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

I trained in Cheltenham in the late 80s and taught there for years. My best friend was still teaching until this summer when she retired. We enjoy looking through the court section of the local paper to spot the now adults from Rowanfield school that she taught in Reception. ABH and GBH convictions feature heavily. So classy.

Agree with this. Coming from a family of teachers, I have much sympathy for the good teachers who suffer at the hands of poor parenting. All that said, IME, standards have fallen. At primary, mine suffered with a couple of shocking teachers. One was pure evil and left after multiple parent complaints. The other just couldn’t be bothered to teach and ran her own open blog, slagging off the school’s management team! Hardly ever turned up, certainly didn’t meet even the most basic standards expected. Whilst I was always polite, I wasn’t shy about calling out the incompetence. Why should I be? Our children deserve better. In the same way that you’d complain about poor NHS service, we can’t accept a bar so low that children can’t actually learn. There’s a balance.

Customers thinking that people should be available or working 24/7 is common for those who work in the public sector. I interviewed a person as homeless one Friday, interview finished at 4ish. Monday morning 8.am I got to work to my phone ringing ( people could direct dial not go through the switchboard), applicant was asking if I had made a decision on the homeless application and why hadn't I answered my phone over the weekend. He was most disgruntled to find that I didn't work weekends in addition to Monday to Friday. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or give him a huge piece of my mind. Apparently being a 'public servant' meant that I had no time off.
Edited to say he wasn't the first or last to not understand that I didn't work every hour that god sent.

I’ve had kids come in the next day to apologise for the behaviour of their parents!

I met someone who works at the DFE who told me that teachers were now being imported from Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, etc), much like Nurses - when I say imported, I mean, invited.... Can anyone confirm if this is true?

I did wonder at the time about what an African teacher would make of an unruly UK child. Probably a bit of shock, I would imagine.

Yep and social media, parent whatsapp groups.. makes everything worse. Parents share their gripes, it's all one-sided, which then builds a negative view of the school. I believe this plays a big part in why parents are so hostile towards school, in a way that previous generations were not.

Haven’t had non-teaching pastoral staff in a school for years. They all have timetables, as did I when Head of Year.

It’s a societal change, ime. Been teaching 30 odd years and it’s a different ballgame these days. It used to be the child at fault back in the day, now parents (people of my age who bore the brunt of the ‘it’s the child’s fault’ way of thinking) leap to blaming the teacher. It’s rarely the child to blame, even if they’ve been very poorly behaved/obviously done something, as proven by CCTV etc.

I’m very fortunate to have been headhunted for my current post, students are mostly lovely, but changing jobs is a concerning prospect. I’ve worked in some extremely difficult schools and I’m possibly getting complacent re behaviour. I absolutely empathise with people leaving the profession.

Yes this is true, and often their teaching qualifications cannot be converted to QTS over here, so they are employed by academies as "unqualified teachers" and paid very little

I’m a parent and I see it. A few of my friends and I have had this conversation about the lack of parenting. I remember a dad at the school telling me it’s the teachers problem if his kid is naughty at school.

Two years ago my kid had to be told 3 times about his behaviour that the teacher had to have a word with me. I think I scared the teacher and they were very confused. As I fully supported them, told my kid I was very disappointed they would be loosing privileges that evening and in the morning I marched them to the door. Told the teacher if he is not on best behaviour (not average) then he will loose his privileges that night too. I made them apologise to the teacher before going into class. Never since had an issue.

My problem is also the school they told us we shouldn’t have punishments for the kids but more natural consequences. By punishments I mean my kid loosing screen time which the school don’t recommend either.

If you are used to getting your own way in life you tend to have the attitude that everything is about you and , in a school situation, your precious child. There are other children in the school but , somehow, they don't count. Add large fees ( that you may not actually be easily able to afford) and expectations from family that everyone in the family is academic and will follow a particular path , when your child isn't going to achieve that, and it's easy to feel very stressed and the teacher becomes the target. Or you're just an entitled bitch who speaks to the cleaner, gardener and hairdresser in exactly the same way so why should you be any different.

Not having an education is a sure way for your farm to fail! This attitude is why so many small farms are being eaten up by large corporations. My parents knew the only way for my brother to be able to continue the farm (me and my sister had no interest) was by getting him an education. He hated them for it at the time as he struggled with school. He went to agricultural college and now runs a successful and high welfare farming business.

Local Facebook groups are the worst.
My kid got an hour detention just for coughing!!!
no they didn’t.

I run an education recruitment business and that’s not true.

You can’t legally be classed as a teacher in this country without a recognised UK qualification (QTS or QTLS).

We do have overseas Cover Supervisors. Most of them are in the country on student visas, studying Masters level qualifications in UK universities and working alongside those studies.

They generally have taught in their country of origin, or are from professional backgrounds like engineering etc. Generally very qualified people, who just don’t have the relevant qualifications to be a recognised teacher here.

They’re not invited to teach, they arrive on other visas (usually student or sponsored) and work to supplement their income.

We do have a teaching retention and recruitment crisis (for the reasons others have said) and those gaps are filled with agency staff, who also don’t have teachers coming out of their ears, so offer cover staff - some of whom may be from overseas.

I think the generally it is the thick as shit parents who failed at school and now that they have parent "status" for thick as shit child, they can exert some power trip over the teacher.

