UK teachers report rise in problem parents

[Tabitha005]

Rude and disrespectful parents were a big issue when I worked in education ten years ago and, from this article, it seems to be an increasing concern.

Who’d be a teacher, eh? The shit they have to put up with is awful.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/mar/13/teachers-mental-heath-parents-behaviour-education

This has given me the biggest laugh ‘done in a sensitive manner’. Not likely in most schools. Of course some competency issues at legitimate but as a union rep I can also tell you that the parental witch hunt and/or being a UPS teacher has a massive say in who gets put on competency. Teachers that the kids love but who achieve little rarely end up on competency.

I have mentioned the lunch hall being too noisy before 🫣😂 in my defence, I did say I appreciate that that's how it is and don't expect them to do anything about it and it only came up because my son has glue ear and struggles to hear (will be getting hearing aids soon) but also struggles with loud noise/background noise too and so I was explaining that. In general I hold off contacting the school for issues / things my son has said unless it seems serious or keeps coming up.

What a depressing catalogue of comments.
I know I'm old but tbh, and in my experience, this was not a thing when I was a kid.
Teachers were looked up to, listened to etc even if parents couldn't always follow through.
With my own kids, ditto. Also although I had 3 kids and a ft job, I was a school governor for several years because I wanted to support the school.
With our grandkids, the same. Their parents might disagree about some things but the teachers are doing a great job in a difficult and not hugely paid area.
I give teaching and support staff huge respect for what they do. State sector, if that needs saying

I personally feel they should be charged ans face huge fines or community service. This would soon stop that type of behaviour.

Too many SEND kids are mainstreamed already.

I agree. When our LA first began to move children with more severe needs into mainstream, they promised us more manpower. They lied.

Schools need smaller classes and more specialist support.

Cousin's granddaughter left primary school teaching a couple of years ago. The abuse from parents was horrendous! The final straw was when a parent yelled at her from the other side of the playground and called her a fucking c**t. She now does an office admin role elsewhere, but is so disappointed that she worked so hard at uni for four years and she now can't use that education for the purpose for which it was intended. Not to mention all the student finance!

At my son's secondary school there are three disabled parking spaces (my son has cerebral palsy and can't walk far so we desperately need the space otherwise he can't get to school). There's a free and large car park approximately fifty metres down the road.

Parents continually use the disabled spaces for drop off and pick up, and hover there for ten mins before and after. The school put up some laminated signs saying 'please display blue badges at all times'. When they put staff in place to check parents have blue badges they get verbal abuse. The signs have been physically ripped off twice now by disgruntled parents who think it's 'not fair'. It's an embarrassment.

Bloody well said 🥂👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Teachers took the brunt of students rage at school when i was there.

I wouldn’t want to be a teacher now

Our school has a drop off zone a short walk from school. Parents of children in their first year of school and parents of children with disabilities get a swipe card so they can go through a boom gate and park at admin much closer to school. The parents of FYOS kids are meant to hand in their swipe card at the end of their child’s first year. Many don’t.

The school recently cottoned on to this and cancelled all swipe cards and reissued them to the correct groups of parents. One mum has gone off in my DD’s year 6 group. She has held on to her card for over 6 years so her perfectly able-bodied DD doesn’t have to walk 350 metres each morning. She has been to the school to complain twice and has no self awareness that she has cheated the system for years, taking away safe close parking spots for 4 year olds and children with disabilities. Her argument is that it is unfair to make her DD walk each morning now as her DD is used to the close parking and will kick off. This mum’s entitlement is off the charts and she is not embarrassed about her behaviour at all. This one example of the rubbish the school staff have to put up with.

The bursary ones are the worst though. I would never rock up to a private school asking for a discount and some are full bursaries. They’ve pretty much gone from our school. Need to make money now it’s a proper business.

😱😱😱😡😡😡

I’m not old old bit old enough. I do think that the schooling I experienced in the 80’s where teachers could be good but also could be really bad, violent, sexually abusive (convicted) probably has contributed to a lot of trauma in people which has now passed down. Schools have changed. I think specials schools or special classes should return for kids with special needs who are disruptive in class. These children need social skills support that cannot be delivered in mainstream.

