Panicking about being secretly recorded.

[buggerbuggerbuggerb]

I had to deal with a very angry parent today who came into work (school) unhappy that their daughter had been given a consequence for her behaviour.

This parent has previous history of yelling at staff and has made two of my colleagues cry before. I tried my best to explain why the child received the consequence, but the parent kept shouting over me and made comments about the way I look too. I told them that we are not here to be abused and they needed to leave, calm down and we'll try to have a civil conversation later.

This was met with more anger, and that's when they told me that they had been secretly recording the 'conversation' on their phone.

Now I'm worried that there will be some repercussions on me. I don't think I said anything out of order, but I am upset and unhappy that this parent may use a recording I did not permit to against me.

Any advice??

This - union as well.

No, it is not the child's fault, you can't punish a child for this.

Many years ago a parent was abusive to me was banned from school premises. Her child (who was actually lovely) wasn't expelled but she had to take him elsewhere.

I'm sorry you went through this OP. There are some right arseholes out there. I think they are bluffing though and on the off chance that they really have recorded you, they won't be coming out of this covered in roses will they? they were shouting at you!

What a vile human being that parent sounds to be! Absolutely do not worry ( easier said than done ), the context is that a hot headed, nasty loon approached you having a go and said they were secretly recording you. I garuntee they're lying too, if they were recording they would have made it obvious, doesn't sound like they would be the sort to be subtle. Still report to the head but my God, they wonder why people are leaving the teaching profession. So sorry Op.

I actually think that in law there isn't a great deal that can be done to stop someone recording you. It's such a grey area, it's like the world hasn't yet caught up with the consequences of everyone carrying around miniature computers in their pockets.
I doubt he was really recording you. If he was, he's going to have to heavily edit it to make you look like the unreasonable one in it.
You shouldn't have to go through that at work, no one should, and I really do feel for you.
I'm going to have to change the details so that I don't make it too obvious which particular incident I am talking about, but we had a client who filmed interactions with staff members, including their faces and name badges. They then edited the footage (which just made it nonsensical, but it followed their narrative better), and put it on social media. There was nothing that could be done about it. I don't think they got quite as many 'likes' as they wanted though - the next day they had a new issue that they'd filmed with a completely different company!

My sympathies; it's horrible when it happens, even if your rational mind tells you later that "that parent" would be ill-advised to record in the first place, and certifiable to let anybody see the recording, which confirms their awful behaviour.
At one school early in my career, we suffered some incidents like this, and the parent was eventually banned from the premises. My understanding is that the child could not be excluded because of this, but the reality was that she was moved to another school because home-school liaison was obviously nigh on impossible.
As PP's have said, make notes while it's fresh in your memory, and report the matter.
Were there other children around? They should not be recorded, even incidentally, without parental consent.

It happened at the end of the day, and if a recording was made, it was a voice recording only, as there was no phone visible at all.

When they were banned before, the girl still came to school, but the parent was not permitted on school grounds at all, and any communication was via text or letter. We thought they might move to another school, but that didn't happen.

I would be pushing to have this parent banned from the premises.

Really hoping your headteacher and union have your back.

Sounds like the only person it’ll reflect badly in is them. They sound absolutely vile.

There’s a certain sort of parent who storms a school because their badly behaved child got punished, who shouts over and at teachers, and who makes personal remarks.

Wow you were way nicer than you had to have been! I hope she does send the recording to the head so he can ban her from being on school grounds.

Sounds like parent should be banned from school grounds for verbally aggressive behaviour if they were shouting at you angrily and repeatedly (ie. Did it feel threatening? )

If they called you any abusive discriminatory names, it can become a hate crime. People forget that avenue (calling police) .

In U.K., Parent can audio record their interactions with you. GDPR doesn't apply to them only to school itself/ providers. So teacher/ school couldn't record them without informing them (Ie cctv signs up or you stating this meeting is being recorded .." but they don't need to inform you. Potentially it could end up on sm, edited badly and be hard to get removed.

It's not a nice feeling but hopefully you responded professionally to a vexatious abusive person.

They can discuss with you but shouting at someone is not ok. Sounds like the recording will show them shouting & behaving unreasonably