Parents are not customers?

[Avocadostone]

I have come from a corporate environment into a support role leading other support staff in a new school with a growing positive reputation. Since I started, we as a team we have always focused on ensuring that we deal with parents in a very professional way, I also keep an eye on social media, and when parents are grumbling about something (in number) and we could have done better I follow it up at school. Head has told me that basically he doesn't want me to pander to social media and that parents are not customers, and to paraphrase, it's our school so they can like it or lump it. Unless they email us, I'm to ignore it (unless it's a burning issue). I feel like the rug has been pulled out from beneath me. Is this how most schools see things? I tried to explore with the head how social media is useful and how many people communicate this way, but the Head has a very traditional /fixed view on this. It has really upset me, and I will of course do as instructed, but I've spend most of the weekend wondering if this is right job for me. We never even got to discuss the impact on students through poor /inaccurate comms etc...another example is school events? I asked if we could collate a plan for the year of key school events and was told, no, a couple of months notice is sufficient. It's driving me up the wall. I'm offloading as I guess I either do the same as parents - lump it or like it! I am very near to lumping it!!!

Excuse my terrible grammar!

Hang on a minute. When, at parents' evening I have sat behind a parent who has been talked at for 25 minutes by a teacher publicly ranting about their child, when the same teacher doesn't have the good manners to apologise and has made me late for my next appointment, I think it's a bit rich actually. I have never been late for a school apt and would not expect any individual to have to wait for me. But if staff aren't keeping to time I don't expect it to impact on my time.

At the Dc's independent schools we arrived, got a cup of tea and biscuits, could only see six teachers which we requested in advance and received the times in advance. All apts in the hall with a table plan. Five minute appointments with a bell between allowing everyone to move to the next table before the five mins started again. If there was no one behind you you could have a bit longer if there was a gap for the next apt. It all ran far more smoothly.

OhTheRoses
I would happily have a bell system.

It would mean I don't get held up by certain teachers who talk for England.

Equally, it would make it much easier to get rid of those well known parents who think their child is the only one you have to see. They can be right buggers for getting rid of and willingly ignore any polite suggesttions that there are other people waiting.

In my experience, the 2nd situation is the biggest cause of delays. I'm now at the point where I say 'I must see the next parent. If you would like to discuss this further, please call the school and I wilm arrange to phone you'

I think maybe dd's state school (secondary) was so far on the skids it has coloured my judgement to be honest. Quite a lauded school too.

I think that you need to maybe take a step back and learn a bit more about schools generally. I can see that you are trying to improve things but you perhaps need to look at things from a different perspective. A few things stand out for me from what you have said:

1. Social media - Problems need to be dealt with individually. Schools are not businesses. Their main concern should not be how they are perceived but how well they teach the children. Getting into the domain of checking social media and reacting to it is not something that most schools will see as a good use of staff time. Parents with legitimate complaints need to phone or come into school.

1. Calendar or diary of events. Some things are decided in advance and are published well in advance eg exams, parents evenings etc.

Many events are run by teachers. They might decide in term 1 to run an event or activity in term 2. They start to investigate it, get costs, put it to governors and head and may get permission. They then have to speak to person who organises cover to see if it can go ahead that week etc etc. It isn't as clear cut as saying this can happen next April, let parents know now. A date may have to change because of another event or problem. This is why dates only come out to parents on a termly basis. Yes, it can be inconvenient for parents but again the school is not run for the parents, it is for the children.

I think much of what you might see as inefficiency or poor customer relations is actually due to a completely different set of values and approach. You need to get to know the school a bit more before you can start to suggest how to improve things. There may well be things you can do, but you need to approach things in a different way.

Maisy - I set a timer at the beginning of each parent meeting (and explain what I'm doing). It is a godsend for keeping myself reasonably on track!

Liadain
I'd not considered doing it as my own thing.
Maybe I should. And then take emails for any follow ups I need to do.

Most of our parents are great and get it so would hate them to feel patronised by it. I might try it.

I teach in primary so it's a very different set up tbf. I just find that otherwise meetings can last way over time and it's hard to keep sneakily looking at the clock.

I send an email home before meetings explaining what I do and why I think it helps. No one has ever seemed insulted - at least not to my face!

I am very shocked by the previous posts. Most of them by teachers.

Saying they aren't customers. I disagree. Yes the school/teaches are there to teach the children, as a priority. But you should care what bothers parents.

And the total arrogance of 'if you don't like it, leave' is shocking.

And I believe that many schools do have this attitude.

