Parents are increasingly targeting teachers with inappropriate verbal abuse and criticism via social media and email, a teaching union has warned.
The NASUWT Scotland union says that the Covid pandemic and the mass switch to remote learning drove up incidents of “parent bombing”, whereby parents intervene during live online lessons.
The union warns that teachers are “increasingly under pressure to provide 24-hour support to pupils”, and that this is driving a rise in the “relentless contact” of staff by parents, in some cases to berate or criticise teachers.
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Members of NASUWT Scotland will, at its annual conference today, call for greater action by schools and for national guidance for employers on appropriate parental contact.
Call for guidance on appropriate parent contact with teachers
Patrick Roach, NASUWT general secretary, said: ”Parental engagement with pupils’ learning is important in supporting attainment and progress, and parents have a legitimate right to understand what their child is learning at school.
“However, contact between parents and schools must be appropriate, proportionate and respectful, both of the fact that teachers need a work-life balance and of teachers’ pedagogical knowledge, experience and skills.”
Dr Roach, speaking before today’s online event, said: “Even before the pandemic, teachers were reporting a rise in inappropriate contact and comments being made about them on social media by parents, but the shift to remote teaching over periods of the last year has further encouraged a blurring of the boundaries between home and school. This has led to some parents inappropriately intervening in live lessons, relentlessly contacting teachers in evenings and weekends with questions or comments about their child’s work, and using social media to contact teachers or publicly criticise their teaching.
“Schools need to be absolutely clear about the kind of behaviour expectations that they have for pupils but also for parents. The response of too many schools when teachers report inappropriate contact or behaviour from parents is to shrug their shoulders and tell teachers to get on with it.”
He added: “Regardless of whether abuse or harassment takes place online or physically on school premises, we expect that schools will take seriously their duty of care to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of staff, and make clear to parents the expectations for acceptable parental contact and engagement.
“National guidance is also needed to help reinforce to schools and parents the expectations on appropriate conduct and to ensure that teachers are protected from harassment and abuse.”
Eileen Prior, executive director of national parents’ organisation Connect, said: “We would simply echo [Dr Roach’s comment] that ‘contact between parents and schools must be appropriate, proportionate and respectful’.
“We have to recognise that we are in extremely anxious times (for teachers and parents) and so the response of school leaders and staff is critically important in addressing parents’ concerns in a meaningful, proportionate and respectful way, to de-escalate situations where at all possible.”
