Turns Out British Primary School Parents Behave Worse Than Their Kids

It's not been the best year so far for British parents leading by example, with three schools in as many weeks sending letters out to parents to encourage them to stop doing stuff they probably shouldn't be doing.

At the end of January, Kate Chisholm of Skerne Park Academy in Darlington had to warn parents over their wearing of pyjamas and slippers, not only on school runs, but also in assemblies and parent meetings.

Reportedly, this totally reasonable demand for parents to wear clothes prompted a "pyjama protest", with one mother defiantly doing the school run in her PJs, and another removing her two kids from the school altogether.

On Tuesday, news began to circulate that a primary school in Manchester had to send a letter out asking parents to stop smoking weed at the gates. Deborah Binns, a deputy head at St John's Primary in Radcliffe, warned parents not to use "cannabis around the school premises". The offending elders had apparently "been noticed by some of the older children", who then grassed them up.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said: "The policing team will be working closely with the school, and anyone found to be engaging in such activity will be dealt with accordingly by the police."

Down at Heathcoat Primary School in Tiverton, Devon, meanwhile, parents should be washing their mouths out with soap and water. Staff issued a letter to parents saying they had noticed "some adults […] swearing on the school grounds", adding, perhaps somewhat naively, that "we know that children get upset when they hear these kinds of words".

Schools seem powerless to change parents' behaviour. In the old days, headteachers were able to give naughty parents a hard strike across their backsides, but in today's PC culture, the only way to discipline them is with a 10-minute timeout and, if they repeat-offend, send a note home to their children.