Headteacher complaint

[Mummyof4children]

Hey all I’m just wondering how I can make a complaint about my children’s headteacher so today she calls me at about 5pm to say a parent has gone into the school and my son has pushed my daughter to the ground and they said my son stamped on her head almost but my daughter and son both said this didn’t happen just my daughter hit my son and my son returned and hit her etc so I then say to her my son has had issues at school with this one boy who keeps hitting him I’ve raised this with depty head and he knows she then said I don’t know nothing about this and don’t think that’s why his done this etc and I need to go in for a meeting in the new year for a chat about what’s going on so she completely dodged my stuff I said about this one boy hurting my son and went on to say this is nothing to do with that I feel attacked by this woman it’s not the first time she’s rang me about my children I’m actually really upset what do I do

The 2 incidents (your children fighting and your son being bullied by another child) are separate incidents and you need to treat them separately or it sounds like you are in defending/blame others mode.

Speak to the teacher next term about your son and this other child. It needs sorting but that won't happen on a phone call about another matter.
Tell your son and daughter to behave.

God, the responses on this post are oozing with superiority.

OP, your children should not be hitting each other. A parent has raised concerns & the Headteacher is duty bound to speak to you about that.

She knows nothing of DS’s problems with the other child, so couldn’t comment on that today. I would suggest that a face to face meeting would be a fantastic opportunity for you to talk to her about both issues.

I hope you all have a lovely, peaceful, Christmas holidays.

Where's the logic in suggesting that your son clouts his sister because he doesn't like school? No wonder the head said 'It's nothing to do with that.' One good thing you could do for your son is to listen to what school is telling you, rather than assuming your son's version of events is the correct one. Perhaps your son is the bully but he's telling you he is being bullied. How old are your children, OP? Do you live with their other parent so you can work together on improving your children's behaviour?

Requesting full stops to try and make sense of this isn’t superiority. It’s the first necessary step to work out what on earth has happened to then try and offer some constructive responses. Some of us rely on English rather than telepathy.

Not one comma or full stop in sight. Couldn’t make head nor tail of it.

The headteacher really isn't the issue here

Oh he is getting bullied the teacher called me the other day Saying he had been hit and more then once but I guess posting on here was a bad idea all just against me

I understood the OP as it stands. I didn’t find it all that difficult.

So everyone is against you because they’re not agreeing it’s HT fault and you should make a complaint against her, because it’s schools fault that your children are assaulting each other?

The parent did the right thing, no one should be beaten up, yes some siblings fight, but it isn’t nice and that parent also wasn’t to know they are siblings. We also all have a responsibility to safeguard children, so reporting the children beating each other up in some cases would be important alongside other information regarding the children and their family.

Not liking school doesn’t cause violence.

I am sorry your son is getting bullied. People are not against you. We are trying to understand and be helpful. How about writing an email to the head over the holidays thanking him/her for suggesting a meeting and saying you think that's a good idea and asking for a date? Then you could say that you would like to talk about what the school is putting in place to deal with the bullying, what you can be doing at home to improve your children's behaviour, and anything else that is concerning you.

I think because it came across as a deflection, rather than listening to her concerns about your children’s behaviour you used it as an opportunity to talk about another child. Make a separate appointment with the deputy to discuss in the new year and have your appointment with the head to discuss the behaviour of your children. They are two separate issues - even if you disagree with it.

OP
i am trying to be genuine and kind to you here.
If you feel like you want to complain to the school read the policy or just email a complaint to the admin team. It doesn’t matter if anyone here agrees with that - do it if you need to.
Having said that, I don’t think you will get far - and here is why.
The head contacted you about today’s fight. That’s what she needed to discuss.

She may then have been concerned that you excused your son’s behaviour on the basis of his being bullied elsewhere but that’s a separate issue she probably knew nothing about!

If you want to raise the bullying towards your son you need to do that separately- to his teacher or to the head or both if you aren’t being listened to.

