When Sir John Townsley declared that “dreadful parents” were the greatest single problem facing English secondary schools, it was always going to provoke strong reactions.
On one level, he’s right to pick out behaviour. At Teacher Tapp, we ask 10,000 teachers daily what’s causing them stress or worry. This month, 40 per cent named pupil behaviour as their top concern. That figure has topped the charts since 2023, ahead of accountability measures, workload or admin. Behaviour is a problem.
But is “dreadful parenting” the root cause? The picture is far less simple.
What teachers blame for poor behaviour
When we ask teachers directly about sources of stress, “relationships with parents” rarely comes near the top. Teachers are more likely to feel worn down by administrative tasks, marking or even disputes with colleagues.
There’s a phase divide too: nearly three in ten primary teachers say parents are a source of stress, but only 16 per cent of secondary teachers say the same.
Meanwhile, schools are dealing with a generation of pupils growing up in an online world that few adults fully understand.
Just last month, 93 per cent of secondary teachers told us they worry about influencers like Andrew Tate shaping boys’ attitudes, and 83 per cent said they’d prefer an outright ban on mobile phones in school.
These factors have a clear effect on behaviour, but they aren’t things parents can easily control.
So while it’s tempting to pin today’s challenges on “dreadful parents”, the reality is that behaviour problems come from a tangle of influences: technology, culture, poverty, peer norms and, yes, sometimes poor parenting.
When parents are part of the problem
Our data doesn’t let parents off the hook entirely. In fact, it has painted a less flattering picture in recent months.
Abuse
Around one in five teachers say they’ve experienced abusive emails or messages from parents, with the same proportion reporting verbal abuse face-to-face.
Over-communication
Four in ten teachers have been contacted three or more times by the same parent in a single week.
Sanctions undermined
Thirty per cent of teachers said a parent undermined a sanction they’d issued (a return to pre-pandemic levels).
Avoidance
More worryingly, 27 per cent admitted ignoring poor behaviour in the past month because they feared parental backlash.
At the same time, expectations have ratcheted up. More than 80 per cent of teachers believe parents now expect more communication than when they started teaching, and over half say parents hold unrealistic expectations of how much they can do to support children at home.
How to bridge the growing gap
The Education Endowment Foundation states that positive parental engagement can lead to four months of progress, but most teachers lack training for managing these relationships.
Two-thirds of primary teachers and half of secondary teachers have never received parent engagement training. Those who did mostly received in-house training, with only one per cent trained by external specialists. If staff don’t know how to build relationships, frustration is inevitable.
Blaming “dreadful parents” might therefore feel satisfying, but it risks turning allies into enemies.
Primary teachers instinctively know this: 85 per cent say they proactively build relationships with parents. But in secondary schools, less than half do the same.
When teenagers are testing boundaries and teachers need parental backing most, many schools are keeping parents at arm’s length.
That’s why we’re running our annual Settling In Survey, where schools can ask parents and pupils how things are going this term and teachers can see the results. Understanding how families are experiencing the start of the year is the first step in making them partners rather than problems.
If behaviour is now the number-one challenge in schools, then it’s time to stop arguing over whether parents are dreadful and start asking: how do we get them on board?
The difficulty here is that headlines tend to be sensationalised and polarising and divisive.
The reality is that parenting is hard. The term ‘bad parents’ or ‘bad parenting’ can often be misinterpreted as ‘bad people’ – and that is not the case in most instances.
Parenting is a full-time job that is not allowed full time hours because of the need to go to work and pay the bills, so all too often the task of parenting gets shipped out to other people: childminders, nurseries, relatives, friends, etc. Again, they are not bad people, but are lacking the knowledge and time to give to such a vital job. The difficulty here is that rather than acknowledging their lack of knowledge and experience, parents are often affronted or insulted if they are offered guidance on how to parent and some are under the illusion that they are magically bestowed the skills and knowledge when their child is born. They aren’t – it’s a skill that needs to be taught and passed on. But it isn’t being, and it’s not their fault. With each successive generation, the quality of parenting is being diluted – and schools are increasingly having to pick up the pieces – with mixed success. Beyond the instinct of keeping the child alive, warm and fed, everything else must be learned – it is not intrinsic. The problem there is that by the time children start school, their personalities are pretty much fully formed and very hard to fix if they have not been formed with the basics in place: love, kindness, manners, boundaries, etc. School’s can’t fix that as the ship has already sailed. Age 0-4 is where the magic happens (or doesn’t) – and that is where the input is needed. Bad parents are not bad people – they just don’t know how to do it and need training and help – and be open to receiving it.
Has a sub heading indicating what teachers blame for poor behaviour but never actually asked that question directly, so left trying to piece together from other questions. Quite a poor really and disappointed in teacher tapp.
For one, I would have definitely included parenting if asked the question. Unfortunately, many parents will defend their children and consistently complain against sanctions. They will believe everything their child says against teachers. The children get a sense they will get away with things and there will be no consequence at home.
Yes parenting is hard, but this attitude is only making it harder for parents and teachers. Everytime I deal with behaviour or give a sanction, I have to consider the potential backlash and time to deal with it.