This madness has been brewing for some time.

Like many, I was saddened to read yesterday’s Tes exclusive about how a quarter of teachers have faced parental pressure to raise children’s teacher-assessed grades (TAGs). Also like many, I wasn’t particularly shocked. 

It would hardly have been a banner year for the education profession anyway, what with the horrific levels of stress amid the uncertainty of two major lockdowns. But now, on top of deep-diving for evidence to justify grades that could affect the life chances of our students, parents are weighing in with “threats of legal action”. 

Because, of course they are. Why would this nightmare ever end? 

This is the direct result of certain corners of the media selling the mistruth that we’ve all been sitting on a veranda somewhere sipping pina coladas throughout the pandemic. And, frankly, it’s getting boring now.

GCSEs 2021: ‘I feel horrific pressure’

It feels like teachers have been fair game for far too long - but trying to do the almost-impossible seems particularly thankless at the moment. If it’s not the press, or the Twitterati, it’s the policymakers themselves undermining teaching staff. 

A colleague put it more succinctly: “As a classroom teacher with no SLT ambitions, I’ve always been used to getting shit from above and shit from below, but right now it’s as though I’m fielding shit from all sides.” 

Pitting parents against teachers was the obvious next plot twist. Another colleague, her eyes almost bleeding from hours hunched over TAG spreadsheets, is extremely worried. 

She’s spent a long time on the phone to a parent, reassuring her that she’s fully aware of her child’s capability, but the fact is that she can only assess, objectively, the work completed, which is how exams work, anyway. The major difference now is that the teacher’s name will be forever attached to the final grade, unlike that of the traditional, anonymous external moderator’s.  

She’s particularly concerned about how she’ll be perceived in the future. “I teach four members of that family, across three key stages,” she tells me. “The mum hasn’t threatened me in an explicit way, but I feel horrific pressure. The way she said, ‘I know you’ll do the right thing,’ made me feel like I was in The Godfather. I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life.”

We won’t know until August whether some or all of these concerns will come to pass, but the likelihood of scapegoatism feels pretty real now. 

Teachers have had to put up with increasing disrespect

It should have been a relief to hear education secretary Gavin Williamson go on record saying he completely backs teachers “to ensure students get the grades they deserve this year”, but he could hardly argue otherwise, having forced the profession to do the exam boards’ jobs for them. 

To turn around, in a few months’ time, and criticise the results of the TAGs would be tantamount to stealing a car and then complaining there’s a baby still in the backseat. Teachers never begged to be put in this position, but they’ve risen to the occasion. And then some. 

I do believe that the vast majority of parents know this, but there will always be some who take “pushy” too far. And, while most parents are supportive and friendly, for some time now the teaching profession has had to put up with increasing disrespect. And it’s coming to the fore in an ugly, public way. 

I can’t help but wonder if these reports of parental harassment are part of a bigger picture. The status of teachers has undeniably dipped over the years, with some parents considering themselves better informed than their children’s teachers. 

In days gone by, if a school had cause to complain about a child’s conduct, parents generally took the teacher’s side. Chances are, today a number of parents begin any discourse with the assumption that their child is in the right. 

And let’s not forget the insulting misconception that we’re all skipping out the door at half-three, and the constant sniping about the length of our holidays. Throw in recent political point-scoring and a certain coronavirus, and we’re left with quite a heady cocktail.

So, yes, this madness has been brewing for some time. But we can at least console ourselves with the fact that, as the end of term approaches, the plot twists must surely lessen. I mean, they have to. Right?

Paul Read is a teacher and writer