AIBU for asking guidance teacher for a meeting about my son?

[Sausageandchip]

DP thinks I’ve been an bit unreasonable but I am raging about this. Advice on what to do next also appreciated.

I have 2 sons in high school (Scotland) S6 & S1.

Since starting in August s1 son has been in bother quite a bit, not doing well in classes and getting in trouble (minor stuff like fights and social media things). I’ve also been getting loads of behaviour texts home but be was absolutely fine with no issues at primary.

My kids school have a system where they put the same guidance teacher in charge of all kids in the same family and this teacher was always fine with my eldest.

I had asked to have a meeting with social subject faculty head about S1 son because my son had “failed” an end of term assessment (he never failed anything in primary so I don’t get what’s happened) so I had phoned school to see if guidance teacher could arrange a meeting with the teacher and me and her.

She instead just forwarded a very long winded response from the department telling me how they marked it and how he can do better next time . I replied saying I wasn’t happy with this, and she gave prelims as the reason why they didn’t want a meeting this week (Which sounded like nonsense to me).

she phoned me later that day, and basically said because it’s prelims now the department are busy and I might need to wait a few weeks for a meeting if i want all of us there together.

here’s where DP says I (might) BU.

I said I was going to come in today for the meeting and she said she couldn’t. I said that I felt that she just couldn’t be bothered with this meeting and she said this was not the case, but because she deals with all other kinds of things in her job like child protection and police and social work, these things just have to take priority sometimes and said again that also the department will need to mark prelims for seniors before anyone can meet.

I then said to her to be honest I don’t give a flying duck (I might have used the naughty words) what else you are doing, I just want to meet about MY son. At this point she ended the call saying she would see if she could arrange a call with someone next week.

she also suggested we just wait and see how he does on his next test, but I felt that was a cop out. We have met her in person once before for a meeting about his behaviour but it seems now she can’t be bothered meeting about getting his grades up??!!

AIBU for requesting a meeting for my son?

As people have told you, their main roles are:

• Safeguarding. This can be a full time job in itself. Children in care have regular meetings, as do those on child protection plans and who have had referrals. In every class, there will be several children with known risk factors (alcoholic parents, domestic violence, neglect, Young carers, etc.) who are not open to social care. Pastoral staff often check in with these students daily to promote their wellbeing and ensure they aren't slipping through the net. They will probably also need to follow up on disclosures and staff referrals every day, getting advice, supporting students and making referrals to social care.
• Significant behaviour issues that happen in school, and doing things like keeping an eye on groups of students who have had issues out of school (as she is doing for your son).
• Teaching, probably. Few school staff are only pastoral, although this depends on the school's model.

Pastoral staff rarely get involved in concerns over students' results in a test, and certainly this would not be priority one.

she refuses to meet with parents about the test results (I get that he’s only s1 so it’s not important in the grand scheme but I’m still concerned.)

But she has said she is happy to meet with you – just that it may take some time to arrange bc you want to meet more than one member of staff, and also there are currently other, more significant (sorry but it’s true) pressures on teachers’ time – and no they are not making that up as you seem to think.

she refuses to speak with me on the phone (I admit I shouldn’t have sworn but I am just frustrated with the situation. I did ask the office staff yesterday to pass on my apologies for my previous outburst.)

Well she did speak to you on the phone and you told her you didn’t care about what other things she had to deal with and swore. So now she is less keen to speak. Understandable.

she refuses to help with fights or bullying. Of course it’s at the weekend and she wasn’t there but also these people met in school, and are in school where I can’t protect or help my son

I am sure if there were fights in school, action would be taken. Oh yes! there has been action as your son has been pulled up for fighting – tho when it is your son it is only play fighting so that’s OK? But she cannot be expected to deal with an incident outside school, no. Call the police if there was a crime.

Unbelievable. I mean literally. Are there really such people out there? Thank goodness I no longer teach in a school.

Surely this thread has to be a wind-up?

Thank you this makes sense I suppose.

OP, parents like you are part of the reason that teachers are leaving the profession in droves, my own DD being one of them. You are refusing to acknowledge that your son's behaviour is not acceptable and rather than address that you are blaming the teachers for him not performing as well as you think he should be. Classroom discipline is awful because parents aren't supporting the teachers.
My DD quit during her probationary year. Her timetable was 0.8 of a week and she was working 50+ hours every week with no free periods on two of the days; scale that up to a full timetable and add the other responsibilities that come with teaching and I can quite believe that the teacher you verbally abused didn't have free time to see you. When DD went back to the school to collect her belongings (she quit after being sent home unwell) she was told that two supply teachers brought in to cover her timetable had walked out because the classes were so bad.
You mentioned social media incidents; why is your 12 year old even on social media?

Now you say, the kids were just ladding it up and being stupid….so what’s the problem? Why do you need support from the school.

It sounds like you could do with some resilience training yourself.

Even if it happened at the weekend I would expect her to contact the parents of the other boys and make them aware of it, and give them a detention or whatever punishment they give? These boys literally met at school so in my opinion there is some responsibility on the schools side.

she Said that the school can’t get involved in social media stuff as they are not allowed to go through students phones however I don’t understand this, especially if it’s literally happening in school. She should be telling the other boys parents about it though and making them take the video down.

She didn’t refuse to meet you, but she said you would need to wait until the department teacher was less busy with exam marking and that it would take a couple of weeks to find a time that all 3 of you were free. In the meantime she sent written feedback and pointed out that parent’ evening is coming up.

She hasn’t refused to help with fights or bullying- she has pointed out that issues outside of school can’t be dealt with by school, but they’d keep an eye on the boys involved. As for the TikTok thing, surely that depends on the content as to the response that’s warranted.

