Managing poor parental behaviour – should schools introduce a parent code of conduct?

A poll by the NAHT school leaders’ union, involving more than 1,600 members, has revealed that four in five school leaders have suffered some form of abuse from parents in the last year, including threats, online abuse, discrimination and violence.

The NAHT are now calling on the government to conduct an urgent review of complaints procedures to deter the “vexatious” use of the existing system. They reference parents submitting multiple complaints through various agencies, including the Department for Education (“DfE”) and the Independent Schools Inspectorate (“ISI”), often before the school has had an opportunity to follow their own internal complaints procedure.

Navigating difficult parental conduct is crucially important, now more than ever. Some measures schools can take include limiting parents’ interaction with the school community by banning them from the school site or limiting which members of staff they correspond with. Some schools have had to go further than this, reporting parents to the police or local authority or requiring the removal of their child or children from the school.

Whilst most parents are supportive of the school, it is sometimes the case – despite the school’s best efforts – that the necessary relationship of trust and confidence with parents can irrevocably break down. When this happens, it can have a detrimental effect on the entire school community. In addition, school leaders have a duty of care to staff, who should be able to exercise their professional judgment in a supportive and respectful environment.

In practice, we are anecdotally seeing an increase in schools exploring the option of requiring the removal of pupils due to the poor behaviour of parents. Schools are often afforded the discretion to make such a decision, under the terms of the parent contract, but it is vital that this is taken as a last resort and only once all other options have been considered. It is also important that parents are aware early on of what is expected of them in terms of behaviour and the consequence of non-compliance with these expectations. Schools are already required to have in place staff and pupil codes of conduct and, although not a regulatory requirement, it may be helpful to provide equivalent guidance to parents which make clear what behaviour is acceptable and what is not acceptable.

Having a parent code of conduct in place not only sets boundaries and expectations for the parent-school relationship, but it also assists schools in determining if parental behaviour has reached an unacceptable threshold. A code of conduct will provide schools with a point of reference for parents and, helpfully, reduce any scope for parents to say that they were not aware of the expectations or consequences in this regard. We recommend that, given the increase in instances of poor parent behaviour, schools take the time to review the parent contract to ensure that it provides the discretion to require the removal of a pupil in such circumstances, and consider the introduction of a parent code of conduct or equivalent document which can be tailored to the school’s situation. ISBA has recently published a model Parent Code of Conduct which can be found on their reference library.

If you have a query about managing parent conduct, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the team.