By Gavin Mackintosh And Sammie Jones-
Nuisance parents of pupils in British schools are adding to the pressure of teachers, The Eye Of Media.Com can reveal.Teachers spoken to in seven schools revealed the stress caused from complaining parents of badly behaved children causes them enormous stress. The Eye Of Media.Com gathered the information over a one months period during research on British secondary state schools, leading to specific questions targeted at a number of teachers. Many would only talk on the condition of anonymity.
Information was obtained from parents met through tutor courses, associates of team members, and wide surveys Some of the reasons that led to parents to contact teachers include complaints from their children that they were being picked on by teachers, bullying, their work was marked unfairly, and disciplinary measures the pupils may have objected to. Teachers complained that parents can be very ignorant and mean, believing their badly behaved child’s version of events when they should know their child better.
”Some parents pick up the phone and start swearing, one teacher from Willen Hall-Eact Academy in Wilsaw told The Eye Of Media.Com. They assume their child is telling the truth even when their child is the biggest nuisance in the class. Some have in past times turned up to the school to confront teachers. Things have improve a lot now, but those experiences can be very intimidating and stressful. Ofsted’s last inspection in December 2018 required the school to improve the impact of leadership, including governance.
The school was asked to meet the statutory duty to deliver careers education, information, advice, and guidance to supply additional opportunities to acquire this support. They were also asked to increase communication with parents and publication on their website. Insiders at the school say the school has improved since the last inspection, claiming that ” the school has improved a lot compared to a few years ago”. Nobody in the school was prepared to immediately address some of the complaints .
WillenHall-Eact Academy in Wallsaw is one of Britain’s worst behaved secondary school, difficult for teachers to manage even through discipline. Teachers are routinely threatened and ridiculed by pupils, and many pupils are bullied by their fellow classmates. ”I sometimes go home and wonder whether this job is worth it, one teacher told The Eye Of Media.Com. These children are just out of control, I sometimes wonder what they want out of school. Hathaway Academy in Grays , Essex has similar complaints. Angry parents often phone and visit teachers to give them a hard time over disciplinary steps taken against difficult pupils.
”It can be quite bad, one teacher said. Some of these parents must have been badly behaved themselves because it is shocking to see parents come to the school to defend their rotten child. You think to yourself that if this parent is really bringing up their child well, they won’t behave like this. So, something is desperately wrong. They will say things like my son does not lie, or my daughter does not lie, and I would turn round and say, well they have lied to you because so and so is a very, very difficult child to teach”.
DISCIPLINE
In the midst of some of the bitter complaints about nuisance parents and children is the fact that some schools have a high level of discipline their pupils respond to. Why are some schools more disciplined than others? The answer usually lies in its leadership and its selection process. Some schools from the beginning only select pupils from respectable homes where both parents have good jobs. Their aim is to attract children from more disciplined atmosphere at home.
Some schools, especially catholic schools, insist on selecting pupils only from two parent homes, to ensure there are two voices at home to keep the children in check. Critics say this practise is discriminatory and unfair to single mothers who should not be disadvantaged. Such schools insist on having strict criteria that increase the chances of having pupils from a steady backgrounds. Some single parents have had to lie to get their children in some of the best academic schools that adopt this rule just to have their children school in that set up.
Pupils are told the expected standard of behaviour and could be suspended or even expelled for swearing at a teacher. No excuses are tolerated. Children with known ADHD symptoms are not admitted in many of such schools, who are determined to maintain a high standard of discipline and academics. Objections have been voiced against these practices in selected schools, but authorities in these schools insist that the criteria they set is the only way to guarantee the standards they set.
Less discriminate schools in some areas have produced bright pupils even where some of their pupils were not from two parent homes. Some schools take a percentage of their pupils from two parent homes and holding good jobs, banking on this mix to create a strong academic environment for those children from less stable homes. Schools that produce very high pass rates , so results speak for themselves in those cases.