Is this a red flag or am I overthinking?

[Redisforme]

DC is in year 6. Our closest secondary had an open evening and the headmaster gave a speech. During the speech, he told us that the majority of dealings with parents were complaints about punishments, we should trust that the school had got it right and that a patient wouldn’t question a surgeon.

I have good schools in my area. The school referred to is hot on compliance and uniformity, but the others are too. It was a good school, with good grades and behaviour, prior to this shift.

I don’t know if the other schools are getting the same level of complaints and this head is just more honest, or if parents are getting fed up due to the types of things raised in @Lexibletheflexiblepost.

If a surgeon had good results, but complaints started racking up, it would also make me wonder why.

The children talked respectfully about their teachers, even when saying what they thought were the stronger and weaker departments, but the points they raised made sense to me. They weren’t asking for changes such as a free tuck shop for everyone or no homework; they had reasonable points. They wanted their homework looked at, wanted to feel it was appropriate and relevant rather than given for the sake of it, they wanted a genuine option to buy food at school without sacrificing most of their lunch time to do it, they wanted punishments to fit crimes, they wanted room to breathe, they wanted powers used fairly especially by particular teachers. These were common themes between the schools, not just the one in my OP. The exception was a school where pupils raved about the food and it was clearly easier to access meals there.

I don’t know, maybe there’s something in uniform inspections, sitting the right way, equipment inspections, a focus on tracking and apping, but it just seems so much more miserable than it needs to be for teachers and pupils compared to my school experience.

The honesty, directness and openness of this head is something I also would find very appealing.

I think this is a personal choice of whether this is a good fit for you and your values. Are you the sort of family who wouldn’t question a surgeon? Yes then sounds like a good fit. No, then perhaps rethink and look elsewhere. There is no one size fits all when it comes to schools.

After a 3 dsy school trip s couple of years ago, the head teacher published all the comunications she recieved (details removed, and then the sctusl story)

XXX had sunburn (xxx was told to put suncream on by 3 different members of staff)
YYY had lost his jumper (it turned up in his friends bag)
ZZZ didnt like the food (there were 3 options at each meal)
AAA didnt share a tent eith his friends (the children chose!)

Etc.. 15 complaints. No thanks to any of the teachers.

A lot of the complaints are foundless.

It is a red flag. DC's head warned parents not to be one of those parents whose name he remembered, because it was never for a good reason. Turned out to be a micromanaging bully. Mostly bullying his staff but also attempting intimidation tactics with parents too. Was overall fine with the children.

100% agree.

Err the private schools round here have strict uniform policies. I would assume that goes for being prepared with the right equipment.

I think you'll find the difference is the parents are able to supply everything a child needs (although that shouldn't be a barrier as our students who are pp get given supplies that they need) and parents make sure they have the uniform and stick to it. Private schools will just remove students who cant or won't comply.

Parents complain about everything and nothing

Funny how differently we view things

I would listen to this open, direct and no BS head and think this is precisely the school I would like for my teen

My DD goes to a strict oversubscribed state school where the head also gave this message. I like the strictness. When you go out to work you are expected to follow rules and uniform code if you have one.

Wrong colour socks, no tie, no pen etc is a strike on the uniform card. 5 strikes in a term = detention. Does that seem silly? They know what they need and they need to make sure they have it.

Disruption in class is a verbal warning. Then a negative. Then sent out for 10 mins, then the management team are called and subject to how that goes its a detention.

Toileting. Your child should be able go to the toilet in break or lunch to deal with what they need to deal with (and doesn't have a medical issue which needs to be addressed separately with the school).

There maybe small exceptions but not many. Children tell porkies and it's never their fault. They often lie to get out of class and go wandering and going to the toilet is a great excuse.

These days parents and people in general love to challenge authority. I don't work for a school but I hear it all the time outside school, on WhatsApp groups etc. More schools should be like this. This world is becoming feral and it's only going to get worse.

My DD does not tow the party line despite these rules but I back the school. They are there to teach and not to childmind badly behaved kids.

It would be a red flag to me. And I say that as a secondary school teacher of over 20 years… The children who do best at school and, crucially, behave best at school, are the ones who feel liked and valued at school. It is possible to have very high behaviour standards and to achieve them in a way that is kind and doesn’t embarrass, belittle or excessively punish.

