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?

That's literally your job. That’s so true.
I work in a primary school and absolutely winds me up when parents allow their children access to social media then complain to the school and expect us to sort it when bullying occurs on it. Ffs.

Considering your behaviour over the phone, she’s not unreasonable to not want to meet with you in person. Logic dictates that an aggressive person over the phone is probably going to be aggressive in real life. I would also argue that you didn’t ask for a meeting as per your title, you demanded one and marking prelims is more important than the meeting with you. Yes, it’s only 15 minutes of your time but she needs to research the facts and talk to people before and after the meeting so it creates hours of work for her depending on how many people she has to chase up.

The head of pastoral isn’t going to be able to explain the rest. If your son wants an explanation of why he failed despite studying then he needs to discuss this with the subject teacher. She will be able to explain what went wrong - was it the facts ? Not answering the question? Not writing clearly ? Etc

Have you considered the possibility that the primary school was too soft rather than secondary being the problem ? I’ve got older kids but behaviour in year 6 was very bad IME and I felt like the primary overlooked a lot because they wanted to pass on the problems to the secondary school (year 7) My experience of school in England is that secondary is far more strict with countless more rules eg uniform( !! ) which must get the teachers down too.

You are expecting too much about the incidents outside school too. If it’s not a police matter then you need to let it go. We live in a world where the police don’t come out for smaller crimes, social services are too overstretched to look out for low level stuff that could escalate to serious stuff by the time that the child does exams and schools can’t effectively punish kids because parents will refuse detentions on behalf of their kids and deny that they should delete social media stuff plus there’s nowhere to send the kids with persistent issues (who have a right to education ) because long waiting lists for diagnosis and no PRU and special school places .

You seem to be approaching all this as if your son is the only child in the school.

You say he's "like any other s1" pupil.
In that case you can multiply your concerns by the number of pupils in the school. The number of pupils having a falling out at the weekend will not be just one - your boy. And have you any idea how long it would take to try to find out who the others were, the parents contact details, arrange calls and meetings with them all, and trying to sort out out? Multiplied by the number of kids who had spats or fights over the weekend?

It's not only not her job, it's entirely not practically feasible, even if she didn't have a teaching role, safeguarding issues and everything else. Her reply is absolutely what it should have been.

If you want personal attention, then you need your child to be educated at home by a tutor. But even they would probably refuse to get involved in weekend issues.

What’s in the cat is in the kitten. Mortified for you.

After a weekend, I'm dealing with the impact of domestic violence incidents on young children, those who haven't eaten or slept because they're in a hostel and are terrified, or have fled their home to escape an abusive family member. I am NOT dealing with a child who's fallen out over a spat on social media when they are too young to be on it anyway!

Has your son got a school iPad? Can you look at his progress on Teams, see where he is going wrong and support him. There's probably a homework club he could go to where he'd be helped. He could ask the teacher for support.

You haven't even tried teaching him to behave (you minimise his behaviour repeatedly, fights are only "normal" if you hang about with morons). You haven't tried to support him with his homework or see his progress. You haven't taught him how to approach the teacher if he doesn't understand his mark. You haven't encouraged him to go to any of the sessions for support or seen what the school offers.

You have taught him to swear at teachers and stamp your foot if you don't get your own way. Do better.

You're expecting a teacher to parent your kids rather than do it yourself. You think you're a great parent because you're phoning the school, swearing at their teacher and demanding to see them - when you really are not.

A good parent would be taking his phone away so he can't be getting into issues with SM - he's obviously not mature enough for it. A good parent would not let their child hang out at the park at the weekend when they are getting into trouble there - they would keep them home and wouldn't expect the school to do anything about what kids are doing outside school, that's what parents are for.

You cannot control other people's kids. Your kid did badly in one test, this is not the end of the world but you need to get on top of his behavior, get him off SM and hanging round the park and get him doing some more positive things, sports, hobbies, homework/catching up work.

Then hopefully you won't feel the need anymore to phone up teachers and swear at them for not dropping everything to see you.

What is the video? Depending on what the video ia, this actually might be a police issue.

but no she cannot give detentions to students for poor behaviour on the park in a saturday.

Why do you think that a teacher at your child's school should be the one to manage their behaviour at the weekend??

That's madness!

Parents have to take responsibility for their children's behaviour at some point.

