What do you think parents want to achieve by complaints?

[parrotonmyshoulder]

We have so many of them, getting governors involved, contacting LA officers, Ofsted etc. Always ‘my child said you did this’ about a staff member or an accusation about another child that ‘wasn’t dealt with properly’ (ie didn’t get publicly punished in a way that appeased affronted parent).
Often request all pupil paperwork as part of the complaint.

It’s so incredibly time consuming and draining, taking huge staffing resources away from children and strategic work. There never seems a positive outcome.

Many concerns and complaints are dealt with in a collaborative, straightforward manner. But a significant handful are like I describe. I think we need to do some analysis of types of parental concerns and when/ why they lead to this level of escalation. Finding time to do that though…!

Externally blaming someone else for their child being rude/unpleasant/mentally ill when the problem lies closer to home.

Defensiveness and guilt. An attempt to make up for their shortcomings by showing their child - and often friends and neighbours via sm - that they are 'in their corner.'

Depends what being complained about, surely? My.child has a medical condition that needs an eye kept on it. He can do it himself with no issues but there are staff who think they know better and on one occasion, tried to stop him from taking his medication when he needed it. I complained and had my child removed from that particular teacher's class because it became clear he wasn't even aware of the careplan (the school provided evidence it had been shared with all staff) let alone had attempted to understand and implement it.

We have a responsibility for the children we teach. Not all the profession take it seriously enough.

Is this primary or secondary? I'm in primary and have, thankfully, never experienced anything close to this.

Yes, shiningsilver. A valid reason of course to discuss with the school and make sure all safety procedures are followed. I wonder if, when your child changed class, you had ‘threatened ofsted’ and involved governors, or if you had a calm and sensible discussion with the head once you realised the teacher was unaware, expressing your worries and suggesting a class move for your peace of mind and your child’s well being. I suspect you took the latter route.

In our situation, some parents resort immediately to threats, social media, intimidation and time consuming paperwork requests. Almost always refusing actual help offered like Early Help or referrals.

I would be pissed off if my DC wasn’t allowed to take essential medication but that’s not the type of complaints this thread is referring to. I am assuming the post is not about genuine complaints but more about the increasing culture of parents thinking that they can do our job better than us and not supporting the school because their little darling can do no wrong and they are only in detention because the teacher is picking on them.
What I find baffling is that parents don’t consider how unlikely it is that their DC are being ‘picked on’, it is time consuming to record poor behaviour on the system, take time out to call parents, send emails, add a child to a detention list. No teacher is going to create extra work for themselves without valid cause. A student swore at me last week because I reminded them 3 times to get their book out as I was waiting to start my lesson. I sent her out and what followed was a barrage of email and phone complaints about how she was being picked on and only swore because her self esteem had been shattered by being sent out. The member of SLT dealing with it couldn’t reason with the parents who clearly couldn’t see that this was trivial and that their DD had behaved inappropriately. He estimated that it spent 6 hours investigating a complaint that wasn’t even remotely valid. With this happening more and more, this is taking away time that could be spent on more important matters.

Yes @Oxterguff, that’s the kind of thing I mean.
It’s regularly 6 or even more hours of SLT time and, honestly, these are coming so frequently for us.
At the same time, there are similar issues, or non-issues, dealt with by a simple phone call from a parent or conversation on the playground, quickly clarifying and sorting the matter to satisfaction.
I feel so sorry for the children who have to hear their parents ranting, often abusively and obscenely, about (or at) their school staff. These are primary kids who, even when things are going badly, almost always really like most of the adults in a school. It must be very conflicting for them and can’t help them feel safe!

I get the impression that some parents simply don't want to be told that their children have done anything wrong or that they have failed at something. Or can't cope with their children being upset.

Parents want strict discipline in general- until it applies to their child, of course...

Obviously teachers do things wrong at times (even more so when we are overstretched and stressed) but I also think some parents forget that their child is one of 32+ in a class and so we can't cater to that child to the exclusion of everyone else.

I also think, unfortunately, sometimes with SEN etc, it is the parents who shout the loudest who get their children the support they need.

Lots of primaries are having to focus on catching up the bottom end of the cohort post covid - huge numbers who aren't where they should be on language etc.

