‘I was punched in the face': The teachers navigating a tidal wave of parental abuse

Telegraph

12-03-2025

When a head teacher calls in a parent because their child has assaulted another pupil, they might reasonably expect a reaction of shock, embarrassment, upset or, at worst, defensiveness.
What Sean McNamee got was a punch in the face.
'The boy was getting into trouble and getting involved in fights, but I knew there were pressures at home,' says the primary school head. 'I had to suspend him for the attack on another child, and I hoped when his mum came to collect him, we could have a chat and form a plan of what to do. But she arrived at school, came in the door, saw me and punched me.'
Shaking with disbelief and concerned for his staff, McNamee followed the parent as she marched up the stairs into the classroom, got her child and marched out, all the while hurling abuse at horrified staff and children.
Despite its appalling nature, the head's experience is not rare.
Survey findings released in the first week of March by the National Association of Head Teachers reveal that four in five school leaders have been subjected to verbal or physical abuse, threats, harassment or online trolling in the past 12 months. Like McNamee, one in 10 suffered physical violence.
The vast majority of the 1,600 respondents think that this abuse is on the rise, with more than a third warning it is becoming almost endemic.
'When certain parents phone up, staff in the school office recognise the number and want to let it ring because they know they will have to face a torrent of expletives,' says McNamee, who runs St Paul's Primary, in Belfast.
School leader Debra Walker has been slapped across the face by a parent, threatened with murder by another and had to call the police when a woman came into school 'screaming and shouting' after taking exception to a psychologist's report about her child.
Walker, the chief executive of the Iris Learning Trust, which runs three primary schools in the north-east of England, cites a parent, upset about a coat going missing, screaming in the face of a teacher who was seven months pregnant. Another colleague was spat at.
In yet another case, Kevin Flanagan, the head teacher of Pensby High School in Wirral, was subjected to a campaign of harassment by Keith and Stephanie Critchley, including turning up at his family home and verbally abusing him at the school gates, after their daughters were given detentions.
What such incidents seem to demonstrate, coupled with worsening pupil behaviour and high absence rates across the country, is the collapse of the social contract between parents and schools.
Experts such as Amanda Spielman, the former head of Ofsted, point to an undermining of trust and a growing perception that school is 'optional', fuelled by the Covid school lockdowns and a series of strikes by teachers. Progressive school policies on sex education and gender identity have left some families suspicious about what is being taught, while others argue that schools are not 'woke' enough.
At the same time, a wider culture which prioritises individual needs, desires, self-expression and wellbeing is increasingly at odds with traditional notions of discipline and with school rules and structures; the kinds of rules and structures that seem to apply less and less to other areas of work and life.
Making matters worse is social media, where one parent's grumble can spread like wildfire, creating a 'them versus us' mentality that breeds discontent.
Mini mutinies among parents abound, from complaints about children having to change into PE kits to unfounded claims of bullying, says McNamee.
And in an era when there is hypervigilance about safeguarding, parents are also increasingly inclined to believe whatever their child tells them.
''My child does not tell lies' is a phrase I hear quite a lot,' says the head. 'That might be so, but their perceptions of an event are often very different to the reality.'
Other teachers report similar issues: 'Pupils sometimes misreport incidents and parents immediately resort to aggression rather than discuss the situation and identify misunderstandings,' says one NAHT member.
Barry Smith, a former school leader known for his strict discipline policies, thinks that what happens in schools reflects what happens in society.
'Authority has been eroded in schools, and across society and teachers can be on the receiving end of that,' he says.
For some parents, taking to Facebook and criticising the school is 'how they demonstrate to their peer group 'Look what a good parent I am''.
'You get lots of likes, and positive strokes and people respond with 'Yeah, you tell them'; it gives them validation,' says Smith.
Geraint Edwards, the head teacher at Hitchin Priory School, in Hertfordshire, has also noticed an increasing readiness to use the school complaints procedure, sometimes vindictively.
'Parents often won't be satisfied by the answer. They just won't let things go,' he says. 'They contact the governors and Ofsted. Every complaint becomes incredibly time-consuming, drawn out and energy-sapping, and detracts me from the strategic work I should be doing.'
At the heart of many parental challenges – on everything from toilet breaks and uniform policy to the sanctions used by schools – is a feeling that their particular child's needs are not being met. And the list of 'needs' is expanding exponentially.
At McNamee's school, the number of pupils flagged up because of concerns about social, emotional and behavioural development is rapidly increasing. A recent check on one class revealed it applied to 18 out of 21 children.
Yet St Paul's Primary is allocated just six educational psychologist slots a year and there are 14 children on the waiting list, with increasingly frustrated parents.
'We have no extra resources to deal with this explosion of special educational needs [SEN],' says McNamee. 'We spend all our time and effort trying to maintain the status quo. Every corner you turn there is another obstacle.'
Smith, too, highlights the rise of the special needs agenda.
'There is an explosion of people being diagnosed with autism or ADHD or anxiety,' he says. 'It is an expanding market; at one point it was naughty boys, then it was girls who were undiagnosed and now it is adults. It's a money-making industry.'
School must make 'reasonable adjustments' for children with additional needs – needs that do not necessarily have to have the official diagnosis that can trigger extra funding.
But who decides what 'reasonable adjustments' are? Should a child prone to outburst or who has anxiety be allowed time-outs, a part-time timetable and no detentions? If a child has 'sensory issues', should the rule on school shoes not apply to them?
'Heads feel they have to bow down to an increasing set of demands and unrealistic expectations because they are afraid parents will go to Ofsted, turn up at the school gates or attack them on social media,' says Smith.
'They are afraid they will be seen as not being inclusive and breaching the law around protected characteristics. But these demands chip away at the rules and structures that maintain order. Schools can have up to 2,000 teenagers milling around each day. The rules and structures are there for a reason; it risks the whole thing breaking down.'
According to Smith, 80 per cent of senior leadership's time is spent dealing with 20 per cent of pupils and parents.
'If you have a school of 1,000 children, with 10 per cent from difficult families; that is 100 families you have to handle day in, day out,' he says. 'The time that schools are devoting to these children and families is time not being spent on other pupils.'
Some parents are deflecting their own shortcomings onto schools, suggests Hitchin Priory's Edwards.
'In the society we live in, it is sometimes very difficult to criticise, openly, the parents and their roles and responsibilities,' he says. 'There are parents that delegate their responsibilities and look for who to blame. That is a generalisation, but it is also a fact in some cases.'
He points out that children spend only about 18 per cent of time in school: 'The rest of the time they are with their parents – what are they doing?' he asks. 'Some parents need to reflect rather than blame – I've said that a few times and it doesn't go down very well.'
McNamee feels teachers have no choice but to 'move forward because there is no escape'. Schools cannot exclude a pupil because of the behaviour of their parents. The 'punishment' for the mother who punched McNamee was a ban from school grounds and a visit by police. In time, there was even a degree of rapprochement between the pair.
McNamee believes the world around us mirrors and even condones the kind of aggressive behaviour that some parents are subjecting schools to.
'Look at how JD Vance and Donald Trump rounded on President Zelensky,' he says.' It worries me; that willingness to pick a fight. Children see it and it legitimises that behaviour. It is a dangerous way for us to be.'
Meanwhile, the head teacher does his job, but the environment takes its toll: 'Your body gets used to being on high alert' he says. 'I don't know the last time I had a full night's sleep; Sundays are terrible.'