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Who is school for? The parent?

Over the next few posts I am going to break down the three stakeholders in a little more detail.


The Child is the easiest label to define as it depends entirely on the child's capability and development. From birth through to adolescence the child will progress from wanting their concerns addressing to achieving autonomy and being the primary decision maker.

Over the same period, the Parent (same labelling caveats apply as before) should transition from being the primary decision maker to wanting their concerns addressed.  So who is the Parent?  I've heard an annoyance, a waste of time, over protective, demanding...

The School is the most complex, comprising of Teachers, pastoral staff, support staff...


I'm ditching these openers. I ran out of patience too quickly with this one and could not even complete the thought as it riled me up so much.


The Parent

I am starting here because from experience this has been the hardest position to be in.

Years of experience with other people's kids mean nothing to how you handle your relationships with your own kids, they are the ones who best know your trigger points, but worse, they are the ones who see your vulnerabilities, the you without the social masks.

Your children are on the receiving end of your frustrations, overhear the conversations of your struggles and then ask the questions you really don't want to answer. Then at the point you think you are finally doing a decent job, puberty kicks in and you stop being the decision maker in your child's life, you are the buffer desperately trying to keep them safe as they make increasingly ridiculous decisions.

At the worst possible time in this redeveloping parent child relationship, the school entity shifts from having a single voice (Primary school teacher) into a plethora of voices, a multi-headed hydra with communication and responsibility issues.


To add insult to injury, when my child's school phones I am just another parent to them. 

For me this is especially jarring as I am not being spoken to as a fellow teacher or a potential future colleague, they do not want my professional input because they are the ones making decisions about my child.


Therefore, when the Early Careers Teacher who has been "entrusted" with a form rings and tries to explain how the bullying my child is suffering is not as bad as my child is making out and they believe it would be best for my child if they just... 

It is hard to remain professional, but I respond that I have already spoken to Mrs X and they are fully aware of the situation and are putting an action plan in place, "are they not aware of this?"

The teacher is flustered and responds negatively 


That was a fabrication, my children's schools have actually been fantastic, but how many parents are on the receiving end of such situations and actively ignored? 





Equally where a parent is the primary stakeholder and the child is not of reduced capability, the relationship dynamic will inevitably become toxic and the child and school will end up siding against the parent.


To clarify that:

Within primary education there is a very close network of communication between school, parent and child.  The child is of reduced capacity therefore the parent is the primary stakeholder and the school and child flit between roles as necessary.

The transition to secondary is much harder as no single person can be the primary point of contact, the recipient and mediator of all information pertaining to the child's development that can be clearly expressed to the parent. This means the child is the only person with the power and knowledge to fully manipulate the situation, being teenagers they do and relish in the one-upmanship with overbearing parents.


I am 48 and diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD, I've been manipulated my entire life and learnt all the pattern recognition the hard way, so I now take enjoyment from watching kids pulling the wool over adults eyes. 

It also means that in parental meetings the child's voice is heard first and foremost, granting power is the easiest method of subverting power struggles and also binds the child to the agreements they have consciously made opposed to the kind that are imposed upon them.

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