It seems a bit unfair to complain about the head if she didn’t know about whatever your son may be experiencing.

So break it down into small parts - dealing with the immediate fight between the children. Then address the bullying by speaking or writing to the teacher or head about the bullying.
Then, if you think you have cause to complain do so.
Thats what I’d do.

If you think of it like this - if you go shopping and the cashier gives you the wrong change and you complain about that to the manager would you expect the manager to also know that you also experienced a problem getting your trolley earlier that week that meant you lost the £1 in the trolley? Of course the manager wouldn’t know if you didn’t tell them and the two are related (because it’s the same store) but only vaguely.

A school head teacher is not going to be aware of every issue in every class or with every child.

Where you come in is that you raise the concern on behalf of your child being bullied and push for a resolution- but complaining about the head’s response is a bit premature because she didn’t know anything about the bullying and probably can’t see what it’s got to do with your children fighting.

OP, the HT called you up to explain that your children's behaviour wasn't acceptable. Instead of agreeing that it wasn't and saying you would deal with it appropriately, you started telling them that your son was actually being bullied and that's why he hit his sister? They are 100% right that the two things are nothing to do with one another. If you were that worried about the bullying, why haven't you already spoken to the school? Feedback from the school about your children isn't an invitation for you to deflect from their behaviour by starting to talk about the behaviour of other pupils?!

I’m finding all of this hard to follow BUT… I don’t h death and what you think y he head teacher has done wrong.

She has called you to tell you about an incident between your children and it sounds as if you have completely let this go over your head and started ranting on to her about another boy who has been mean to your son in the past. But the Head has no idea what you’re talking about as this hasn’t been raised before. And she is ringing to discuss the incident between your two children. It sounds like you are just trying to pass the blame and deviate from your children’s terrible (and quite concerning) violent behaviour. You needed to just acknowledge what she said and own up to it/act on it. Bring up the issues with the other boy at a separate time.
As a teacher, I’ve seen this kind of “classic” behaviour from parents before. You call them to let them know about something their child has done wrong and they can’t accept it and start brining up loads of random crap that other children have done wrong, or start talking about incidents from weeks ago where their child was the victim. All things that the parents have never bothered to raise with the school before, so they clearly aren’t that fussed. All because they’d rather play the victim/blame game, than just accept what their child has done.

Wait, what? You want to complain to the head because your own two children were fighting and you’ve tried to blame another child?

If you do complain I’d suggest some punctuation maybe?

Op, I think an email to the school detailing whatever the issues are may be useful, so they can be addressed separately and appropriately. Is there someone who can help you to draft something in good, clear English? If not, I am sure if you posted a draft on here, people could help you to structure and word it more clearly, which will help you to get your message across to the school. It might help if you posted the school’s reply as well, once received, so that people here could help you to understand what it means.

I think in this instance, you can talk to your children about fighting (sounds like you have already, great).
Go to the school meeting in January, and explain you agree the fighting between siblings isn’t on, and that you’ve spoken to them, given them verbal rewards when they are nice to one another, made sure they’ve had some space from one another over the holidays etc. make sure HT knows you do take this seriously, and that at home this isn’t constant - I assume that’s the concern here. School may be wanting to check this isn’t happening constantly as they will need to ring social services if it is.

THEN - ask for a meeting to address the bullying your son is on the other end of.

deal with this as two separate issues.

If you want to make a complaint, you will find your school’s complaints procedure on their website. This will set out the different steps you need to follow; if you don’t follow the procedure, your complaint will usually not be considered, but if you complain correctly, it will be taken seriously. A complaint about a headteacher would usually be considered by a governor, but it does vary between schools. The timescales in the complaints procedure will relate to school days, so nothing is likely to happen until the start of the new term.

PARAGRAPHS PLEASE

Why are children at school when it's the Christmas holidays and if it happened outside of school it's nothing to do with school.