To ask have you ever complained to your child’s school and why?

[Hardymonica]

I hate doing it but I’ve had two issues in one week (unusual for me) and I just feel so uncomfortable doing it. I always think they’re all talking about me in the staff room as a trouble maker or over protective parent!! Just want a bit of reassurance I’m not the only one who’s had to do it!

Seeing that there are some lovely teachers on this thread, how seriously would you raise the issue of a 7 year old child repeatedly, frequently and fiercely hitting another child in class 'out of the blue' and 100% unprovoked? and sorry for the hijack I will have to have this conversation in a couple of hours. I am cross but not sure how to approach this.

@SaveWithJamie

Teacher/tutor first Pastoral care if they have it.
from there head of year (if they have one)
Head teacher
Governors.

Keep it factual and talk about how it is affecting your child and talk about how are they going to safeguard your child.

@SaveWithJamie stay calm and stick to the facts. Emphasise your child has a right to be safe and happy at school. Listen to the response and give the school a chance to deal with it.

I have several times. The key is to be calm and factual. Also, being realistic helps because once you start demanding information the school can’t give you then it just makes a situation worse

The main ones for me have been when one teacher kept insisting on removing both of my DDs epi-pens to the school office, even though it was a 5 minute walk away from the classroom because the school was housed in multiple buildings and the other was when my DS was told to give up 4 breaks a week to play a specific game with a child who kicked off if he wouldn’t. That one was the final straw with a new Deputy Head who couldn’t see the correlation between his sudden staffing problems and his own behaviour

Thank you @BoneyBackJefferson and @MissEliza.

For the majority of the time in the majority of circumstances, most issues will be fairly minor and can be easily resolved with polite dialogue.

DS has dyslexia and dyspraxia and was asked by a supply teacher to write out his work again. Totally inappropritate for a child who finds holding a pencil physically painful and is still struggling to write his name at the age of 9.

My response was to politely ask his teacher if supply teachers had access to the headlines about the SENs of the children in class. I help in school, and I've seen this woman in action and she is totally archaic. Children with issues like ADHD don't stand a chance of avoiding a red card as her rigid expectations are totally unfeasable for 100% of children to meet. Having done several years of casual supply, I normally err on the sympathetic side but this woman's attitude is very damaging, and when I've called out my pupils for their intervention, every single one has been relieved to escape her for 20 mins.
I happened to be in the staff room when DS's teacher raised it with the head teacher, and it seems that I am not alone...
I haven't heard her name or noticed her for a while and frankly, I'm surprised that she ever walks into a school for a second time!

I've made errors as a teacher. Issuing a detention to A Smith instead of A Smythe because my cursor was a few mm off on the drop down list at the end of a long day. I've always appologised where appropriate.

How you raise your concerns is important. Where it is a medical/ bullying/ ongoing SEN issue where you need to be persistent and clear in your expectations that is a whole seperate territory. Some parents are very heavy handed and trigger an overzealous response to issues over their child that should have just been talked over rather than suddenly going in all guns blazing.

On a couple of occasions, I've ended up wasting hours trawling through detention records to justify my response to their little darling's poor behaviour for formal meetings plus all the stress that that entails. If after a few detentions, they'd phoned/ emailed in, enquiring about the circumstances of the detentions, it would have been considerably less stressful and time wasting than making complaints that I was bullying their disruptive and rude child basically by following the school's behaviour policy and not really changed the outcome. (Ironically one of the incidents raised was during a formal observation where my HoD ended up having to intervene because said pupil had escalated a petty situation to the point of removal before I could even start the lesson!)
It was yet another nail in the coffin lid of my desire to continue in teaching as every hour wasted on beaucracy was an hour where I couldn't suport my own DCs with their own difficulties.

@savewithjamie as others have said, but also recognise that the teacher is probably as frustrated as you but his/her hands are tied. Look at it in terms of the two of you working as a team to minimise the effect on your DC. Document every time it happens in a straightforward and pleasant way e.g. 'just to let you know, this has happened again... for your records'. It will help them make a case to get the right support for the other child, which is ultimately the only way things will permanently improve.