If you are school support staff then the parents are not your customers the head and other teachers.
Your role is to support them so that they can run the school as effectively as possible.
If the parents have a problem they need to follow the appropriate channels to complain.

Sorry should say the head and teachers are.

You can care very much what parents' preferences, wants and concerns are. It still doesn't make them customers.

Saying they aren't customers. I disagree.
The fact is they are not customers. It is not a customer servive relationship. It is a professional relationship built around educating children.

Yes the school/teaches are there to teach the children, as a priority.
Exactly. Our job is to teach
But you should care what bothers parents.
Within reason.
What you need to consider is that often REASONABLE parents with REASONABLE concerns already go through the APPROPRIATE channels and resolve things in REASONABLE ways.

If you propose the school has to care what bothers parents as part of them being customers and us providing a service to them then you can tell me what part of EDUCATING children we should drop to deal with the following (all true but anonymised obviously):

1. I'm annoyed that Jess is in 9A and all her friends are in 9B. She needs moving because it's emotionally damaging for her.

1. I'm not happy with my son's group. He is with set 5 children and he is gifted. (In a school that teaches mixed ability and this is in all the school material)

1. Ben won't be doing detention because he tells me that he wasn't the only one talking. I think you should speak to Mrs Brown and ask her why she thinks it is acceptable to bully my child.

1. Why are you disrespecting my family by telling Charlotte to remove her acrylic nails?! Her AUNTY did them for her as a treat and anyway, since when did nails affect her learning?!

1. Sports day has just been sprang on us last minute as usual. I don't see why the school can't damn well communicate with parents (info on the website and had been in the newsletter too).

1. You can't expect me to magically find money because you've 'suddenly decided' Simon's trainers are trainers and not school shoes (uniform had been the same for at least 5 years. Trainers were never accepted)

1. Parent turns up on site with child at 4pm and sends child to find teacher for an immediate meeting because the teacher had 'done nothing' about a bullying incident that was reported at lunch time and the teacher was teaching all afternoon.

1. Parent sends an email to a teacher berating a teacher for being 'too busy to bother running revision' after school telling her 'how dare you suggest my child doesn't bother when you're the one who isn't bothering'. The child never attended and the member of staff had to visit a terminally ill family member.

Because the type of people who have this entitled 'customer" attitude are these parents. And these people will also be the types be be keyboard warriors on social media. They are also the ones who have children walking around like they own the place.

I'm not willing to give people like that any additional time. I will bend over backwards for REASONABLE people because I am a professional who cares about children.

If people start giving me entitled customer nonsense then I pull back and they nothing beyond what I am employed to do.

Addressing parents concerns is v important -but should not be based on social media tittle tattle.

Exactly tiny.
Reasonable people raising reasonable concerns in a reasonable manner deserve to be heard.

People who get in strops, throw their weight around and sit bitching on social media / gossiping about the latest injustice in their child's life can continue to gossip, get stroppy and attempt.to throw their weight around shouldn't be given any airtime until they function as grown adults and not brats and bullies.

The fact that there are people who work in schools on this thread and believe they should have business departments and that parents are customers just shows what's going wrong with our education system and why good, caring teachers are leaving in droves.

Parents are not customers, but that doesn't mean that teacher shouldn't and don't care about what they think or building relationships with them. Parental engagement with schools as been shown to be one of the key drivers in raising attainment for children, but that does not mean that parents always know what is right to do in an educational setting. There is a reason why teachers study and complete degrees to become teachers, because there is a wealth of knowledge and understanding required to make effective pedagogical decisions to support children's learning. Parents should absolutely be worked with and listened to but in an appropriate setting and manner. Trawling Facebook for customers' views may work if you're trying to sell a product but that is not and should not be what teachers and schools are doing. We are not selling products to customers, we are working alongside parents and their children to make the best decisions possible for their emotional, social and academic development.

As an aside, do the parents who are posting these things on Facebook know you are viewing these posts and taking them back to the school? If I had an issue that I hadn't taken directly to the school then there would likely be a reason for that and I'd be annoyed if there was someone actively spending time hunting down my comments on Facebook (rather than just happening to come across them as obviously it's a public forum and that would be a possibility I'd be aware of before even posting).

Quite ironic how, on one hand, teachers say that their job is all about the children, but on the other hand, they claim that the high rate of poor outcomes, disruption, etc., is down to parents!

How about they try to improve relationships with the parents, and in turn, the parents may be more supportive of discipline, helping their kids with homework and attitude etc???

The attitude of "we know best" and "if you don't like it bugger off elsewhere" doesn't help the case of teachers.

we are working alongside parents and their children to make the best decisions possible for their emotional, social and academic development.

