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Primary education

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Original poster

Parents fighting in playground

35 replies

Kelsoooo · 02/12/2015 16:03

My daughters school was on the local news the other day because the head teacher had to send a letter home asking "please leave family and friendship feuds home, or we will have to ban parents from school grounds"

How depressing is that?

The story goes that two groups of parents had a fight and were spitting at each other in the reception play ground and had to be broken apart by the teachers.

How vile and disgusting?

Anything shameful about your schools?

OP posts:
Millymollymama · 02/12/2015 20:08

No. However I would not want my child to go to a school populated by the children of such parents. If they are aggressive and cannot control themselves, how a school expect good behaviour from their children? The worst I can report is a parent who put her young son in the queues to see the teachers at parents' evening while she queued elsewhere. She quickly joined him if he got to the head of the queue first. Or parents who virtually park their car in the front door of the school.

Haven't seen actual fighting since I was a child when there was a mass brawl involving 20 women at our local gymkhana with their men egging them on! We were dragged away, but it was seriously ugly!

Sallyhasleftthebuilding · 02/12/2015 20:15

DD infants banned parents frim sports day :-(

ChipInTheSugar · 02/12/2015 20:25

First day at a rough school in a new area and I saw a mum get punched by another Confused

Mandzi34 · 02/12/2015 20:41

No but a friend told me two parents had a fight at her daughters school and one scratched the other with her car keys!

Snowglobe18 · 02/12/2015 21:12

This may out me, but one incredibly ditsy, arrogant PTA member ran a fellow parent over by accident once...a combination of 'rule the road' syndrome and just plain incompetence. Hit and run, too. Broke her arm!

louisejxxx · 03/12/2015 07:23

She actually didn't stop after running her over, knowing that she'd have to face people after? Shock gobsmacked!

PrettyBrightFireflies · 03/12/2015 07:29

I've known of schools where staff and governors were regularly deployed to intervene in fights between parents.
Eventually, the LA/OFSTED took action - there should be a zero tolerance approach and the police should be called in all such cases - unfortunately, some schools think that keeping the police away helps the DCs, but in fact, the opposite is true as the situation just escalates.

Id be asking the HT what the policy is and for assurances that police will be called to all incidents of violence in school site.

SomedayMyPrinceWillCome · 03/12/2015 07:35

Our local "Outstanding" primary school regularly issues pleas to parents via FB & Twitter not to swear so loudly in the playground at drop off & pickup
Guess where we won't be applying for...?

Pantone363 · 03/12/2015 07:41

We had the same thing. Both parents banned from the playground

WitchyPoos · 03/12/2015 07:55

This is sort of happening to me unfortunatelySad
There is a little group of mums at school. My son used to play with their sons, until they disliked me for no reason - literally no reason, I go to school, drop my son off then go pick him up, keep myself to myself. These mums told their sons not to play with mine, exclude him etc. They bitch about me when I'm just stood there. One of the kids bit my son and left an actual full set of teeth marks on my son. Bullying him on their parents say so just because they don't like me Hmm

Been going on since reception and they are year 3 now. Since September it's been quiet, my son has made friends with others and plays with them happily. Then one of the mums said to my son I'll invite to to Pauls (not real name) party. Then the next day Paul was handing out invites and said to my son "my mum doesn't want you there now she doesn't even like you". This same mum called my son a horrible child to his face.I'd love to know wtf me or my son have done. My son just wants acceptance and to play, not malicious at all, teachers have said no problems from him it's all them.
Been to head countless times with regards to bullying. I've not retaliated to them I've just ignored it. Be the bigger person and rise above it and all that.
I would love just to plant a punch on their chops but what does it solve - make me as bad as them

It's hard Sad

Sallyhasleftthebuilding · 03/12/2015 08:05

Witch - this wont get better - move him - y6 will be horrid for him.

WitchyPoos · 03/12/2015 08:10

He's got an established little group of friends now. I've told him if the little bullies come near you just walk away from them and ignore - or go within earshot of a teacher.
Feel like they have won though if I move him - and taking him away from the friends he has now got

whatdoIget · 03/12/2015 08:10

At my secondary school one of the parents came in to the school grounds and punched a teacher because the teacher had given her child a detention. I don't think it was ever reported to the police. The parent wasn't charged if it was. This was the late 80s though.

unlimiteddilutingjuice · 03/12/2015 08:14

Not seen any actual fights but there are notices up at the nursery about the importance of calm behaviour at drop offs. Dunno if they're in response to something or just incredibly patronising in case.

Millymollymama the mass gymkhana brawl belongs on the middle class injuries thread!

SecretBondGirl · 03/12/2015 08:21

Sadly bad parent behaviour appears in almost all schools and so difficult to avoid. My dsis is lives in a uber MC area and her dcs attend the most sought after outstanding school in the area but the parents behaviour: petty bullying, inconsiderate parking, doing other dcs down, seem just as bad as my dcs inner city deprived school

carabos · 03/12/2015 08:35

Years ago DS1's very up-itself prep school staged a stag boxing night at a local hotel as a fundraiser. The papers got involved following a brawl amongst the dad's outside the taxi rank afterwards Grin. They were all in black tie.

Snowglobe18 · 03/12/2015 08:36

Louise nope, she professed to have panicked! She walks to school these days....

HPsauciness · 03/12/2015 08:41

secret I don't think you are right, in general, there has been fighting in the playground/notices about parents bring issues into school in schools which have had rougher catchment areas, my children used to attend one and now attend an entirely different one with a more mixed catchment area and such issues would be laughable. In general, feuds that will spill into fighting take place where you have a lot of insular people with little else to do all congregating daily up in one place.

This type of notice did influence me when I chose the permanent school, just don't want to walk through it every day, don't want the children around it.

MrsDeVere · 03/12/2015 08:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ohtheholidays · 03/12/2015 08:49

Thats just one of the reasons we took our children out of they're schools(DS had gone all the way through that same school nursery,infants and juniors)we home schooled for a year and then found other schools where the parents knew how to act normally Thank God.

The other school had got so bad that the bloody useless Head expected my DH(Police Officer)to deal with some of the families whilst we were picking up our DC from school with our newborn DD with us.

LuciaInFurs · 03/12/2015 09:15

Not quite what you were asking but two of my teachers had an affair. The male teacher's wife came into the school one day and punched the OW in the science block and walked out. She had a black eye for weeks and had to wear sunglasses. They were married a few years later, had a few kids and the male teacher still works there.

harryhausen · 03/12/2015 09:23

Two mothers had a punch up in the playground if our neighbouring primary. The police were called and they both banned from the playground. Although in a big city this school is in a very 'MC' area with good results.

At our primary on the first day in reception the mother stood next to me had a tag on her foot. I was a bit Shock to say the least. However, dd is in Y6 now and I've never had any problems or seen anything bad. Although we did have one mother swiftly banned from the playground for swearing loudly at her child and other parents. She and child left soon after. Poor kid.

Yokohamajojo · 03/12/2015 10:43

At a friends kids school, a drunk mother crashed her car into a tree at pick up time, posh school as well

InternationalHouseofToast · 03/12/2015 11:01

In DS' school, there is a child who is picked up from the office door, not from the playground like the other children. This isn't because of a SN in the child but because his parents "do not get on" and child B's parents, who do pick up from the playground - the two sets of parents have to be kept seperate to prevent fighting.

May be linked to a parent of Child A shagging a parent of Child B. The HT sighs when asked why this child has seperate arrangements to everyone else.

Scarletforya · 03/12/2015 11:11

My God, Snowglobe I'm aghast at that woman, wasn't she charged with anything?