Some parents will, of course. Schools should expect this bugbear, just as parents or children have to accept the bugbear of some rules being nonsensical and school comms being haphazard. There is a baseline element of this.

The head was specifically talking about their consequence system though. That might mean parents think the consequence system is ignored, it might mean they think the school is too lenient, or it might mean they think it’s too punitive.

If my DC was suddenly getting lots of complaints or consequences from school, I wouldn’t tell the school “don’t complain”, I’d want to find out why! If a surgeon said they were getting a lot of complaints about a specific issue, it would raise a red flag!

If there is an issue, which hopefully there won’t be, I don’t want to be banging at a closed door with the school in question. It might be that all schools I’ve looked at take that approach and this head was more honest, or it might be that the others are more open to addressing problems. There is clearly a mismatch between the school’s policies and parents’ perception of how these policies are implemented if so many are complaining about this issue.

That’s actually pretty reasonable/lenient compared to a lot of schools. It gives them a chance to correct poor decisions. There are increasing numbers of schools where the first incident of lost pen etc results in a detention, no matter what the reason. The issue with this is that it can fuel anxiety in some kids and mean they’re always on edge at school, even if they’re “good” kids.

It’s very lenient compared to the schools I’ve seen. I doubt all the children are feral at any or that the parents at PP’s school are feckless because they’re not demanding stricter! Pupils lie sometimes, as do teachers. Everybody lies sometimes.

@ibeka That’s exactly what I believe too. It’s a two way communication.

The consequence steps for disruption would have led to isolation at a school I’ve seen, at a step before a detention is even considered at the PPs school. Maybe there becomes a threshold where too many rules with very punitive measures leads to more complaints. I hadn’t considered this.

@Redisforme Where has the word “consequence” come from? These are behaviour and sanctions policies. The best schools involve parents in the ethos to be adopted regarding managing behaviour. Unfortunately some schools have over-bearing heads, won’t consult and won’t listen. This can mean quite large sections of the school community are disenfranchised. They simply don’t have a voice and the whole behaviour ethos is too rigid. It certainly can make dc nervous and it’s not good for many dc. The organised robust ones are ok but others can be made very unhappy. The policies are often there to admonish a minority but the damage to other decent dc is not considered. It should be.

My DDs went to a boarding school where mutual respect was fostered. Dc could have a discussion about what they felt wasn’t working. It was a mature way to behave and staff listened to concerns. I admit few dc were unacceptable but most dc fitted in just fine. I would have hated these strict schools and so would my dc. Where the fun? Totally missing.

We decided against our local secondary when the entire talk at the open evening was about behaviour management and bullying.
Sadly it was the only one we had a chance of getting into, so we ended up going private!

@bugjuicewhat did they say about bullying as it sounds eerily similar!

Oh. This could be a school I have links to (excper there are 100s like it).

People think open evenings are about attracting pupils, and they are, but also, especially in over subscribed schools, heads will use them to persuade 'difficult' families the school isn't for them.
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Many parents like the idea of a strict school, indeed many students are happier when the rukes are known and vigorously enforced. It doesn't suit all pupils, but it's much easier to run the school, for the benefit of pupils, and achive good results, when those families go elsewhere.

@MeetMeOnTheCornerthe schools I’ve been to refer to consequences, so I thought that might be a common term used instead of sanctions. They have levels of consequences assigned to different rules broken. I think they’re to make it clear what is expected, but some seem generic and open to some interpretation too. Some schools offer reparation after a sanction, but only after or during the sanction, so I can see why this might lead to a complaint if it’s seen as unfair. I prefer the style of school you refer to and agree with you. I got the impression from pupils that they felt they had to suck up a lot of superfluous punishments.

Do you mean your school gets lots of complaints about sanctions? Why? What sort of sanctions compared to the rules broken? Is there a level where the school would review their sanctions in light of so many complaints, or would the assumption always be that the school is right?

Because it's an entirely different demographic of parents in much smaller classes who are paying through the nose for their child to succeed. The parents by and large respect the teachers as professionals and behave accordingly. It's not rocket science.

The talk started with ‘I know your biggest concern will be how we deal with bullying’. It hadn’t been until that point! He then went on to detail the behaviour policy/sanctions etc in great detail, and said absolutely nothing about actually educating the children!

We get complaints about sanctions from the parents of students who get sanctioned. Not from the parents of students who want to learn without disruption.