I honestly don’t know what to say to you. You have described these behaviour incidents as minor, so your son is being unfairly targeted, but you also think they’re serious enough that this teacher should get involved in sorting them out. Which is it, and what would you expect her actually to do? What would a meeting between her and the parents of these boys achieve?

I have to say I have never been involved in a meeting like that over a friendship issue, and I qualified in 2007. Issues in school are dealt with via the school’s behaviour policy (which you have undoubtedly been given). Issues outside of school are outside the school’s remit and she has no power to do anything other than watch for issues developing in school.

Out of interest, what do you do for a living??

I’m not even going to call you unreasonable because that’s not strong enough. Your behaviour is appalling. It’s great that you’re concerned and want to support your son but hounding and swearing at staff is completely unacceptable. That teacher will be teaching up to 300 students alongside a million other responsibilities. You have been offered a meeting, just not RIGHT NOW. Neither you nor your child are the centre of the universe and an internal assessment is not the teacher’s primary concern. Stop wasting their time, wait for your meeting and then apologise profusely for your terrible behaviour.

The incident happened outside of school, the teacher was not there, the only evidence of what actually happened is
your account (which you got from your son, so likely not the whole truth). And you want the teacher to contact a load of other parents to discuss their child’s behaviour based on this?

She offered to monitor their behaviour in school, that is the correct response.

And if you have no idea what a pastoral/welfare teacher in a secondary school might be doing all day, you are either extremely naive or being wilfully ignorant. It’s not a job many people would want to do.

Even if it happened at the weekend I would expect her to contact the parents of the other boys and make them aware of it, and give them a detention or whatever punishment they give?

So you want her to be on call 24/7/365? Would you agree to that?

This staff member has to deal with looked after children, vulnerable children, children at risk, keeping them safe both in and more often now out of the school walls - managing relationships with police, social workers, LEAs and witnessing the worst that society has to offer in child rearing....

And she's got you shouting the odds effing and jeffing because your lazy son won't pull his fucking socks up and you can't fathom that its his fault.

Since you like swearing...

Go and fucking look at yourself and your parenting in a fucking mirror. Your son is being a fucking little shit and it is no ones fuckibg fault except his fucking own. Instead of fucking expecting everyone else to sort it out. Do some fucking parenting and lay down the fucking law.

And apologise to this staff member. Youre bang out of order.

This is getting silly! If there are problems in the park, stop him going. If there are problems on social media, get him off. Do something yourself instead of expecting others to sort things out for you.

I think OP is winding us up now, OP are you a 15 year old looking to get a rise out of MN?

This parent cannot be real. 99% of people are giving appropriate advice and answers and she just adds more shit to it. I refuse to deal with anything outside of school. Any social media posts outside school is advised to be logged with 101 if appropriate to do so. I am there to support and help learners progress not to parent them. That is the parents' job.
No wonder we are leaving in our droves. 3 more years and I am out.
I would also refuse to speak to you on the phone unless on speakerphone on an office with other staff or with another member of staff in person.
🍎 👇🌳 indeed

The teacher could speak to the boys who all deny it happened. What then? The teacher has no proof other than your son's word. What is she going to say to the other parents? It's opening a can of worms that would take hours of her day and achieve nothing.

Your son is misbehaving and you want to blame the school. This is your son’s fault , so let his fault . Tell him to man up and stop being a little shit at school. He improves his grades and attitude to school or you will punish him at home.

• soley

How many times do you need to be told you are wrong before you look to your own behaviour and realise you've been behaving like an entitled loon?

You really have it in for this teacher, don't you? She can't do anything right. I am actually gobsmacked that you object to her asking ds1 to make an appointment for his UCAS form.
The school are not responsible for the behaviour of dcs at the weekend. The teacher's response was the best she could do. If your dc is having problems on social media, I highly recommend getting him off it. He doesn't need it.

Either this is a wind-up or you need to take a long hard look at yourself and the way you are parenting your son.

I have 2 DC of similar ages at school in Scotland. Your DS 'ladding about' being a disruptive little shit is a prime example of why the children who do want to learn and who behave are being held back and why teachers are so stressed.

Get a grip on his behaviour at school by reading him the riot act and imposing proper consequences at home when you are told he has been misbehaving again. Supervise him at weekends instead of letting him get into even more trouble.

It's disappointing he failed a test but in S1 it's just a class test, not a formal exam or Oxbridge entrance test. Read the feedback you've been given, work through things with him, speak to the subject teacher at parents' evening for further advice if you need to - and most importantly tell your DS to pay attention in class to what his teacher is telling him rather than messing about with his pals.

PS you have an S6 doing prelims at the same school - was it that hard to understand that teachers would be busy marking prelims?

Teacher here

She doesn't have to speak to you on the phone because you were abusive. No one needs to tolerate your abuse.

Schools don't have to sort out things that happen during the times parents are meant to be looking after their own children, e.g. at the weekend. That's literally your job.

What I see here is someone taking no responsibility for their actions, furiously wondering why their son's behaviour is problematic, while trying to blame everyone else. Get a grip. This is on you.

..even my oldest son had to make an appointment with her to go through his UCAS application stuff! That feels ridiculous - surely she should just be there for when people need her?

This shows an extraordinary failure to understand the nature and purpose of the UCAS interview. It calls for an in-depth discussion of the personal statement, among other things. The only feasible way to organise this is by appointment.

I get it on one level - teaching is hard etc, but I can’t help but feel that she’s just a bit lazy and can’t be bothered.

This does not indicate laziness (extraordinary!), but rather the desire to focus on the individual student and their needs.
It would also be interesting to hear how you would organise the guidance teacher's timetable to ensure she is available to pupils at any moment when they feel they 'need her'.

You swore at her on the phone. She has every right to never take a phone call from you again.

I left teaching and one of the reasons was entitled ridiculous parents like you.