We act in loco parentis when children are in school but that doesn't mean we do that when they're in your care at the weekend too!

But this group of boys literally met at school. So I don’t know their parents or how I am supposed to sort this out?

You be a parent! FFS!

If they'd met at a football club or scouts or a drama club, would you expect those adults to be responsible for their behaviour when they're with you too? Or is it just teachers?

'Parents' (and i use the term loosely) like you are the reason my job is such fucking hard work at times. I'm glad you're exposing yourself so comprehensively on here though so that other parents can actually see what the reality is like!

I’ve reported this thread op because cannot believe this is real. You verbally abuse a teacher and think she should be sorting out a situation that happened on the weekend when the adult in your ds’ day is you. I simply cannot fathom anyone thinking this way.

Out of interest have you been verbally abused in your place of work? How did you deal with it?

Ypu may he right but I wouldn't be surprised if it's genuine.

We do actually have parents like this at school.

We do too. I live in hope that it’s rare though…

Yes I can’t believe this is real….

I totally believe this is real. So many parents have zero respect for teachers while at the same are unable to do basic parenting.

As a retired teacher I can well believe this is true. I have been asked to intervene in an argument between two parents that happened out of school. The Mum said if I didn't sort it out she'd have to go to the police so I advised her to do exactly that. It wasn't even the children that were arguing

I then said to her to be honest I don’t give a flying duck

That's the point where every teacher disconnects the call and reports the parent's abuse to the Head for further action. If a teacher had used that language to you there would be hell to pay.
Sort out your over-inflated self-esteem, your parenting standards and your child.

Why don't you believe her? It sounds like a standard working day first a teacher to me.

i just don’t believe that suddenly since starting secondary there are “behavioural” issues when there was none at primary.

As I used to have to explain, in words of one syllable to many parents, transfer to High school coincides generally with puberty, bringing the start of teenage problems. It's not the High school's fault, it's biology.

Readers: please see every OP post to understand the teaching crisis.

I’m actually a bit offended by this. I came on here asking for an opinion, I got it, and now you’re saying I’m so ridiculous I must be fake?

I did seek advice before coming here anonymously - My partner said I was a bit unreasonable (for swearing) but my mums group friends from primary are totally divided - some completely agree with me and are annoyed at how hard it is to get in touch with pastoral and get actual decent feedback from the school, while some agree with the majority opinion here that I was a bit excessive.

Anyway, I already phoned the office on Friday and when they said she was “in meetings or at teaching all day” I said to them to please pass on that I was sorry about my previous outburst, after reading the advice here. I am going to go back over the email and sit down with my son this weekend, and I will be taking TikTok and Snapchat off his phone.

while I dont think she should be sorting it out, she’s like a gatekeeper to information. if I don’t know who these boys are or who their parents are how am I meant to sort it out of school? Honest question.
It’s not like in primary where you just meet the parents at drop off and have a wee chat.

I previously worked in marketing before having kids, took some years off while they were small and in primary, and now only work part time freelance and from home and only when my boys are at school so, no, I haven’t personally been “verbally abused” but in my own defence it’s really hard not to get angry when your child is upset about a test result, and you feel like no one at the school cares.

the opinions of teachers on here have been particularly helpful, so thank you. I don’t think I was quite aware of what pastoral/guidance do and didn’t realise that it involved at risk kids etc - I think I had always just assumed that would be social work etc who dealt with that.

that’s hardly comparable 🙄

It’s literally just the other group of boys recording my boy and his friends at lunch, and giving them stupid nicknames. He told me about this and didn’t seem too bothered.

However I checked my own sons TikTok after advice on this thread and there are also videos he personally and some of his friends from primary have made doing the same thing. I’ve deleted his TikTok and Snapchat now, as punishment for this.

honestly I have never done UCAS before (I did college and then went straight into work) and had no involvement in my eldest boys application - it was all done through the school. So you are right - I have no idea.
it can’t be much harder than a college application though surely?

the school have sent a few texts reminding us of deadlines etc but other than that nothing. My biggest boy is very responsible and told me he had it all under hand, and just lets us know when offers come through.

It's fine to feel angry. Its not fine to swear at a person trying to do their job. This is true on any line of work. I was angry about a parcel being damaged yesterday. I didn't swear at the person at the post office, because I am an adult and can control my actions.