Problem with private school

sjc3

living_in_hope wrote: »

Interesting because initially you would think very much the opposite but once crossed the demon appears. I was one of a small number of parents hauled into the office for discussing the school in the playground. We were given a lecture and it was made clear it must never happen again.

You all seriously let the head speak to you like that? Grown adults accepting being given a lecture too, for discussing a school their kids go to. Not one of you stuck up for yourselves and told this moron where he could stick his opinion?

Then as parents who chose the school because of their softly, softly approach, you left your kids in their "care".

:T:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::T

sjc3

pupsicola wrote: »

Am I the only one that thinks this thread is a wind up?

No you're not

Nicki

Just an educated guess, but if I were the head of a school, private or otherwise, and I found out that a group of parents were carping in the playground about how the school had gone down since they started letting "children with issues" (aka children with some degree of learning difficulty or disability) in, I would probably speak quite sharply to them as well.

Whether it's enforceable or not, but OP is being very coy about giving the full picture here.

sjc3

The OP is being very coy about the whole situation. If the discussion in the playground was about "children with issues/special educational needs" then yes the head should address this. To lecture adults though is not the best way to go about it. I doubt he would be viewed as a "demon" if he were just sticking up for childrens rights. From what I can make out from the OPs comments I thought the discussion in the playground was more about how the children are now disciplined and their parents concern over this. Maybe the OP can clarify?

peachyprice

Nicki wrote: »

Just an educated guess, but if I were the head of a school, private or otherwise, and I found out that a group of parents were carping in the playground about how the school had gone down since they started letting "children with issues" (aka children with some degree of learning difficulty or disability) in, I would probably speak quite sharply to them as well.

While conveniently forgetting that it's those very same parents who are payng for their children to be educated and keeping the miffed head in his job?

Forbidding unhappy parents from talking to each other is not the way a rational head would deal with the problem.

sjc3

peachyprice wrote: »

Forbidding unhappy parents from talking to each other is not the way a rational head would deal with the problem.

Exactly, whatever the issues and problems a good head encourages communication and would not lecture parents. Things would be dealt with in a proffessional manner and all concerns considered and dealt with properly. Parents wouldn't be left to feel their views could be whitewashed over and ignored.

Nicki

peachyprice wrote: »

Forbidding unhappy parents from talking to each other is not the way a rational head would deal with the problem.

It's all a matter of interpretation though isn't it.

Based only on what OP has posted, what could quite easily have happened is that a group of parents were discussing amongst themselves how they weren't happy that children were no longer permitted to do x and y, and that this was all because of that horrible Johnny Bloggs who had just joined the class with his issues, and that it wasn't fair that the routine for the whole class should be adjusted just to meet his needs. And going on from that, Jenny Smith had issues too and little Hugo didn't like having to sit next to her in the literacy circle because she always got the answer wrong and put him off his stride, etc, etc. The head might well have got this group of parents together and told them that the school embraced all students whatever their needs and that he did not want to hear of any talk of this nature in the playground, thanks all the same.

Obviously the head cannot forbid grown adults from talking to each other about whatever they like, and certainly not off the school premises. However parents can "bully" other parents, particularly those of children with special needs just as much as the kids can, and unpleasant discussions of this kind of ilk in the playground can be very intimidating to both children and parents and can easily undermine the ethos of a school, so I still say I would not expect a head to ignore that kind of thing if this is the kind of thing which was happening.

Now it may have been completely different, and genuinely a straight discussion about whether the school had changed with no reference to the "children with issues", but I'm sceptical is all.

peachyprice

Wow, quite an imagination you've got there.

kazwookie

How did the head hear what the parents were talking about in the playground area? he must have good hearing.

Nicki

peachyprice wrote: »

Wow, quite an imagination you've got there.

:rotfl::rotfl:

I did say it was one way it went down, not the only way!

But I will say I am SEN governor at a mainstream state school, and so I have seen at first hand how some parents talk about kids with even very minor special educational needs in the playground. The lack of understanding and intolerance to any form of difference would really make your hair curl, and things can so easily tip over into a state of such viciousness that some parents feel they have no choice but to remove their children from the school. Hence why I'd be on the head's side if this was the situation here.