Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

The staffroom

Whether you're a permanent teacher, supply teacher or student teacher, you'll find others in the same situation on our Staffroom forum.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Parents who complain about teachers

47 replies

Sunnyindisposition · 27/09/2017 18:24

I've just got off the phone from a dear friend who is in a terrible state. She is not oversensitive, she is resilient and she is extremely competent and hardworking with many years of experience. She's just started a new job and it is ruining her mental health. She's had parents emailing in questioning her subject knowledge and saying she isn't marking enough. She has a really good degree and works 60 hours a week. She now hates her job, sleeps only a couple of hours a night and is on the verge of a breakdown. I simply would like to know if parents give any thought to the human costs of the demands they place and the way some of them treat teachers? I know their children are their priority but are there no limits to whom they will hurt in the quest to get their children ahead?

OP posts:

Sprinklestar · 28/09/2017 16:46

You sound very upset on behalf of your friend. I think resilience is important. A competent teacher (or anyone, really) should be able to brush off the stupid comments and separate the genuine concerns from those that come from trouble makers.

FWIW, I've worked in a school where teachers received emails. It was a private school and to be honest, given the fees, I think parents did expect more from the teachers than they would have done in a state school. They were buying a service... That said, not all the teachers there were as good as they'd like to have believed. Some were excellent but others deserved complaints!

TheFallenMadonna · 28/09/2017 16:56

How is the line manager raising this with her? If I received a complaint about frequency of marking, and I knew the teacher was marking according to the policy, I would respond in that vein. At this point in the term I might have to just check quickly as I might not have done a work sample.

MusicToMyEars800 · 28/09/2017 16:59

People's sense of entitlement is often huge

opheliacat · 28/09/2017 17:00

Very upset for your "friend"!

TheFallenMadonna · 28/09/2017 17:00

If the complaints are unfounded, her job is not at risk. Is she feeling overwhelmed apart from this? Changing to a new setting can be really tough, especially as an experienced teacher. The reputation you have built up isn't there, you have to learn new systems etc. I can see how complaints would be the last straw, whereas in a more familiar setting you could shrug them off.

MsGameandWatching · 28/09/2017 17:03

Dd's teacher last year was awful. Disinterested, uncaring and called them all useless. Parents with an older child whose next child also got her were devastated as they knew it would be another unhappy year for one of their children. No amount of complaints worked. My child had a very difficult year and I worked closely with the school often going above her head as she was so unapproachable. At the end of term she left and so I got her a little gift from dd - no hard feelings etc. She obviously realised she had nothing left to lose and looked me up and down and turned her back when I tried to give her the gift and say goodbye with dd. This will put me if anyone I know reads it.

People are often unpleasant and nasty and that includes teachers.

Original poster

Sunnyindisposition · 28/09/2017 18:34

opheliacat I don't like your implication that I am talking about myself. I left teaching years ago and I won't be returning, ever.

OP posts:

Ttbb · 28/09/2017 18:38

She's there to do a job, she should do it to a reasonable standard. If she was up to scratch then they wouldn't be conplaining. It sounds like she's bitten off a bit more than she can chew and should just move to a less demanding school.

noblegiraffe · 28/09/2017 18:45

If she was up to scratch then they wouldn't be conplaining

There speaks no teacher ever. Enjoy this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/1678192-what-the-most-hilarious-and-groundless-parental-complaint-youve-ever-fielded

Piggywaspushed · 28/09/2017 19:00

I am amazed that schools still exist where teachers aren't emailed directly!

I get fewer emails now I am no longer a HOY. But I still get several a week. When parents want help or advice, they email directly (rarely thanking me!) and when they want to criticise, they go 'higher'. It is how the line manager deals with this that is the key. At least your friend knows, bizarre as it sounds. Some line managers do this shielding thing, and it means one can walk into the classroom oblivious to, and therefore unable to address or correct, the things one is doing 'wrong' - and unable to have a right to reply.

I was engaged in on going battle with a parent last year who went to both HOF and Head of School. She never emailed me directly* and I would rather she had! She was a fellow teacher of the same subject. Typically the worst ...

*well, actually , once I emailed her! She replied to me , copying in the Head of School. She was a charmer.

I hope your friend is able to tough it out, with the right support.

She needs to cut down on workload : that doesn't help.

Littlewhistle · 28/09/2017 21:06

If she was up to scratch then they wouldn't be conplaining. It sounds like she's bitten off a bit more than she can chew

Absolute crap. I currently have a parent who can't bear the thought that her very rude and entitled DD is not the best reader in the class. So far she has been up 6 times complaining about the books she is given. She has now gone over my head to DHT. Every time a new book goes home she is either on the phone or up to the school.

She gets the same answer every time, but she still comes back and back............

hannah1992 · 28/09/2017 21:12

That's unfair of the parents. I can't say I've disliked any of my dds teachers apart from the one she had last year. There was a few things. Telling me my daughter was a "problem" in her words because when they were lining up she was shaking her legs. When asked if she was disruptive teacher said no.
Second was when dd had a bump note. Another child had thrown a toy at her for no apparent reason but it was ok because said child was having a bad day.
Third was when I spoke to her about some older girls calling my dd names and she was getting upset about it. She said she would have a word with the kids and their parents - she never did. I ended up speaking to the head and even messaged one of the girls parents as I know her to let her know what was happening and she had no clue anything had gone off because said teacher had not spoken to her when she told me she had!