@SonEtLumiere that's really useful advice, many thanks

Several times, more concerns than complaints, mainly with DD who has medical problems and is being assessed for SEN. Never for my DS. A few times were about data protection breaches which they've now sorted.

I'm not flavour of the month by any stretch, but quite frankly I don't care. They know I'm reasonable and will work with the school on anything, and they will still come to me if they need a volunteer to help out so I've not overly damaged any relationship with them too badly. I always make sure I stick to facts as much as I can and where something may be hearsay-like acknowledge that; talk about what we all can do to help DD and the staff; and in the case of where she was injured by another child talked to them about ensuring it doesn't happen to another child (which they've taken on board and updated their policies on).

I've found the key is to not go in all guns blazing and engage with them.

I complained once on behalf of the class regarding an incident and the way they were dealing with it. Other parents didn't want to say anything. I sent a very factual email. Got a satisfactory reply. Found out it was a lie as my ds recounted what happened the next day to 'resolve' everything and the Head had back tracked, lied and covered up. Teacher confirmed this. He then avoided me for a few months. Parents of older children said he will lie through his teeth so i gave up. I was angry about the living more than anything else. I was very diplomatic with my complaint and said I understood it wasn't always easy to navigate and I understand they are doing what they can etc and he just sent lie after lie back

I have but not over anything majorly serious.

Once when ds was in the school nursery (so just turned 3) and the teachers were sending them out in the torrential rain/snow with coats not done up, no gloves/hats/shoes on the wrong feet at home time and not letting parents rectify it.

I said to the teacher would she be happy for her child to be sent out like that and she said no, they sent them out dressed more appropriately after that.

Another time when they changed an item of ds's clothing without a call home, not normally a problem but ds has very very sensitive eczema prone skin and can only use one particular type of non perfumed /coloured laundry detergent /soap, every other type has given him flare ups that bleed. Luckily the school uses the same laundry stuff as us but if they had been washing their things in ariel or bold or whatever he would have ended up with bleeding sores all over his feet. The fact that he has eczema his on his record in school but it does say under control (which it is with a strict regime of various creams, occasional steriods, not using soap etc)

That was more of a, 'erm, we understand why the clothes were changed but could you please confirm with us if it's OK first next time unless he's covered in puke or mud or something please?'

Also had to give his teacher a nudge to give him slightly harder reading books but that was more a case of him having a 's' surname and them just not getting around to hearing him read yet.

Other than those three very minor complaints that were sorted out with non confrontational and very informal chats there has been nothing to complain about.

Yes. Complained about the way teachers spoke to the children multiple times! One called them stupid, two different teachers told my son he would never be as good as his sister, another teacher told a child that he would probably become a drug addict before he was 18 and die . He had never used drugs! Another teacher told ds that British people are smelly and dirty! As a teacher myself, I used to always be on their side but we have had some very unprofessional ones.

It's very sad to see a lot of the issues are related to SEN and disability.

My friend had to complain when her DD (wheelchair bound) was made to pick up litter during PE lessons with a grabber.

I believe as a parent, it's my responsibility to stand up for my DC when they are treated unfairly. I need to be their voice, when an adult intimidates and shouts them down or abuses their power.

My DM was fantastic with my siblings and I, when teachers treated us unfairly and I will always love her for that.

If you don't stand up for your DC, who will.

Never with DD1 who exudes calm and hard work. With DD2 a couple of times at primary school and one massive one in year 13.

The best primary one was when DD2 was set a homework about good and bad electrical conductors. She had to rank gold, copper and plastic. I'm no scientist but I knew plastic was the worst so I told her to phone DH (PhD, lectures in Electronics at RG uni) to ask which was better. He said he'd talk to her at home that evening. He came home with lots of print-outs. Apparently it's gold, but not by very much which is why copper is routinely used as it's much cheaper with not much of a dip in efficiency. DD duly handed this in as homework and had it marked wrong. Parents' evening was the next week and DH armed himself with the data and brought this up. The teacher was quite new to the profession and school (but VERY arrogant) and had the other experienced teacher & Head of T&L with him. I always got on really well with her. DH explained to the teacher who then decided to argue with him. Experienced teacher & I smirked at one another as idiot guy tied himself in knots. DH sweetly suggested that he pass such h/w tasks to him in future for vetting if he wasn't sure.

