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???

Years ago a parent admonished me for nagging her child to do work. I had to clarify ‘when your child is staring out of the window and has done nothing, you want me to leave them alone?’ ‘Yes’.

Pupil was in Y11 and subsequently did not do very well in their GCSE

Confused as to how a parent with dogs got into your classroom?

My son is dyslexic. He can't spell very well or memorize multiplication tables.

However, his reading and math comprehension is in 90%. At age 8, his verbal IQ was age 14.

He wasn't allowed to take classes that matched his abilities bc teachers insisted that he spell and not use calculator.

"If he only tried harder..." i was told. "Obviously he can't do math if he can't remember 3x4!"

ONE teacher told me that he understood every math concept easily but she was ignored.

I'll match any teacher who has OTT parent stories with my own.

I never asked for anything except a chance. If he failed, put him back. I was treated like a filthy cur who wanted a golden dish.

Worse. So was he.

My dd? Once dropped her mittens in the car. ONE time.

I got a note telling me the recess temperature that day and not to "forget" again.

Does anyone think that i wanted her hands cold??

My best friend is a teacher. She's wonderful. She teaches children who are below grade level ...and they almost always reach grade level with her.

My ds started at grade level and was never allowed to try harder.

I should have homeschooled him.

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

@MadameOvary The teachers I work with would have done it anyway, fought tooth and nail to support a struggling child. But having a parent who works with you makes it immeasurably easier. Thank you.

Catsinthecupboard
I'll match any teacher who has OTT parent stories with my own.

I would be willing to bet that you wouldn't be able to keep up with a teacher that was in full flow with OTT stories.

When a parent emailed me on Sunday night about HW that was due Monday morning and I did not contact them until Monday at 11am they complained to the Head that I had not responded.

I escaped before email became common but I can guarantee that no email would have even been opened outside of school hours!

When our first daughter was due to start school we went to the meeting with the Head etc. He told the parents 'Don't take at face value half of what your child says happens in school and we won't believe half of what they tell us goes on at home!'

I'm a secondary school teacher. Over the years there have been several 'interesting' parents. They're still a minority, but there are definitely more of them now than when I started.
It is really difficult for schools to permanently exclude children. We can try a managed move to another school, but 9 times out of 10 the move fails and we get them back.
If we send students to a PRU it costs us money, lots of money, thousands in fact. That's if a place is available - there is often a waiting list.
'Those' parents are fully aware that they can do what the hell they like and we are unlikely to be able to exclude their child.
Our school has 12 fewer teachers than when i joined it 4 years ago, and we have more students now than then. Budgets are cut to the bone.

I’ve read this thread worrying one of the stories might be about me. Lol. I am a teacher and also a parent. I see the staff rolling their eyes the minute I step foot onto school property. I have one child with additional needs. Although the school still don’t believe she has these needs at y5 and that she is attention seeking and I’m fabricating things. The school have been given advice from psychologists and other professionals and not gone ahead with any of the recommendations. I’ve had to fight tooth and nail to get small adaptations for my child, which have also been used to discriminate her. I have a second child who I’ve never been into school to complain regarding. As the second child I was concerned the staff would form an opinion of her based on her sister and all the issues we’ve had. I think some staff are beginning to realise that I’m not ‘that parent’ really and that one of my children really does need some interventions. When I receive a formal diagnosis (which shouldn’t be too long now) I am hoping that opinions may change about this first child. One safeguarding complaint I made was eventually investigated by the board of directors but they came back and said their version didn’t match mine and that they were taking their staff’s side of things. Strangely the changes that needed to be made regarding the incident were actually made despite them saying it never happened. My child also masks at school and blows when she gets home so they don’t see any of the behaviours I do and she is almost the perfect child behaviour wise at school and doesn’t get into trouble, however she has a major issue to be addressed.

Anyway as a teacher I’ve had my fair share of experience on the other side of the table as well. One parent accused me of not liking boys as I was always telling her boy off. He was always in trouble for misbehaving and not following instructions. His brother had been in my class too and was diagnosed with ADHD but we still had a behaviour plan to follow which she didn’t like and basically I tarred her second child with the same brush. She was a very intimidating lady who had threatened staff before and when she turned up to parents evening with her sister for back up the care taker stood outside by door as a body guard to make sure I was ok. I held my own against her and her sister but it was a scary situation. That’s when parents evening were in classrooms and teachers were basically on their own with each set of parents. I can see why many schools do the communal parents evening in the hall now!! Although the head always parks herself near the teacher I’m seeing!!

why are these parents even getting into the school to have a go at the teachers? dont you have security fences - anyone could walk into school

Parent who rang asking for 'special consideration' for their ds who had a stomach upset on the day of sports day... he was Year 10

Ooh not forgetting the mother who came in for a meeting about her child in her PJs and dressing gown. At lunchtime.

@SignedUpJust4This at least she came, we have a kid that every time he gets the slip he says "my mum can't come,she's busy". And she never does.

why are these parents even getting into the school to have a go at the teachers?

