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Handling parents’ unacceptable behaviour 

Along with a rise in the number of complaints schools are receiving from parents, schools also report an increase in unacceptable behaviour from parents towards school staff. This includes communication in person, by telephone, via email or on social media and takes several forms, including swearing or personal attacks, aggressive or intimidating behaviour, excessive or overly complex correspondence or making covert recordings of staff without consent.

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Protect school staff from harm

Whilst schools should always attempt to address unreasonable behaviour through communication and support, failing to tackle this kind of behaviour effectively sets unrealistic expectations and unclear boundaries for parents and fails to adequately protect staff and others from harm.

We’ve put together this pack to empower schools and trusts to challenge unacceptable behaviour from parents effectively and compliantly. These resources encourage the use of warnings and effective dialogue with parents, before moving to lawful, proportionate and commensurate restrictions on communication and access to school staff where the unacceptable behaviour continues.

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How the support pack will help

Our award-winning legal experts have drafted the pack’s supporting materials to:

• Ensure that there is a consistent approach in the measures that are put in place to tackle unacceptable parent behaviour, with all leaders working from the same school policy, templates and internal guidance documents.
• Give you confidence that approach to the management of parent behaviour and letters you use are up to date, legally compliant and reflect best practice.
• Save you time and resource by helping you to ‘get this right’ from the outset.

The parent behaviour support pack includes:

• Template parent code of conduct (SAT, MAT and maintained schools).
• Operational guide and flowchart for internal school use.
• Legal guidance notes and template letters covering:
  • Banning a parent from the school site.
  • Restricting communication with a parent.
  • Inappropriate use of social media.
  • Covert recordings.
• Guidance and internal documents for reviewing any bans or restrictions in place.
• FAQs. 

Cost

The comprehensive pack of templates and internal resources to support schools to manage unreasonable parent behaviour effectively is £750 plus VAT. Discounts are available for schools and trusts that also purchase our Complaints Management Support Pack.