that as eldest (aged 9) had just failed to win his judo contest his chance at the Olympic s for 2024 was in serious jeopardy. Apparently she’s desperate for one of her children to be an Olympian.

Her youngest is in reception with DD and she’s in that classroom every day asking for progress report and why her child’s reading isn’t exceptional - I don’t know for certain but I think her kid is about on track (think they have the same boon band as mine, who is fine). Apparently the school and teachers are crap because they haven’t made her children exceptionally talented yet. Am so pleased I don’t have to deal with her professionally. Her kids will end up needing therapy or something

Boy was rude and misbehaving in a year 2 class I was covering. Spoke to parent after school, who replied (with a shrug) “Yeah he usually behaves like that when he’s not being challenged enough...”
We were learning about Islam. And when asked, parent admitted they had no knowledge of Islam.

@Limpshade - the exact opposite of one of my experiences when teaching. Very lazy boy, not without ability, refused to work for his GCE's (yes, it was that long ago), insisting that he was going to work in his father's business so they didn't matter. Parent's didn't come to Parent's Evenings because younger children, no babysitter and younger children apparently.

Boy failed pretty much everything and the teaching staff, me included, expected to hear no more of him - but 2 days after results day, he rolled up to the school driven by his father. He came in, alone, looking for the Head and pleaded to be allowed to repeat the year. What about the job with the Dad? Apparently, Dad had been telling him all along that a job wasn't a foregone conclusion, he needed to work, and he thought to call his Dad's bluff. Dad pretty much left him to his own devices called his instead.

He was a model student that year and did really well. And went on to work for his Dad. (Though I wish Dad had let us teachers in on his plan.)

@Maldives2006 Consultant paediatrician here, many years experience with the ADOS procedure and connecting with other agencies (ie schools) re diagnoses of ASD conditions.

We are absolutely overwhelmed at the current time with many, many parents genuinely believing that they are fighting for their children’s ‘disorders’ to be recognised. We often have to sit them down and gently explain that no, just because little Johnny goes into a meltdown when asked to come off his tablet/console, share with others, wait his turn, follow instructions etc, this does not mean that he has an ASD. Because they have done so much ‘research’ into autism, they have convinced themselves that this is the case and it’s often then a self fulfilling prophecy that they’ve never expected him to be able to do these things and therefore he has never demonstrated that he is able to do so.

I am NOT for one moment suggesting that this is the case in your situation.

However, it is unfair and inaccurate to suggest that parents are the experts when it comes to their children. They are in the sense of knowing them inside and out, but they are not in the sense of understanding such complex developmental disorders.

Please don’t let’s diminish the immense knowledge and skill possessed by teachers and demonstrated in the million different decisions and assessments they make on a minute by minute basis. Nine times out of ten, they will go over and above to do what is best for the child (although this may not always be what is preferred by some parents).

I stopped teaching in schools 20 years ago, higher ed a year ago. This thread is making me laugh and also feel nostalgic. I always loved teaching and in my first very tough school having a sense of camaraderie and humour helped a lot.

Canoe - how ridiculous to give into bullying.

I have and will always back up school staff when they are in the right but when they make threats or let down my children I will speak to them about it. Teachers are important but some are bloody awful, some are bullies and some need more training.

I worked in learning support and had a parent whose child had missed three quarters of her education because of moving around (the child had an attendance of around 20%) complain about me because his ten-year-old wasn’t “caught up” after I’d been working with her one day a week for 8 weeks.

Another berated me for “doing the test wrong” in the middle of the car park one morning. His child had been through various tests for dyslexia, colour blindness and various other things (by numerous specialists) and wouldn’t listen when told repeatedly I only did maths with her for an hour a week.

As the PTA chair I had two parents complain after the Christmas party that their child would have preferred a milky bar selection box. Apparently shopping for and wrapping 312 selection boxes wasn’t enough, I should have asked each child if they’d prefer a Cadbury or Milkybar one as well.

My favourite overheard unreasonable parent was one who shouted and screamed at class teacher, deputy head and head teacher about her son not getting the chance to go on a trip to France. She then staged a sit-in (complete with singing) in the office area until someone ‘more senior’ would speak to her. The head teacher, to her credit, had very patiently explained to her that the trip was running at the same time as the one to Germany that her child was already on and she had paid for. Eventually the Head snapped and told her that if the child could teleport between France and Germany they could attend both trips.

