Schools training leaders to tackle rising parental complaints

A recent poll has been reported by Tes to show that more than half of schools have trained senior leaders to support complaints management in the last year amid an explosion in the number of parental grievances.

The findings from the Browne Jacobson survey – including responses from more than 200 school leaders across over 1,800 schools are reported as showing that 65 per cent of leaders polled felt that complaints had increased.

The most frequently cited reason behind complaints was support for pupils with special educational needs (75 per cent) and general behaviour and discipline issues (74 per cent).

Meanwhile, 71 per cent of school leaders believed that parents and carers were quicker to escalate concerns to the formal stage of the complaints process.

Matthew Shanks, CEO of 15-school trust Education South West, said that his trust trains senior leaders ‘all the time’ in complaints management. He thinks this is something that would be happening in good trusts to ensure staff are prepared.

Browne Jacobson asked which behaviours school or trust leaders considered to be ‘vexatious’, personal attacks or aggressive behaviour towards staff were cited most frequently by 68 per cent of respondents.