What Teachers Wish Parents Knew

Empty classroom, late light, chairs still out. Somewhere in this room your child spent six hours today doing something you did not see, in a version of themselves you may not recognise.

Teachers and parents are looking at the same child through two windows. Most of what goes wrong between them is not conflict. It is the assumption that there is only one view.

The child you send is not always the child they meet

Some children mask all day and collapse at the gate. Others are calm at home and dysregulated in a crowded corridor. Both are real. When a teacher says "we don't see that here," it is usually a description, not a contradiction — and the useful next question is what the day is costing.

Six things school staff say most often

1. 01Tell us early. A quiet word in October prevents a crisis in February.
2. 02Be specific. "Struggling" is unactionable; "cries every Tuesday before PE" is a plan.
3. 03Homework is not a loyalty test. Write to us if it is destroying your evenings — most of us will reduce it.
4. 04Please don't tell us at pickup. We have thirty coats and a bus. Email gets a considered answer.
5. 05Back the boundary even when you disagree with it, then challenge us privately.
6. 06Tell us about home. We are not judging; we are calibrating.

“A child does not need every adult in the building to understand them. They need one who does, and who they know by name.”

Sian Trombley

How to ask for something and actually get it

1. 01
   Lead with the observation

   Two sentences of fact, no diagnosis, no history.

2. 02
   Name the pattern

   When it happens, how often, what precedes it.

3. 03
   Ask for one adjustment

   One. Specific. Small enough to say yes to this week.

4. 04
   Offer a review date

   "Could we try it for three weeks and check in?" makes it a trial, not a commitment.

5. 05
   Say thank you in writing

   Staff remember the families who noticed. It buys goodwill you may need in March.

When to escalate

Go beyond the class teacher when attendance is slipping, when your child is frightened to go in, when a safeguarding or bullying concern is not being actioned, or when reasonable adjustments have been agreed and are not happening. Ask for the pastoral lead or SENCo by name, and put it in writing.