Pick up time,drop off time,meetings, special events etc. Or they often just grab the first person they see to have a go at.

I'm not a teacher, but I am appalled at the things I am reading here! I would never speak to my daughters teacher with such disrepect, and if I did have an issue, I would approach the issue in a dignified manner. I have the utmost respect for teachers, I couldn't do their job!

I was in the school office once and the head took a ranting phone call from a parent ( medical professional) screaming because a particular gate was going to be locked meaning she and other parents had to walk to another gate to access the site. This was “discrimination” against parents that lived closest to the locked gate apparently

I think the thing a lot of parents forget is that if you do have issues with teachers, and it does happen as they are human so they make mistakes and occasionally you come across one that seems to have accidentally become a teacher despite loathing children, they tend to be sorted much quicker if you are civil and don’t yell.

When I moved my DS school recently the HT in his old school said “I knew it was serious as you were really quietly spoken when you said ‘I need an appointment with Mrs X’ urgently please’

I just remembered another parent story, though it wasn’t a bad ranty parent. One Dad put in a request that I help his daughter with Spanish as she was very behind and she had made good progress with me working with her for her maths. He was really embarrassed when we said no because I don’t speak Spanish. He avoided me for ages after

I used to teach french, many years ago. One big tall popular year 11 lad was regularly disruptive and unpleasant in my GCSE class, and one day I gave him a lunchtime detention which he didn't come to. Next lesson I gave him an evening detention. He stood over my desk and pointed in my face and told me I was a fucking cow who'd be a fucking OLD cow soon, stuck teaching fucking French to kids while he was going to be a fucking millionaire playing football for england just you fucking see. (He had just had a trial for Sheffield Wednesday juniors or whatever). I rang his mum when he didn't come to evening detention, and she told me that no fucking wonder he didn't come to my stupid fucking detention, she'd told him to tell me to shove it, as he didn't need fucking french.

He never did make it as a footballer though.

I knew of one parent who insisted that the teaching staff slightly warm up her child’s milk every morning!

Nursery here. I had one grandmother give their (just turned) 3 year old grandson her mobile phone on leaving him for a settling in session and told him to press speed-dial number 3 "if he didn't like it and wanted to come home".

He didn't like it and proceeded to kick the door constantly for 30 mins, whilst screaming at us all to "get out of his fucking way" and leave him alone.

@Figamol - totally agree! It’s such hard work isn’t it?!

I’m a school governor and can vouch for the wonderful job our teachers do and for the shit they have to put up with. But on occasion I do find some teachers have a “all parents are inferior and teacher knows best” attitude which is incredibly condescending. There’s a few comments on this thread which demonstrate that. And yes, as a parent of a SEN child I concur completely! Some might think it’s easy just “drawing a few circles” but school evenings are utterly hell just getting through the basics, let alone forced exercises which don’t really provide any discernible benefit. You get to go back to your regular lives, we live with our child’s disability 24/7, 365 days a year. What’s a small thing to you can be a massive deal to a child who’s struggled to navigate through the day and is barely holding it together.

I was planning on training to be a TA but having seen first hand the challenges teachers face and the lack of support from local authorities, government, OFSTED etc I wouldn’t do it in a million years.

TA here. I used to run a before school activity (unpaid, of course) which meant I needed to be at school about half an hour before my usual start time. On one, and only one, occasion, I was five minutes late. One parent chose to have a loud and very public rant at at me about how little I cared for her child and my poor attitude because I clearly couldn't be bothered to get up on time to get to school. I wouldn't usually say anything back but I admit, on this occasion I did. I told her, within earshot of the other parents, that the reason I was late was that I had just arrived back after a 120 mile round-trip which I had made so I could sit with my sick dad who'd taken an unexpected turn for the worse and had in fact died in the early hours of the morning. And that I was only in school at all, because I genuinely did care about all the children who benefitted from that activity.
Her face was a Pi tire and I sincerely hope that in the years since, she's remembered that day whenever she's been tempted to have a rant at someone who hasn't lived up to her expectations.

My children went to a very well organised RC school which has clear rules on oresentation, timing behaviour etc. It makes for relaxed parenting as many teenage issues can be safely left to the school. It only takes one in every nine applications but the Learning support unit must take pupil referrals. Some of the parents are highly amusing. Having fought to get their child into this school because the atmosphere is so calm, they then complain. One parent didn't like the texture of the blazers (cheap) so demanded to buy her own blazer. Another said her child couldn't possibly be at school at the same time as everyone else, ten am was the earliest as he was 'an owl'. A third said her son couldnt do Saturday detention because
he had a lie in then.

@TooManyPaws you mean Dunblane?

I'm really sorry teachers have to put up with this. It's not fair.

Not a teacher, but I work in a university, and some of these parents (tbf, a minority) carry on with the same expectations. A father wrote in about his 19-year old dd's study abroad year in France. He'd been to visit her and had a litany of complaints, including the state of the public pavements in the French city.