Why are headteachers being abused?

How bells at parents evening, carrots and sticks led us to 75% of heads being abused and how common goals and compassion could fix it.

Photo by Calvin Ma on Unsplash

We don’t need to look any further than A-level psychology to understand why headteachers are being abused. It's not OK. Headteachers should obviously not be abused. Parents should also not feel so desperate and impotent that they lash out. But let's stop blaming social media platforms or parents and open our eyes to the populist politics that have led us to this point.

75% of headteachers have been verbally abused by a parent or carer in the past year according to Schools Week. When I saw this talked about on BBC Breakfast this morning my comment to my husband was, “Surely its more like 100%?” The statistic is not shocking to me. The reason I am writing this article in somewhat of a self-righteous fever is that the BBC coverage of the story only looked as deep as the modality of abuse. The speculation was about whether disinhibition on social media might be making parents more likely to abuse headteachers. No one talked about what causes humans to spit bile at each other.

Social media didn’t cause the abuse - behaviourism did

Blaming social media suggests that we have all always wanted to abuse headteachers we just inhibited ourselves from doing it before. I don’t think so. That is as bonkers as the pieces of paper saying “don’t abuse our staff” in NHS waiting rooms where people are forced to wait with catastrophically ill loved ones for hours before they see a doctor. In fact it is the exact same deficit in reasoning that leads to the blaming and shaming of parents whose children cannot attend school. Instead of seeking to understand the reasons behind attendance difficulties institutions look for simple, behavioural carrot and stick interventions that assume we are merely instinct driven rats in lab. Give us the right incentive and punishment mix and you will receive compliance and docility. Get it wrong and we might abuse 75% of you.

It might just be time to give up the Skinner worship and look for a casual explanation. Thankfully another titanic psychological theory can give us a useful explanation that is so simple it was covered in the first term of my A-level psychology back in 2003.

Social Identity Theory in action

If you divide human beings into two groups and deliberately cultivate division and dehumanization of “the others” they will come to blame each other for all their problems and will eventually fight each other. This is the instinctive knowledge of every successful populist politician. Trump, Farage and Braverman do it shamelessly with their talk of invasions of immigrants and (barely) cloaked references to eugenics. Dean (2024) explains how this corrosive politics takes hold via the mechanisms of Tajfel and Turner’s (1979) Social Identity Theory (SIT) here. Unfortunately, in education in the UK Phillipson has carried on where Keegan left off in pushing through policy and communication strategies that firmly place local authorities (somewhat unfairly represented in the community by headteachers) and parents against each other, thus facilitating an in-group/out-group scenario that would make a fantastic psychology textbook vignette.

We don’t need to look too hard to see examples of SIT in action in the relations between schools and parents.

Categorisation

Schools make categorisation of “parents” and "staff" comically explicit and have consequently always had a problem with the relationship between professionals and families. The insistent use of titles rather than first names in meetings with parents, the use of the school bell to move people on during parents evening, and the defensiveness with which parental feedback is usually met all contribute to an unconscious division that shuts down empathy. In transactional analysis we might think of these symbolic practices as forcing parents into the “child” position in the relationship making it much more likely that they will behave in rebellious and impulsive ways and making adult-adult conversation impossible. The result is an “us” vs “them” that leads to stereotyping, overgeneralisation and shameful comments in whatsapp groups on both sides. Parents lose empathy for teachers and teachers lose empathy for parents. Who wins there?

Identity Formation

Once we enter the system and know our categories we begin to form an identity as a “school parent” and become interested in causes and activities that further cement that identity. For example some of us will become obsessed with raising money for the PTA, others will become passionate about SEN provision, some will simply lean into the fun of complaining about everything. All of these help us find a comfortable identity groove within our category and we are motivated to double down on it hard. Education staff (in schools and local authorities) will do the same pursuing particular causes and interests that reinforce their identity within the category of “staff.” For the most part this can be positive on both sides, much needed activism is born in identity formation, but it can also lead people to occupy extreme positions, particularly when identity politics is weaponised.

