Social media: how to prevent and respond to negative parent behaviour

Your school/trust may sometimes need to deal with negative parent/carer behaviours on social media. Take these steps to prevent and deal with any incidents.

Last reviewed on 7 June 2024

School types: All•School phases: All•Ref: 35491

Contents

Make your policies easy to find and understand
Check that your policies set behaviour standards
Explain any policy changes to parents/carers
If there is an incident, follow your policies
Take the matter further as a last resort
Examples from schools

Make your policies easy to find and understand

Make sure parents/carers are clear about the correct procedure to follow when they're unhappy. They may turn to social media if they don't know how to raise a complaint or handle an incident in the appropriate way.

The main policies and procedures parents/carers will need to be aware of in this instance are likely to be:

Ask your senior leaders

How easy are our policies to find on the school/trust website? Are paper copies available too?
How easy are our policies to understand for all our parents/carers?
Do we regularly remind parents/carers about key policies in our newsletters or other updates?
Do we set aside any time to talk to parents/carers about our policies?
Are staff clear on our complaints procedure, and able to signpost parents/carers to take the right steps?

Proactively set expectations for parent/carer behaviour on social media, and be

Social media: how to prevent and respond to negative parent behaviour

Your school/trust may sometimes need to deal with negative parent/carer behaviours on social media. Take these steps to prevent and deal with any incidents.

Make your policies easy to find and understand

Ask your senior leaders

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