Challenging high attainers is not a priority at the moment & some parents will complain about this, what they want is change & attention on their child.

Its difficult when some schools do not have capacity to hear some children of 5 years old read more than once/twice a term, catching up the cohort as a whole is taking a lot of focus.

The reality is the squeaky wheel very often gets the grease, and such complaints do often result in a (short term) attempt to redress the balance.

I can so empathize with this. Apparently it is endemic at the moment. We have had to introduce a vexatious complaint policy. The level of vitriol directed at the school because parents don't get what they want is unreal.

I think it depends. I complain when I think there is something to complain about. I think I have balanced judgement, having worked as a teacher myself. Some schools can be pretty bad, or their admin is bad, which means it can appear as though the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

I am an organized person, we are two full time working parents and we still struggle to keep up with school-based things as they are so bloody disorganized. So much stress and anxiety could be alleviated via better and more timely communication. This week alone we have received 14 emails!!! Over four days. There will be more today as it’s a Friday. That’s without the PTA FB page constant requests for money and donations...

We were told about CinN spotty clothes day yesterday (for next Friday). About wearing Cub/Brownie uniform for Remembrance Day yesterday when they needed it for today. These are static dates in the school calendar. Why not let parents know via one calendar document at the start of the year? You can try and anticipate this ahead of time if you’ve been at the school a few years, but things change. One year its wear yellow for CinNeed, another it’s spots, another it’s stripes and spots!

This week alone, I have ordered (overpriced) school photos, t-shirts for CinNeed, the latest books they need in class for this half term (informed Tuesday, why not before half term?!), organized cakes for the PTA bake sale, the list goes on. Often the teachers are unaware of what the office have said, and vice versa. Bring in a plastic bottle to place in the bin in the playground before school - lovely - rummage in the recycling bin to find one before we set off. Only to find that there is no fucking bin to collect them in on the playground… Ask at the office - blank looks 🙄

To me, disorganisation smacks of a shitshow behind the scenes.

Im a high school teacher myself. My dd has received a ‘demerit’ today for smiling, so showing a poor attitude. I will, of course, be phoning that teacher on Monday morning.

I wonder if a lot of the confrontational behaviour parents bring to schools is due to the way society has changed. Obviously there seems to be more of a ‘nobody can criticise my child’ attitude, but these days few people go to church so can’t talk to the local vicar, doctors can strike you from the list if you’re aggressive (quite rightly) and you have to pay mega bucks to talk to a lawyer. The only professional left who can’t retaliate is a teacher if you have a chip on your shoulder or are just generally raging against the machine.

My experience is that schools are not good at handling genuine issues that parents have - so many parents feel robbed off, not listened to and as though their concerns will not stop whatever happened happening to other children. I speak as a parent who had to take a complaint to county level (which was upheld) for disability discrimination. And yet the school would not accept they had done anything wrong.

*fobbed off

Oh, dear! There are so many strands to this problem. There is the 'pre-emptive strike' or 'muddying the waters' technique that some parents use to excuse their child's poor behaviour as a reaction to some nebulous or entirely fictitious preceding event.

We are the punching bags because we are the only professionals parents have access to.

GPs have receptionists, solicitors have secretaries and speaking to a member of staff disrespectfully in just about any working environment would get you warmed, thrown out or banned.

Every possible wrinkle in a child's day must be addressed and ironed out. A demerit? There must be some mistake. A detention? The teacher is picking on them. They caused trouble in the classroom? It was the other kids. They swore at you? They felt disrespected.

Unlike doctors' receptions or solicitors' secretaries, who act to filter and deflect complaints, some school managements abnegate responsibility by passing the buck onto teachers

I haven't experienced this myself. Parents complain to the teacher then go to SLT, the Head, the governors, the LEA, Ofsted when they don't feel satisfied.

Not a teacher (or a parent) but just as a member of society have a vested interest in children having the best education possible. I wanted to say thank you to all of you doing your best in horrendous circumstances. I support strikes for public sector

(Comes on back of a thread about wanting to get a teacher sacked due to illness - that I’m sure may have upset posters here. best wishes to any of you off sick.)

Thank you everyone for this thread. I'm really struggling right now and trying to find a stoic response. I feel like such a failure.

Sorry wrong thread!