Oh god this job would be far far easier if it wasn’t for the bloody parents.

some (suitably anonymised) examples from my class recently:

known aggressive dad who tried to push me up against a wall because I dared to give his darling child a reading book and suggest that he might like to read at home with his kid to raise his kid’s attainment as he was in the bottom 20% of readers.

mum complaining I didn’t call an ambulance for her daughter with a sore throat and no known prior allergies because ‘how do you know it wasn’t an allergic reaction’

any, and I mean any, parent when I raise the issue that their child is messing around in class and needs to stop ‘oh we see that they mess around and don’t listen at home, we think they have ADHD’ - well what behaviour strategies do you use at home? ‘Oh nothing, we don’t like to make him / her upset’. Did you start looking into diagnosis? No but we don’t want you to tell him / her off for things they can’t help.

child who actually has ADHD has parents who don’t give a shit and won’t get on board with trying to help her so I’m massively struggling to keep her on track.

any and every playground falling out is bullying.

an absolute belief that their child always tells the truth and every other child and adult lies all the time. If their child has said a thing happened, it happened. Will not believe that, in nearly all children’s arguments it’s an ‘everyone sucks here’ situation - that their child has given as good as they got. I’ve never yet met a child (including my own) that won’t lie or miss bits out to make themselves look more innocent, it’s just the way people are.

not all parents are like this, but it’s definitely the 80/20 rule in action - 20% of parents take up 80% of my time. It can get very draining.

How long ago was that? Could have been 10 years ago, could have been 50 years ago which would make a big difference to the conversation.

In my ds secondary there is only one teacher out of the 8 that my ds has who is not suited to be a teacher. She doesn't give clear instructions, is rude and never has anything nice to say to anyone. My ds used to love arts but now he hates it. I'm just happy she doesn't teach maths or English.

It's appalling the treatment of teachers. I remember in my day my parents listened attentively to the teachers at parents evening but my experience is that all the parents of the problem kids come as attack dogs to try and lay the blame on the teacher for their problem kid (who is 9/10 problematic because of the clear instability and rudeness of the parents!). I had parents evenings with the kid there, who hung their heads while their angry parents sat there accusing me. Made worse by the toadying "senior management" who were constantly circulating and fawning over the parents and undermining the teachers. Terrible. That is actually for me a bigger problem that the handful of difficult parents at parents evening. Education is treated as customer service and pleasing the parents and to hell with the truth or supporting the teachers.

My sister’s kid goes to one of those massively oversubscribed state schools, where every kid (and parent) has to be on best behaviour or they get booted. No running or talking in corridors everyone ultra polite. No phones at school at all (not even turned off in bags). No uniform infringements, no wacky haircuts or make up. Anyway you he the picture, as a result I’m sure all the parents are super polite.
however 90% of schools are undersubscribed and as a result they have to have very high “putting up with shit” bars as they can’t afford to boot the pupil. The parents know this and treat the teachers accordingly.
plus obviously the echo chamber of WhatsApp allows parents to galvanise against the school and persecute a particular practice, policy or teacher.
I was a parent governor as well as being on some of these WhatsApp groups and felt totally conflicted. It was awful to see the same small group of parents stirring up the shit.
Hats off to the teachers for putting up with this!

There is a balance. While teachers want to go back to the days of the subservient parents, those days were damaging for some pupils.

i had a teacher who didn’t know her subject well enough to teach it at A Level. She told my mum to tell me not to ask questions in class or correct her because it was undermining her (I wasn’t a rude teen - just confused by what she was saying). My mum accepted this and told me to be quiet in class.

i now have a PhD in that subject and can see just how confused that teacher was - she didn’t understand the basics and couldn’t explain the concepts.

tweby years one I would absolutely not accept this from a teacher - she is still teaching in a local grammar school🫣

Where do you get the idea teachers want to go back to the (imaginary)days of subservient parents?
Swearing and being abusive isn’t the only alternative to being ‘subservient’. Ever thought of trying polite, professional exchanges with your children’s teachers?

This. A politely expressed reasonable complaint via the proper channels is fine.

As for the teacher who didn't know her subject it's not great but there are a lot of teachers now being asked to teach subjects they don't know well enough due to staff shortages. They dont deserve to be shouted at either.

I love the honesty of this post! School is not a substitute parent.

Interesting, there were occasions when I raised things nicely and politely with a teacher when my DC were at state primary and I was barked at as though I was 8 years old. I think it works both ways.

DD did a couple of years in state secondary and some teachers were polite neither to children nor parents and the head teacher's secretary was the rudest woman I have ever come across. It was a particularly toxic environment, which was why dd was moved.

Teachers in the indy sector were far more polite and helpful, although there was very rarely anything to raise and if there was it was dealt with.

Some of the issues must arise from the inability of schools to permanently exclude very disruptive pupils. I have little time or patience with 50 year olds who appear to think it's OK for some pupils to continually disrupt, to tell teachers to fuck off, to scare good cohorts and disrupt their learning and when beating up another child by hitting their head on the pavement think it warrants just a three day exclusion. I'm sorry but I don't care how hard teachers work if they think any of the foregoing is acceptable and do nothing to deal with it. Thank goodness we had the funds to remove our daughter. Sought after cofe secondary for which parents knelt for years.