Those type of things yes there's a problem but marking papers - no.

MaisyPops · 28/09/2017 22:13

If she was up to scratch then they wouldn't be conplaining. It sounds like she's bitten off a bit more than she can chew
Utter bollocks there.

When this sort of situation occurs it has nothing to do with competency and everything to do with having people who feel entitled to whine when the world isn't quite how they want it to be (and obviously their child never does anything wrong!)

crazycatguy · 28/09/2017 22:32

My generation of parents (I'm early 80s born) can be the most hideous of all. Some of the parents at the school I teach at have a group chat, I am reliably informed, where they take the chance to slag off anything they don't particularly like.

Few professions in the UK are called into question as often as teachers are. This is encouraged by the notion that they are customers and as such can demand what they like (though independent school parents can be somewhat justified here I sometimes think).

As a lowly NQT some ten years ago, I was once berated at by a parent in front of the HT who was standing behind me at a parents evening. Looking to the HT for justification, HT said 'don't tell him how to do his job, he doesn't come to your work and tell you how to sweep up' and then charged off. She still runs that school and I've never forgotten those lines, which I wish I could utter on a regular basis.

ouchthathurtsabit · 29/09/2017 14:19

Absolute crap. I currently have a parent who can't bear the thought that her very rude and entitled DD is not the best reader in the class. So far she has been up 6 times complaining about the books she is given. She has now gone over my head to DHT. Every time a new book goes home she is either on the phone or up to the school.

There is a Mum at my dc school like this and if it makes you feel better, all other parents think she is crazy. Hugely embarrassing behaviour that is!

If you don’t like the books then read your own!

raisedbyguineapigs · 29/09/2017 14:31

My favourite parent complaint was one at my dss school. A group of mothers who must have themselves gone on maternity leave at some point complained that a teacher should not have come back to work after having her first baby if she was going to have another one. After that little gem, I try and spend as little time as possible at the school gates!

Eolian · 29/09/2017 14:42

If she was up to scratch then they wouldn't be conplaining.

Ha ha ha! I've been told today that I'm a crap teacher. Why? Because the yr 10 boy whom I asked (politely) to stop his conversation and get on with his work didn't like the fact that I dared to interrupt his conversation. He was then rude to me and got up and walked out. Sadly, in many cases the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Many parents are not remotely interested in their child's behaviour in school. They regard school as free childcare and expect teachers to get good results for their child however uncooperative and lazy their child is. Many seem to have no concept whatsoever that schools have rules and policies in order to keep all the students safe and to try to allow them an atmosphere in which they can actually make progress, and that their child is not an exception to those rules.

Eolian · 29/09/2017 14:43

HT said 'don't tell him how to do his job, he doesn't come to your work and tell you how to sweep up'

ReginaBlitzkreig · 29/09/2017 14:53

If she were up to scratch they wouldn't be complaining?
(fixed your conditional subjunctive for you)

Ha ha ha. DH and I regularly wonder to each other what some of the more ...erm...'committed' parents can possibly need to speak to the class teachers about, day after day after day, drop-off and pick-up. And this tends not to be the parents of children with difficulties (so far as we are aware, of course).

One such parent is a good friend of mine, but she has recently commandeered the last 3 get-togethers to bang on about the school endlessly in a torrent of negativity which silenced every other parent in the room. She is fixated and highly anxious, some parents just are.

I'm am sorry about your friend. Please remind her not to start (or allow anyone else to start) from the assumption that her teaching is at fault. There may be a problem here, but if there is, it is highly unlikely to be down to her alone, or even mostly. She has to trust her own judgment; has she done enough work, planning etc? If she has, some complaining parents should not cause her to do even more.

Try and get her to take a weekend off to come and see you.

whathaveiforgottentoday · 29/09/2017 15:03

She does need to be a bit more resilient as there's always a few arseholes around.
As a teacher, I've had the odd complaint (sometimes justified, sometimes just a nutter who likes to complain.) the justified cases get dealt with and best to just laugh off the nutters and feel sorry for the kids having crazy parents. Some people are (as said above) a little bit entitled!

However, as a parent I haven't also made a complain (justified in my case and resulted in apology from head and class teacher) but I did sit on the complaint for a week before sending it as felt quite bad seeing as the complaint was quite harsh.

The key as a teacher is whether you are being supported by your SLT/line manager etc. Assuming the complaint is unfair then SLT should be supporting you. The problem comes when you haven't got support - if that is the case, I'd be looking for a new job.

MaisyPops · 29/09/2017 17:22

Sadly, in many cases the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Many parents are not remotely interested in their child's behaviour in school. They regard school as free childcare and expect teachers to get good results for their child however uncooperative and lazy their child is. Many seem to have no concept whatsoever that schools have rules and policies in order to keepallthe students safe and to try to allow them an atmosphere in which they can actually make progress, and that their child is not an exception to those rules.

This so much.

These people are in the minority but they are bloody annoying and at times nasty.

Usually ig you have one of them someone else in school has also had that parent be a dickhead to them too.

Littlewhistle · 29/09/2017 21:16

Ouch Glad to hear there are other obsessive parents out there.

I have realised that the DD in question will NOT take no for an answer (she asked the same thing 10 times today).......... I wonder where she gets that from

Flip

1 2