A trust CEO has blamed worsening behaviour in schools on “dreadful parents” who side-stepped the “reality of tough love” when they were growing up.

Gorse Academies Trust boss Sir John Townsley believes their conduct is “the greatest single problem facing” English secondaries, with the issue denting staff morale and the performance of disadvantaged pupils.

Writing in the Telegraph over the weekend, Townsley argued secondaries have reached a “tipping point” over behaviour, after a “a powerful minority of parents” emerged 10 years ago.

‘Dreadful parents’

“The majority of those parents were born in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their arrival coincided with dramatic alterations in home and school discipline,” he said.

“Consequently, these were the first of our children to side-step the reality of tough love. Many are now dreadful parents.”

Despite being a “significant minority”, their impact is “profound”.

Townsley said they defend their children’s “disruptive conduct … at every turn” and attack teachers “who seek to challenge that behaviour” through “formal complaints, Freedom of Information requests and exhausting legal actions”.

This has a “devasting impact on professional morale and well-being”, contributing to “the exodus of great teachers and leaders and a sense of professional hopelessness in schools”.

Impact ‘central’ to disadvantage gap

The special education need and disabilities code is also “mercilessly manipulated in their defence”.

“Most of the families who behave in this manner are not disadvantaged, but the negative impact on disadvantaged pupils is extensive and deep-rooted,” Townsley continued.

“This is because we know that children [who] have the least, whose families’ lives are characterised by privation, achieve disproportionately badly where behaviour standards are poor.”

This impact “is central to the embarrassing reality that despite a budget of close to £80 billion being spent in improving the academic performance of disadvantaged children since 2011, no improvements whatsoever have been forthcoming”.

‘Greatest single problem’

“This painful reality is seldom talked about but is now the greatest single problem facing secondary schools across our country today. System-wide improvement will not emerge until the system accepts and engages with this greatest of new challenges.”

This isn’t the first run-in Gorse has had with parents. In 2016, the Independent revealed Townsley’s solicitors threatened to sue parents who compared him to a dictator in a private Facebook group.

His lawyers told the paper it was “not an attempt to curb freedom of speech”. Instead, it was “about the right of senior staff to do their jobs without fear of harassment”.

In 2022, the West Leeds Dispatch reported over 2,100 people signed a petition calling on Gorse to loosen rules around the use of mobile phones, including a 48-hour confiscation policy.

Meanwhile, the trust was embroiled in a high court battle earlier this year after a legal challenge from families whose pupils had spent up to half a year in “unpleasant and distressing” isolation rooms at one of its schools.

High Court judge Justice Collins Rice called the practice “stigmatising” and “deliberately under-stimulating” – but found the academy had not “crossed the boundaries of what the law or good practice permits”.

Meanwhile, the Farnley Academy in Leeds, dropped from ‘outstanding’ to ‘requires improvement’ in 2019 following criticisms relating to unexplained pupil moves and the over-use of isolation at one of its schools. A trust spokesperson said it “got this wrong and we apologise”.

It is now one of eight of the trust’s schools rated ‘outstanding’, while four are ‘good’ and three are yet to be inspected.

Changes to complaints system

Gorse said the high court verdict sent a “strong message” across the sector “about the right of schools to apply appropriate sanctions when behaviour falls short”, despite it being “regrettable” the claims were brought “at significant public expense”.

It comes after education secretary Bridget Phillipson revealed last week that the upcoming schools white paper will establish “clear expectations of schools” for parent engagement and “improve how school complaints are made and resolved”.

She added the current complaints system “isn’t working as well as it could, either for parents or for schools”.

But the government will “continue to guard against any mistreatment of our hard-working school staff, because there can never be any place for abuse”.

A Schools Week investigation in March revealed how school leaders have been confronted outside their homes, spat at and “offered out” for fights as abuse from parents surges.

The number of Teaching Regulation Agency misconduct referrals leapt by more than 60 per cent to almost 1,700 in 2023-24. This was “largely driven” by an increase in the number coming from members of the public, the agency said.

Figures obtained through Freedom of Information show they accounted for 54 per cent (1,775) of the 3,300 misconduct reports lodged in the last two years.