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

And KS2.

I agree about WhatsApp groups. I'm a parent and a teacher and definitely see the value in a WhatsApp group when used as intended: "Does anyone have the spelling list for Thursday?", "What time do rehearsals finish on Monday?" etc, but cringe so hard when parents use it to vent about teaching staff or ask "Is it just me, or has anyone else found Mrs X to be [insert any number of horrible traits]...?" and sit back and wait for comments and anecdotes to roll in about Mrs X's alleged shortcomings.

It's awful to know that colleagues (including myself) are discussed in this way, having our professional conduct dissected and disparaged by a group of adults who were never in the room, could use proper channels of communication but instead choose to noodle on WhatsApp at 11am on a weekday morning. It gives me some comfort imagining that the 95% of the silent members who aren't part of the pile-on are probably rolling their eyes as much as me.

I see some absolutely wild behaviour in my primary school. We make a real and concerted effort to view all behaviour as communication and to work with families straight away to support children to make good choices. The parent who, off the bat, says "No way, [child's name], you're definitely not doing that anymore." is vanishingly rare. Much more common is a presumption of fault on school's part.

My old pupils regularly pop in from their secondary school to collect younger siblings or to say "hi" at the end of the day. The love 'telling' on their old primary classmates "Miss, you'll never guess what Ciara did in DT today!", "Toby got a detention in Maths for fake coughing all the way through the lesson." etc. My own DC tell stories about their classmates' antics -I generally believe and sympathise with the teachers.

There's one caveat for me though, both as a teacher and as a SEND parent; the journey through school as a pupil with SEND can be grim when there is no appropriate provision in place, and it's not uncommon for this to be at the root of disruption and dysregulation. My starting point with any challenging behaviour is always to look for any unmet need and to address these.

Wow!

As a teacher of 30+ years teaching I fear for the future. Lazy, aggressive parents. They can’t be bothered to support their children by hearing them read, really- Year R single words, one line sentence. No wonder the children have no aspirations- no hold on a minute got that one wrong- they aspire to be like parents and live off the state which in fact means me because I pay my taxes.
I do realise this is not true of all parents but the schools I work in it most certainly is.

This! So very much agree with you!

Well said and spot on 👏

I think what has happened is a move from school gate chat to some parents directly moaning to teachers. It’s frequently Sen provision that’s not going to be solved at the school gate! Now social media allows a big head of steam to develop and far too many people expect an education tailored to their child.

However there are times when parents are justified. In my time as a parent, switched on parents were acutely aware of poor teachers. Everyone dreaded having dc in some classes. It’s a sad fact that schools need to be aware of poor teaching because dc never get that time again. Ofsted noticed it too at our school. Had the school been proactive in recognising improvement EAs needed, it would have helped everyone, but a poor head let these issues drag on. The consequences for staff and children was not great. A fair criticism
was also that the school did not stretch the brighter dc and Ofsted found that too. Parents are not always wrong.

At our school many dc disliked a shouting teacher too. No one else had needed to shout at these dc. We are a pretty amiable small town with mostly very decent dc. Her style was at odds with the C of E school and many parents.

We also had a coastal residential school trip in y6 where parents, reasonably, asked about safety of a cliff top walk and tidal beach safety. The head said they had no risk assessment to share because they had run the trip before and didn’t need one. As one of my roles at work had been writing the protocol for residential trips, I knew this was a lie. Should I have said nothing? It’s a case of what’s important and what trust you put in a school. I trust nearly everyone but I do expect health and safety to be taken seriously.

I also think there’s a problem with secondary and children not dealing with things themselves. I know of so many instances where my friends child has needed to sort things out, which said child could have sorted themselves. But instead goes home and asked mummy to sort out instead. So then parent is on at the teacher when the parent didnt need to be involved in my opinion. But then parent started complaining due to the lack of response and then the actual response. The children need some responsibility imo.

can you just sack poor teachers???? I don't think you can sack anyone except for gross misconduct - surely the teacher would have been sent on retraining, classes or something.
I know people who are public servants and some of the staff are too ill/ mentally stressed/ etc etc to do the job but have to be accommodated. You can't just sack people nowadays.

Poor teachers can be put on competency with goals to be met so yes poor teachers can have their contracts cancelled. Generally it is done in a sensitive manner whereby a teacher is given the “opportunity” to resign.

I think that we are brain washed into being 'kind', inclusive, welcoming etc and rather than just making rules that must be kept to by all we have everyone thinking that they don't really apply to them as their issue very important and DC is upset so it must be dealt with instantly.
Perhaps a list of rules and best practice for each new pupil to take home on day 1.

I am a teacher and I love this.

I wish we could actually have a proper campaign where instead of pretending it can be more than it is - express that in fact, school needs to do less.

• School cannot ever meet all the needs of all the people all the time.

Go for it, particularly given that the DfE is about to shovel a whole lot more responsibilities onto schools in the shape of the proposed SEN reforms. The consultation is on right now and as many people who know the reality as possible need to respond - https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/send-reform-putting-children-and-young-people-first

Come from a family of teachers - parents and grandparents. I try and do the opposite of moaning and complaining so email to say thank you and how much a trip was enjoyed and we appreciate them giving up Their holiday or how a teacher has had an impact.

