The following is an exclusive extract from a cover article in the forthcoming spring edition of Attain magazine. The full article can be read online when Attain is published on Wednesday 7 January.
We’ve all done it. Wound ourselves up like a tightly coiled spring over a detail we’ve just learned and, before thinking to explore the bigger picture, fired off a text or an email in a fit of rage. Invariably perspective arrives the following morning and we are left regretting that communication and wondering how we will pick up the pieces to find a reasonable solution to the original problem. A problem which, by then, has normally paled into insignificance.
It is a situation that most of us only usually see from one side of the fence, but headteachers are part of a profession that sees the other side all too often. Heads are more accessible to parents than they have ever been thanks to the digital revolution and a constant stream of new methods of communication (yes, some heads are even on WhatsApp). The problem is that these instant modes of contact allow so little time to take a step back and consider ourselves and how we come across. For heads, this can mean taking the brunt of any frustrations that a parent may have experienced as the day’s angst is poured into an email complaint about a child’s lost shoe.
Attain decided to investigate the nature of parents’ direct communications with headteachers and schools, and around 100 heads responded to our request for their experiences. It is not only clear from these responses that heads are the target of much misplaced frustration, but also that this frustration is nearly always expressed through one particular medium: email.
Thanks to smartphones, emails can be sent from any location, even – as some reported – from the side of the road on the way back from the school run. Unfortunately, senders tend to harbour the expectation of an instant response and many of the emails sent are used to vent emotion. One head said: “I have heard people make an analogy of emails to road rage. The protective force of a computer screen/car makes people behave differently, and more usually, in a more arrogant manner.”
One of the fascinating things that came out of this discussion of parental communication was that schools can quite easily discern patterns to emails, with correlations between the time of day and state of mind of the sender. One head told Attain: “We have noted some interesting characteristics with emails from parents. Most of those received during school hours are normally brief and request information and clarification or notify absence etc. The majority of difficult emails are sent by parents in the evening. Those that are composed earlier in the evening tend to be shorter and often relate to an incident freshly described by their child. Emails later in the evening, after what we refer to as the ‘glass of wine threshold’, are usually the longest ones and often include rhetorical flourishes that would be more fitting in an historical novel.”
Indeed the “glass of wine threshold” appears to be recognisable to a large number of schools, with more than one in 10 mentioning that it was clear when a parent had been drinking before composing an email. Attain’s editor, Matthew Smith, was surprised at the findings: “It seems clear that a small minority of parents do not think about the outcome they are looking to achieve when sending emails to heads and think it is acceptable to just fire off rants on the basis that they are the customer.
“Firstly, they should always resist going straight to the top – contact a more appropriate member of staff first before escalating something to the head. Secondly, if the matter is important, provide a clear outline of the facts as you see them and request a meeting. This then gives the head an opportunity to investigate. Too many parents seem to blindly accept their child’s account of a situation without maintaining a healthy scepticism. It is absolutely right to complain when something is wrong – but not at midnight and not after one too many glasses of wine! And never, never copy other parents into an email in order to muster support over a particular issue – email is not a tool for creating ad-hoc petitions.”
The vast majority of parents have no cause to complain to their child’s school. If the situation arises, they do so respectfully and put aside emotions to ensure the best outcome for their child. What is clear from Attain’s survey is that a small minority of parents cause a considerable amount of work and unnecessary stress.
Hannah Webster is the communications manager for IAPS.
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