This might be true in most cases but not always. I have known schools where SMT have no interest in working alongside parents, who are more concerned with appearance than reality and looking impressive on paper rather than the wellbeing of individual students. This might lead to some the social media behaviour highlighted here.

Wrt fb, if parents are complaining about a school so openly, they cannot really complain if the school sees it or goes looking for it.

kazzy
Because it is exceptionally difficult to instil rules, boundaries and high expectations if a child knows that they go home and then home says 'don't worry darling I'll tell miss/sir...'.
So yes, outcomes can be linked to parents. That's who the children see most of.
In my experience the children with supportive parents who support staff tend to do better than those who have parents who undermine staff.

Most parent/teacher relationships are positive, professional relationships built on mutual respect. Most parents wouldn't come close to some of the tales on here.

What people are pointing out on this thread is the implicatioms of taking a "customer service" approach to education where the consequence of people with 'I'd like to speak to a manager' haircut has massive implicatioms for the whole system and children's education.

You're right Aderyn, it definitely isn't always the case, but it should be. However I don't think that viewing parents as customers is conducive to balanced, positive relationships between parents and teachers. It suggests that teachers are there to serve parents rather than support them.

Good grief.
I wasn't talking about any if Maisy's petty 7 points.

Please don't demean this by insinuating I was complaining about Tilly and her acrylic nails!!

I'm talking about many parents having serious, similar concerns.

If many parents are concerned about the same thing, then one might just consider, and I would recommend any person/business/school/or anything else, to at least consider it.

Oblomov17
You say they are petty but those kind of things are EXACTLY what ends up taking huge amounts of time.

And they are like that because rhey have this "customer" attitude.
If we go down the route of 'customer service' relationships that kind of thing is only further encouraged.

School relationships are professional relationships which should be handled maturely in the correct way and theough the correct channels (the way most reasonable parents do).

People whining on social media and giving air time to ghe types of people who go down that route would only increase the amount of stupid stuff we have to deal with (which reduces time educating and dealing with reasonable parents)

School relationships are professional relationships which should be handled maturely in the correct way and theough the correct channels (the way most reasonable parents do).

I suspect many 'reasonable' parents simply don't bother any more unless it is absolutely unavoidable because of the rigid, patronising attitudes of many schools.

That's certainly my experience, and those of friends and acquaintances across a number of schools. Don't bother raising or suggesting things unless it's a massive issue, you'll just be dismissed.

I don't doubt that may happen in some schools.
The solution is for those schools to be better, not adopt a customer service style approach inspired from retail/corporate environments and waste time entertaining whingers on social media.

I can only speak for myself but I will bend over backwards for reasonable parents.

I stop bending over backwards when:

1. Parents take the piss so are on the phone expecting every minor thing to go through them. E.g you're sophie's tutor can you tell me why she got in troubel in maths

She's very upset.

1. People are rude, confrontational and entitled / think that because they went to scholl they know it all / think that as a taxpayer they can tell me what to do
2. People routinely undermine the school qnd then expect ua to sweep in. No Jack isn't having one of the limited places in intervention because he does the bare minimum in class, never attends revision night and you have spent the last year excusing his poor attitude until now. Sorry, that place is going to a hard working child where home are supportive.

At least I joined the PTA and became a year rep. Then decided the school/SLT/governors were so toxic and sycophantic the only option was to remove my dd. School declined for another three years. The staff were leaving in droves too.

The tragedy is that four or five DC who were brighter than my dd, I'd say by a pretty long stretch, didn't get all A*s and Didn't get Oxbridge or medicine because their parents didn't have the means to pay £16k pa. That's what is deeply wrong with parts of our education system and until it changes nobody can blame people who can for making decisions they can. In our case we took that decision because the school was not meeting acceptable standards of customer or pupil service. At the end of the day if the school office can't answer a phone in a pite and helpful manner, the school can't constantly write out asking for donations. In our two years I think we gave £1,000. This works both ways and there is a customer service element.

The Dc's primary was better although it Didn't tick all of DS's boxes but we could see why and they pulled the stops out for much quieter dd on a cpl of occasions. Difference overall. We set up a bursary fund for the school for music tuition and the yr 6 trip which is worth about £2.5k per annum. That simply would not have been done for the school dd attended for two years due to rudeness from staff, poor leadership and incompetent teaching about which nothing was done.

I totally and fully support staff over uniform nonsense, poor behaviour, shit parents, etc., but I don't support poor leadership and poor governance and it was sad that parents wouldn't stand up and be counted because the state alternatives were unsavoury and they were disempowered by all number of things.