They always reply straight back and are quite shocked. One said they were going to read my email out in the staff room. Sadly I think it must be rare,

@Sweetbeansandmochiwell said! This is exactly it. Sometimes I think both children and parents think school must be like a holiday camp.
I previously worked at an independent school for a long time, and my goodness, the emails! The parents were such hard work. I’d get email daily from upset parents chastising me for telling their child off, or not putting them in a group they wanted to go in, that their child didn't get enough lines in the class assembly, or my favourite one was when their child joined a tennis club at school, and was upset because other children there were better at tennis then them and somehow that was my fault!

In my experience a lot of parents complain most trivial things and nothing is ever good enough.

My child doesn’t like the hot dinner today, the homework is too hard, the homework is too easy, my child has lost a jumper and the teacher can’t find it, there’s too many non uniform days, there’s not enough non uniform days, my child didn’t like a supply teacher they had for one day, there wasn’t a mum’s race at sports day and I wanted to do one, my child didn’t get a line in the Easter service, my child doesn’t like the child they’re sat next to, the lunch hall is too loud, the teacher is too strict.

They go on and on and on. A lot of the time they will raise these issues with teachers at the door. As a consequence I think children are becoming much less resilient, and much less happy.

Lots of parents complain about things happening that they have forgotten about, even with letters, emails and text reminders in the weeks and days leading up to the event - I’ve noticed a sharp decline in people being able to organise themselves and set reminders so they don’t forget things. Instead they fly into school have give the poor receptionist a mouthful about it.

The way a growing proportion of parents conduct themselves at school is disgraceful.

This is so true! The amount of posts on here that revolve around “go and give it to them with both barrels” and “of course your child isn’t lying” or my personal favourite “you know your child best” is next level.

It’s social media that’s given these awful parents permission to behave like dicks, People need to remember that next time they join a teacher pile on. 🙄

Yes those silly reels about being a “tiger mother” and defending your own child to the hilt don’t help.

schools seem to involve an awful lot of paperwork these days which I suspect didn't all exist when I was at school.

Our grammar school is sooo strict (maybe they need to be with 1000 kids and some of the behaviour). But it means if you do much call another kid 'chubby' (not ideal but not the worst thing ever).. there is a detention and a whole load of paperwork and emails to the parent.

The form tutor is so OTT I now wouldn't contact her unless the police forced me to. Maybe she has found the solution?

In contrast our private school the teacher at the time sorts things out, there no or very little paperwork and home is not involved (unless it's really bad).

disclaimer - I’m not a teacher but my daughter yesterday showed me a video of a y7 parent having a screaming match with a y8 student through a car window outside school. I think they also tried to hit each other, the y7 parent then drove off but after the y8 chased after the car and hit it she reversed at speed back down the road clipping the y8 student.

I told my daughter she should count herself lucky she doesn’t have a parent who thinks it’s acceptable to act like that!

I think it’s reflective of the downward shift in wider society. It’s a relative of the “We will not tolerate abuse against our staff” signs, which seem to be everywhere now. I don’t ever remember seeing signs like this when I was younger - because you didn’t need them. Now, people seem to think they have the right to behave how they like. They demand “respect”, but do not believe they have to reciprocate. It’s feral.

Currently, we have a teacher on long-term sick leave. Her class has been covered by various supplies. The behaviour of a group of about 6 children has been absolutely horrendous during this time. One of the regular supply teachers ended up being ripped apart on the parent's WhatsApp group for daring to try and deal with the behaviour problems. A parent chose to show the conversation to their child and the following morning, this particular child went straight up to the supply teacher and told her that all the mums hated her.

To her credit, the supply has stayed in school!

But this incident just highlighted the fact that some parents see teachers as slaves that should bend to the will of their children. They don't seem to care that there are human beings involved. Resilience amongst some children is so low and I spend hours trying to sort out squabbles, taking statements, trying to persuade children to actually come into the classroom and work! And this is compounded by those parents who are hell-bent on challenging authority and who scaffold the entitled behaviour of their children.

"School cannot ever meet all the needs of all the people all the time."

Think this should be on every bit of correspondence/literature issued by every school in the hope that some parents read it and take it on board.

I’ve worked in a few schools and one had to create a seperate parents entrance due to the abuse from parents towards staff , one hitting a teacher . We then got anew head who was very firm with the behaviour in and out of school standing no nonsense and told the parents if you don’t like it here then leave . It did turn the s school around totally I also think parents are not letting the children experience things not going their way only and kids are not coping as many of them are up late on mobile phones then are tired all day at school and moody or stressed due to online bullying which is dreadful ( some of the things I’ve seen kids say to one another is utterly disgusting and an adult would be arrested for it)

What gets me is the parents complaining about how their child was spoken to or punished. I'd have just been told to suck it up or that I should have behaved better. I'd have had to have been very obviously traumatized before it would have occured to parents to speak to the school.