Have you ever made a formal complaint against a teacher / school?

[Jabtastic]

And if you did were you happy with the outcome or did you find the school 'turned on' the pupil in question?

This is being discussed in our family circle but some of us are concerned that it will lead to more stress for the secondary age pupil. I'm interested to know if people found it helpful.

well, "You sound like a nightmare" is hardly the epitome of courtesy. You can dish it out, but you can't take it.
And to doubt someone's lived experience because "I can’t imagine you were unlucky enough to..." only shows that you have both limited imagination and limited life experience.

Yes, I made a formal complaint against the way the school handled a serious physical assault against my child that was filmed and shared. I only complained after I'd given the school every opportunity to follow its own policies and I tried to be very objective by listing the ways it hadn't implemented those policies. I was also clear in my praise of individual staff who had done a huge amount to support my child after the assault.

I am a teacher myself and have no interest in making the lives of other teachers any more difficult but wanted to understand if a particular action had been taken by a member of staff and if so, why the next step in the process hadn't been followed. Had both those things occurred, it is unlikely my child would have been attacked. Putting in a formal complaint was the only way to get to the bottom of it. Subsequent actions by senior leaders at the school were also not in line with policies so when my complaint was received, it was processed as a complaint against the headteacher.

The complaint was investigated thoroughly and ultimately resulted in police action against the attacker as additional evidence was uncovered. Of the twelve points I raised (related to safeguarding procedures and implementation of the behaviour policy), eleven were upheld. The remaining point was unresolved either way as students and adults had different memories of what happened at that moment.

There have been no repercussions for my child. The headteacher and the other teacher involved both engage with my child professionally and with warmth. If either of them ever saw the full detail of my complaint I think it would be clear I was complaining about processes rather than individuals. My child doesn't know the full detail of the complaints process - they didn't want to talk about the attack after the initial gathering of evidence etc. so I haven't told them it was processed as a complaint against the headteacher.

Thank-you. Four years later my young person is still dealing with the effects of what happened during their final 18 months of schooling (would be 2 years had they not spent 6 months at home due to covid). Their experience has since been corroborated by many others, staff & students.

I have. No (additional) unkindness towards my DC, but I also teach at the school and the staff member I had to put in the complaint about is definitely hostile towards me.

Yawn 🥱.

Hi, state school was a disappointment to me. I escalated to level 2. The teacher was very cold towards my child after. She gave silent treatment and totally ignored my child. My child knew that would happen n was very strong. Thank God my child was year 6 n was counting down the days to leave the school.

I too have been in this position. In reality, we teach the general public. I teach 350 children. There’s always going to be one or two who make a fuss about something trivial.

A further issue with this is that HTs will use these complaints to get rid of teachers that they don't like, are too expensive or just don't want in the school.

If the teachers are lucky they will get a reference and probably a NDA, if they are unlucky they will get fired for gross misconduct and even though LADO, Police, DBS and the TRA say there is no case to find, these teachers will never work is schools again as the HT gets the last say with references above and below the table.

The only way back into teaching at that point is to go supply and rebuild your reputation.

Yes I have. My dd wasn't being supported through her SEN. The way the school handled it was truly awful. After around 6 weeks of it and her attendance dropping every week with so sign of the school doing anything at all to help, we wrote a very strong letter of complaint. I was worried about the impact it would have on their view of her but as things turned out she stopped going completely a matter of days later so we never saw that play out. I do though have 2 other dc at the same school and I do wonder if it colours the teachers' treatment of them. It doesn't seem to but you never know.