Protection of positive identity through comparison

According to SIT, once we have established an identity we are then motivated to ensure we continue to feel positive about it by positively comparing ourselves to an outgroup. The age old “at least we are doing better than them” phenomena. This is a particularly important concept in contexts where facts may suggest we are not doing all that well and sadly that makes education fertile ground.

How many teachers do you know that believe “the system” is working? I have many teachers in my life and I don’t think a single one has been satisfied at work in the past decade. They tell me they perpetually feel like they are failing children as they are unable to provide the type of flexibility and attention they can see is sorely needed. Many NHS psychologists know exactly what that feels like and it sucks. They are also chronically stressed and exhausted and forced to take on social care roles for which they are ill equipped and under-resourced. On top of this they are confronted by stats that suggest they are not getting good outcomes for children with reductions in social mobility, increased behavioral problems and rising absence. According to SIT people will strive to protect their positive sense of identity by attributing blame and negative qualities to the outgroup. It is therefore completely understandable that under these circumstances teachers, local authorities and government ministers decide that all this is the fault of feckless, lazy parents. The alternative view would harm their sense of personal and professional identity so cannot be tolerated.

Similarly, parents must also strive to protect their sense of positive identity. Faced with the agony of watching our children struggle and the terrifying prospect that they may not be able to attend a school at all we must also find an “other” to blame or we risk falling even deeper into the pit of self criticism (we are already in it). When a clumsily worded letter telling us off for our child’s lack of attendance at school lands on the door mat, or a fine, or a threat of prison, it therefore seems natural to place the blame at the door of the highest authority figure that we will actually meet face to face, the Headteacher of our child’s school.

This is why I am actually surprised, given the context, that more headteachers are not being abused. It is absolutely not OK but it is also absolutely not difficult to understand. A 17 year old psychology student could have written this piece. SIT does face criticisms for reductionism. It needs updating to take better account of intersectionality and fluidity of identity for example and Jaspal (2014) and Crenshaw have done some really valuable work on this. However, this is a sadly simplistic example of SIT in action.

So what is a useful next step? Thankfully SIT does suggest some ways to break down the ingroup/outgroup dynamic and move towards and more compassionate approach. Two strike me as particularly crucial and completely lost at present.

Focus on the common goal

Essentially parents, teachers and local authorities want the same thing. All of us have skin in the education game. We all desire and hope to shape a generation of well adjusted, hopeful and productive young people and all of us have different experiences, expertise and skills to pour into that cause.

Open dialogue

Respectful conversation between parents and education professionals where they are invited to contribute as equals, without the imposition of triggering school hierarchy is imperative to our success. For the avoidance of doubt respectful conversation can never happen in the context of threats. Punishing parents has not led to improved attendance in all the years it has been used and it is shutting down our capacity to talk to each other so it is time for that one to go. Equally, campaigns such as "moments matter” that are based on disrespectfully poor research and very little effort to listen to the experience of parents must be replaced with co-produced, meaningful action research that leads to action that parents tell us will help them and their children.

Does that sound like the polar opposite of sending parents to prison for attendance problems? Yes it absolutely does.

So given that I have mostly talked about social psychology here you might be asking why I, as a Clinical Psychologist, have such a strong opinion on this? It's because the lack of compassion between education systems, parents and students forms a large part of my understanding of why so many parents, young people and teachers are struggling with their mental health. In my clinic and in my personal life as a mum to children with SEND I meet huge numbers of parents, children and professionals whose mental health has been harmed by the adversarial relationships I’ve talked about today. I hope that if we can understand what is happening to us we can also develop the strength and courage to make a fundamental change. To reject the in-group/out-group in favour of mutual respect and focus on our common goals. I know from my clinical practice that individual humans are very capable of doing this and it can transform their lives so I hold out hope.

Maybe Bridget Phillipson will read this…If you would like her to read it please give the article a share and maybe we will get somewhere. It's time to bring the common sense and compassion back to our education system.

Ways to work with me

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