what the most hilarious and groundless parental complaint you've ever fielded?

[HanneHolm]

I have heard of one parent complaining a member of staff wasn't singing in a parents assembly.

agree with moominsarehippos my mum got into hell when she complained to her mum about being caned at school - no questions asked!

i went to my son's school after he got a bad report to say that, if he wasn't completing work then he could have the work sent home to finish or be given a detention. his ht was surprised!

I have a colleague who had the parents' lawyer turn up to a parent-teacher meeting because the parents couldn't believe their child was failing.

That's so true Mooms. I would have been grounded for embarassing the family; "I didn't bring you up with no manners!"

Nowadays as soon as you give a kid consequences for over stepping boundaries you prep yourself for parent intervention whilst the kid sits back watching you both argue.

"In my day if you got told off by a teacher, you'd get hell at home too. " Dunno, Mooms, I'm not that young, and a year or so after I'd left primary a parent came in and punched the Head Teacher in assembly after the HT had humiliated his child.

(To be fair, I think there was general agreement in the village that the parent had a point - the HT definitely had form for bullying behaviour.)

When mobile phones first came in (this was about 15 years ago I think) a friend of mine had a kid in her class who had his new phone out and on the desk. When she asked him why, he said his mum had told him to have it out and to phone her and let her know if any of his teachers gave him a hard time

Ah, so many stories after 13 years teaching secondary..I'll pick a top 3:

1. The police inspector father who marched into reception and shouted in front of his mortified 13 year old daughter that if I, her form tutor, did not personally find her missing coat by the end of the day, he would report at as stolen when he went on duty that evening. The very stern Head of Year told him that if he considered that to be an adequate use of police time, that was his prerogative.

1. The parents, upon being told that their 15 year old son had been caught quite openly masturbating in class by my colleague, who said that he had "manly urges" and it would be unhealthy if we asked him to suppress them.

1. I worked at a school where there was a large contingent of fundamentalist Christians amongst parents. We invited a speaker from Stonewall to speak to Year 11 students about homophobic bullying. Cue lots of outrage, but in fairness most parents were fine once we explained how all the major religious groups had signed an agreement with Stonewall to fight homophobic bullying. On the morning of the talk I was confronted by 2 parents, one of whom yelled in my face "I do NOT want my daughter talking part in the Gay Pride march today!" and even more charmingly "I do not want my child learning about the practices of these animals! They are beasts!"

Reading this thread explains why, when DS's tutor phoned me this week to inform me that he would have to have a detention he actually thanked me for being so supportive! All I said was "if you think it's deserved then by all means go ahead". Thats it, but he sounded so suprised.. Now I know why. A little sad really (but some bloody funny stories

Ooh - I missed one before (my actual favourite):

Very unpleasant man has two VERY unpleasant children. One year 11 (now left) and one in year 10.

Asst Head phones dad as she has given yr9 a detention which yr9 is refusing to attend. Father confirms that his children do not attend detentions because he's not f@$*ing coming out twice to pick them up.

My preferred way to deal with this was to give yr11 a detention (there was always something) on the same night but AH said no and gave out lunchtime detentions telling father he could some into school to discuss it if he wasn't happy. He never did.

They live under a mile from school - so could walk - and father doesn't work. Interestingly now yr11 has left, yr9 walks to school...

at the 15 yo masturbating in class!!!

Now I feel very old and naive

Secondary school girl had been given a book to read with one or two minor swear words in it. Girl was one who could often be heard swearing loudly across the playground to her mates at break time. Father came in (swearing) about use of swear words in the book and proceeded to rip the book up in front of the girl's Engish teacher.

School billed him for the book.

My sister was a teacher (little kids) and the amount of times parents would march in ('to check her out') when she was new, or to bawl the odds when their little shit told a fairly obvious pack of lies ('miss made me stand in the snow without my shoesb for the whole of lunch break'). Still, better than when she moved to the US - in the UK it was knives she was threatened with (the kids), there its the parents with guns.

My sister is very small but bolshy, and even the really scary parents won't go up against her (the local Marshal says that she can handle anything).

I quite fancied being a teacher when I was little. Then I considered the police (until it was pointed out that I'd be hauling dead bodies out of sewers and getting shot at/spat on by lunatics). Soooo glad I didn't do either! (Am a 'creative' so only have to deal with clients throwing toys out of their prams).

Lizzie you've just reminded me of another one. In my first term as an NQT i caught a girl with her hands down the trousers of the boy next to her (they were not a couple as far as I am aware). The parents of the boy were more vocal about the fact that the other pupils had heard me telling them off and what it was about than she was about the fact that her son had been given a hand job in his Maths lesson. They were year 8 .

It is a comfort to see a parent suprised by these stories. There was I thinking parents were out to get us just as much as the kids

I miss teaching - NOT!

I think we should have a thread about the real crap / abuse we put up with alongside this funny one - won't spoil this one with my rants though!

I used to teach primary - had a y2 mum rant at me on parents evening because her dd couldn't tie her laces or fasten her coat. Had to explain that these were mainly ' learn at home' skills.

Had a sharing assembly where parents attend and a LO read out her 'what we did this weekend' piece that had not been vetted by the teacher. LO tells the school and parents that daddy lay on the sofa with hands down trousers farting till mum made him have a bath cause he was smelly and mummy and daddy got drunk and were naughty together. Parents version called out rather hastily was daddy had tummy bug ad was poorly so had sofa day, mum had a glass of wine then they both ate ice cream but left the spoons etc on sofa (which is naughty) and were found by LO in the morning.

Had one child write in my class that 'mummy likes a tipple of port', she peed herself laughing when she saw it on the wall.

Had more than one parent Tell me to let their child win races on sports day - they all got ribbons anyway!

Loved having parents on school trips though and got on great with some though had to shush one mum (while trying not to giggle too much) at a falconry day when she made jokes about bondage when they put the little leather cap on the falcons head

I got an email yesterday from a mum who wanted her 14yo son to be able to leave the classroom when he wanted because it was embarrassing and degrading for him to have to ask a member of staff for permission.

Heh heh candr I like the sound of the falcon mum :) And lol at child's version of poor dad's weekend!

Helles

Wow charmingbaker I'm glad you're not my kids' teacher. I haven't got to the m&d of the thread yet but pretty much all your examples seem fair enough to me.

End of the thread, stupid iPad.

angelico he doesn't want people to know he's going to the loo...

We had one parent who managed to get into the school, evading reception and went into a classrrom where his child was, and started laying into the teacher who was in the midlde of delivering a lesson!

Or the one who had a go at me for marking her child down in exam, as the child had bought it home, and her husband thought he could mark it better