The sheer entitlement from parents is beyond worse than it was at the beginning of my teaching career over 20 years ago (when I started my degree) find it to be one of the reasons I’m ready to hop, skip and jump out of teaching before I turn 40!

I see Martyn Oliver is set to defend the new Ofsted inspection! I’m reading so much about inconsistency in inspection at the moment despite QA inspectors being part of the team!

Ofsted were supposed to change in the wake of Ruth Perry’s death but all they do is offer to make a hot drink and ask if people are ok sporadically.

I can see if I stay in teaching that there will be a big jump towards a major retention crisis! Too many hoops to jump through, and too much entitlement and abuse from parents!

‘my dad is a barrister, he will sue you’

I love it! I wonder if as an almost 60 year old woman, I could get away using that one. Thank you. I haven't laughed so much for a while.

Yes, and the ones that say "I'm a teacher and you're totally right..."

There's definitely an attitude of my child is always right.

Mind you about 10 years ago I commented that ds didn't enjoy school and was told that it was all the teacher's fault. I should be going in and insisting they tailored the lessons to his interests.
Well he was never going to be particularly interested in school but what were they planning on doing with the other 32 pupils while they did lessons around WWII planes?

In his entire life my father never went to the school about either me or my sister. He could not afford to take a day off work to do so. My mother did not work until I was 13 (1950s) but even then she only went to the school once when I was offered a bursury for a trip to France. My father refused it because he saw it as charity. As the breadwinner he considered it inappropriate for anyone to sub out his kids. Not that my father would ever have used a word like inappropriate.

Recently DS got a detention for not completing homework (despite us constantly checking in with him about it - the idiot). When I got the email from the teacher notifying me, I replied along the lines of how disappointing of DS, we've bollocked him as well, hopefully this detention will buck his ideas up a bit. The teacher then rang me to thank me for my supportive attitude - and mentioned that other parents are less cooperative. I can only imagine.

I moved my kids out of a school like that. One of my children was in a really small year group (less than 25 kids) and 4 kids in that year group bullied and controlled the rest of the kids.

The head teacher was totally incompetent and outright denied this situation despite multiple complaints about from parent's about the same kids.

The teacher refused to accept 1 girl was a horrendous bully despite a couple of parent's removing there child from the school over her. Any staff member that did try deal with the behaviour got no support from the leadership team. As expected the bully kids parents genuinely thought there kids were angels and were the first to kick off and swear in the playground. The level of entitlement from certain parents was beyond unreal.

Sorry, I worded it badly. Sponsored by the DFE to come over to the UK complete their QTS and go out on placement? I do recall him saying something about the QTS...

It is true to a certain extent. Sadly though many of the the bright kids left farming decades ago. Many farm kids will be working mornings, evenings, weekends and all holidays. They already know how to drive tractors, clean sheds, drench lambs, fix hedges, lug silage. School is pretty tedious for them.

Im HoD in an AP (the last line of education after numerous managed moves, a PRU or two, then us)
You would not believe the things I hear and see.
Yes, there are the children who are with us because legitimately they cannot manage in mainstream. And they thrive with us because they want to learn and their parents are so relieved they have a place with us....

But...the other side of the coin 😱
Children who are too tired to work because they have been gaming all night/early morning. Parents "cant get them off it"
Parents who condone weed smoking ad it "calms the child down"
Parents complaining that we didnt wait outside long enough and give the child time to get up (they get picked up and dropped off at home)
Children and parents complaining there is too much work in lessons (my 6 year old does more work in half an hour than these do in 1 day)
Parents telling us we cant tell their child off because they have ADHD so they cant follow rules
Parents and children refusing to come in because we have banned phones.

The list is endless. The entitlement is endless. The stories of county lines, safeguarding, zombie knives, gang warfare, incel stuff, underage abusive relationships....every single day I am logging around 15 safeguarding concerns.....

We are doomed

The DFE doesn’t directly offer sponsorship for visas, but it does support schools and academy trusts to do so.

The requirements for it are quite stringent (we’re an education business who don’t qualify to offer sponsorship).

Someone could be on a sponsored visa with a school, or even a skilled worker visa, and apply for their QTS equivalency.

That would involve converting an overseas qualification into UK QTS, but again - quite strict. I’ve got staff with doctorates in education from abroad that don’t qualify.

Behaviour management wise, they actually tend to be okay, because Ghanaian schools for example are strict.

My mum (secondary school teacher) once called the parent of a new yr 7. Before she’d even really started, the mum said, quite pleasantly in terms of tone, “just so you know, I view the school as the enemy”. I mean, what a batshit way to think. And to reiterate, this was a new yr 7, this wasn’t someone who’d been at the school for years and maybe the parent did have some valid complaints - viewing them as the “enemy” would still be weird but they’d at least be able to give their reasoning beyond presumably a general “schools bad parents good” attitude.

There’s a mum at my DD’s school who complains about everything and is quite proud of it. Even when we hear her version of the complaints (so naturally biased towards her, just like anyone’s would be, as it’s her side) she sounds totally unreasonable. But she thinks it’s hilarious “oh I bet the teachers hate to see me coming! Hahaha” as she marches off to complain about some other ridiculous perceived slight like her child being asked not to punch people.