Isn’t @Maldives2006 kind of proving the OP’s point?

I once had a parent complain to the head about me because I wouldn't arrange for her DD to do an exam she was going to miss for a holiday. The exam was an actual GCSE maths exam, that they had been given dates for at the start of year 11, but apparently it should be no big deal that she was going to miss it and I should just let her do it when they came back. Obviously the head explained that wasn't my fault but the parent was absolutely disgusted with me.

Poor arlard is the result of many years of teaching. A teacher that has finally cracked.

I agree Sunshine. But this thread is about OTT parents. It is not OTT for parents to expect professional standards.

I'm not a teacher, but can I add a story about parents believing thier child.

Years ago there was a TV programme about children struggling at school (no SEN etc)
There was this one little girl about 9/10 years old and the parents were adamant the teachers were picking on her. The girl was telling her parents the teachers bullied her and she never did anything wrong.....of course the parents believed thier daughter was an angel and the teachers were evil.

So (with the agreement all all parents) they put hidden cameras in the class. All the children were sat on the floor, meant to be listening to the teacher and there is the "angel' girl writing 'fuck' on a piece of paper and giggling while showing it to her friends. Generally disrupting the class.

You should have seen the parents faces when they watched the footage. Their mouths were so wide open, it was actually quite funny. And then the way they looked at each other and you know they are thinking "omg, I cant believe we made such fools of ourselves believing our daughter".

Huge apologies followed

Many years ago I had a boy in my class who sadly had a life-limiting condition. A parent demanded that he be excluded from sports day because the steroids he was taking would give him an 'unfair advantage'. This was an infant class; he was 6. Most put out when I wouldn't do it.

Parents posting about teachers isn't the comparison. It would be parents posting about a client or customer in a way that is potentially identifying. Most professionals have those standards surely?

An angry parent ranting at me because her DC was made to take part in a PE lesson. The reason she wasnt allowed to was because she doesn't like it!!!

A nice, polite parent asked me to make sure her DC washed their hands at least once every 20 minutes as hand, foot and mouth is going round and she doesn't want her DC to get it.

What gives me the right to "frogmarch" his words not mine, his DC to the head teacher's office without consulting him first? Erm the fact that your DC has just punch a child 2 years younger in the face and pinned him to a wall and threatened to do the same to anyone who "grassed him up"!!!!

Had a career in teaching for thirty four years ( full time throughout). At the beginning the headteacher and senior management team would support teachers when parents made unreasonable claims and complaints but in my last three years when I had gripes from the parents of naughty children who blamed me when the pupils played up there was no unconditional support from senior colleagues.

They would pretend that each complaint had to be assessed objectively even when they knew the parents were out and out bad’uns. They would pretend to take the issues seriously when we all knew the parents were behaving worse than their offspring.

It was one of the reasons my health became so bad that I had to retire early. Being shouted at by a mother at Parents’ Evening when my teaching and discipline were the only reason her naughty son had attained a decent grade at GCSE was a very low point. The boy would have failed had I not acted and my reward was to be publicly humiliated.

The rot started when New Labour was elected and education as we knew it slowly and consistently unpicked.

Teachers, I salute you. And, if you haven’t already, I recommend you read Frank Chalk’s book, ‘It’s Your Time You’re Wasting’. Tales of a supply teacher in a failing, inner city comp, it’s funny and shocking in equal measure.

Fuck me, not read all the thread but I bloody LOVE the teachers at DD's school. DD just been diagnosed with ASD and I'm so grateful for their support.

But then, I know how stupid it would be to alienate those are doing heir very best to help. Also I'm not an entitled fuckwit.

My favourites are the parents who come storming up to you, red faced and frothing, because they have believed some ridiculous tale told to them by their 5yo.

I mean ask me about it sure, but calm down a bit and stop embarrassing yourself.

I had one parent years ago that would be really pissed off if her child came home with sand in her shoes. She had "brand new carpet" which had been covered in sand. Why couldn't I check her child's shoes?!

The fact that she herself hadn't managed to check her own child's shoes before going home, seemed to completely go over her head.

I get your frustration but you have nooooooo idea what its like to be a SEN parent in the evenings!! And I agree, with some SEN kids homework is not going to help - rest and getting refreshed for the next day is everything.