Last year, a new HoY and DD2's teacher of an A level teacher tried to blackmail her over the A level predictions. He wanted her to drop an A level so said he'd only predict her a B in Maths unless she dropped it. She was applying to Cambridge and needed a prediction of at least an A. I teach in her school and as we got in the car she was stony-faced. Once on the main road, she burst into tears and there was much effing & jeffing as she explained. I emailed her form tutor (a friend) and BCC'd the Head in. Tutor is also Head of Maths so knew what DD was like. I wasn't in the following day but the day after, the Head beckoned me over and said "my office, now". My line manager looked appalled - I am very outspoken so he thought I was on my way out. Once in the office, the Head was lovely but angry. I should have turned round in the road and come straight back to him to sort it there and then. He was disgusted that DD was so upset and said to leave it with him. HoY stepped down a month later (ha!) but still failed to teach DD a chunk of her A level. She discovered it the day before the exam and her form tutor gave her a crash course in it. She kept up the 4th A level and best of all got A* in Maths .

Calm, factual and focus on what you want to achieve rather than retribution (even though that's the satisfying bit!)

Ive queried things politely with the appropriate person. I've never gone over a teacher's head as never needed to

Yes.

At GCSE options evening, the "tech" department were desperately trying to get pupils to choose res mat, design or systems, and had a stand with all kinds of gatgetry - the 3d printer, lego mindstorms robotics, etc. We spoke at length with the head of dept during which we emphasised that our son was pretty poor at "making things" and we were reassured several times that the modern "tech" GCSE was more about design, computer design, computer aided manufacture, 3d printing, laser cutting, etc., and that basically, it was more academic than "hands on". With that assurance, our son chose res mat.

What an absolute farce from day 1. The teacher he got was "old" school, so barely knew how to turn on a computer, let alone teach the kids how to use CAD/CAM software. It was ALL about doing things by hand. My son really struggled. We emailed HOD within the first term, and he assured us that in year 11, the teachers would be swapped and the actual project would be mostly computerised, so we let is slide.

Come start of year 11, he was indeed allocated the other tech teacher who was computer savvy, and it started out pretty good. But then the teacher went off on sick leave after 2 weeks. They were given "cover" teachers, not even tech teachers, and basically abandoned to do their own thing. We emailed HOD again, only to be given vague assurances it was only temporary, and that HOD himself was trying to re-arrange timetables so he could take the lessons until the teacher returned. So, basically just kicking the can in the long grass and being fobbed off.

By Christmas, nothing had changed - still a succession of cover teachers and the class hadn't even started designing their project let alone making it.

Start of Jan term, the "old" teacher took over the class, so back to doing things by hand. Then, the bombshell email arrived at end of January to say the actual finished project had to be completed by the end of Half Term - just 3 weeks away. They hadn't even designed it, let alone started making it. Cue another email to HOD who just said it was "unfortunate" but said they could access the tech rooms at lunchtimes and after school for extra time. When that happened, they were abandoned in the tech labs - no tech teachers to help out, and they were banned from using any machinery (inc the computers) without a teacher - so basically all they could do was "manual" work like sawing, filing, sanding, painting, etc.

We hit the roof, and emailed head of year, deputy head, etc. All replied but just basically accepted HOD's "lies" that they were being given plenty of support.

In the end, of course, the project was barely started by the "deadline" let alone completed, and the mark was very low. Completely unfair as the other res mat class had the HOD himself consistently for the two years and all projects from both classes were being marked and ranked together.

Deputy head was apologetic but didn't really sound bothered - basically just shrugging it all off as bad luck.

Yes, I have had to do it in the past and it is always awkward as shit but sometimes it’s absolutely necessary to protect your child.

I have. But not regarding my kids, but behaviour of some parents. We live beside the school, literally next building, people park in front of our house and throw litter in our hedge

I've complained about a bully girl in primary school, although that was a complaint about what the child was doing rather than a complaint about teachers