Four in five school leaders in England, Wales and Northern Ireland say they have suffered abuse from pupils’ parents in the past year, according to a poll that found they had been spat at, trolled on social media and even physically attacked.
The problem has become so serious that more than two out of five (42%) of those who took part in the survey said they had been forced to ban parents from the school site in the last year. Nearly a third (32%) have reported parents to the police and almost three-quarters (72%) have issued a warning letter or email.
Verbal abuse was the most common issue, with 85% of school leaders saying they had been targeted in the past year, followed by threatening behaviour (68%), online abuse (46%) and discriminatory language (22%), including racist, sexist or homophobic terms.
One in 10 reported physical violence and 4% said they had been spat at in the last 12 months, while others were subjected to hate campaigns, harassment and intimidation. Almost nine out of 10 (86%) said the problem had deteriorated over the last three years.
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