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positive praise I mention as an example and that the first time I'd heard it was on the intro course

Unfortunately it happens quite a lot as the teacher wants to say something and knows they can catch the parent at home time. Other parents are often quick to judge. The best thing is to say to the teacher you would prefer it if they rang / emailed you and if they wanted a face to face meeting you would be happy to arrange a time with them. Not good to talk in front of the children really either - or of course other parents - and it’s not confidential at all so not much you could bring up yourself

As parents, we used to laught about the walk of shame. It was always the same, the TA (not the teacher!) would appear at the door, scan the crowd of parents, then her eyes would alight on the victim..... "Jane Smith's Mummy? Mrs X would like a word with you please?" and the victim would shuffle in as the other parents breathed a collective sigh of relief that it wasn't them! I didn't always find other parents always particularly supportive, but most were united in making fun of this - from sending a TA out to losing your identity and being simply somebody's mummy. I hope you have some supportive parents who aren't judging you in the playground

It's a while back now since my tricky child was in primary but I do recall a large red letter being handed to me publicly one day. Red was bad news, of course. I was furious as everyone could see. I complained and it never happened again. They dropped the red letters too I think. We had a home school book for a while and email was used for more serious matters. My DH once went to an info meeting in the classroom to see the only name on the red traffic light was dd's. He was mortified and complained afterwards but couldn't do anything once in the meeting without drawing attention to it, so everyone else must have seen it. Generally the school were responsive though, once they realised the impact of their actions and did their very best to support dd. Also both mine had a tendency to be last out / looking for lost items so it wasn't unusual for us to be the last to leave the playground - plenty of chance for private chats with the teacher! What really got to me was mid evening phone calls from secondary school. She seemed to be under the auspices of workaholic senior staff at both schools she went to, who thought nothing of telling us all about her terrible day at 7 or 8 pm. We dreaded the sound of the phone ringing but were more scared of having to wait till the next day to find out, so couldn't not answer. So much better now she's at college - not perfect but they only contact us very occasionally and it's rarely bad news!

well worn walk of shame here in the past - also had one teacher who would phone at 9.30pm to let me know of the days misdemeanours - so every schoolday evening was ruined for me as I was waiting for that call on the dot of 9.30 - if I unplugged the phone I then had to plug it in again to find out that there had been a problem and like milly would have to wait until the next day to find out! If it was other pupils belongings going missing - we would go in early the next day as she was so good at "finding things" Even remembering those days sends a shudder down my spine

I hate the habit of secondary school teachers of ringing in the evening - not usually willing to listen to advice but wanting the parents to “sort it out” - very often too it turned out they hadn’t read the informative emails sent round by the SENCO as they wanted to “make up their own mind”!!!!!

I went through a two year period of the walk of shame at two different doors of the school. The poster above that describes being called XXXX’s mummy was lucky. I just got the beckoning finger across the playground. I realised eventually that the beckoning finger works both ways and I would beckon the teacher to me. Sometimes they came but after a while they got the message. Luckily things have changed now and the need for the walk of shame has largely subsided. My wife became a governor of the school which had helped change the culture a little.

Gosh, I was lucky. My "tricky kid" has a school who usually email once school is out, or early evening. if they want to let us know there's a problem. Once we got a daytime phone call as it was serious. That was followed up by a letter. Generally the emails are in a concerned tone, and asking for our input. Previous school only contacted us once about an issue, and as I was working in the school kitchen at the time, the head just told the kitchen manager that ds was upset and could I pop through to see her and him ! Never once have I had a teacher come out of school at end or start of day. At his present school parents wait outside the school gates (some of us wait across the other side of the (quiet side) street !) while teachers make a fast exit at the back of the grounds. At his first school here, the teacher would have needed to walk through a large crowd in a narrow passage as I waited at the end of the lane, to avoid getting caught in the rush (of kids charging for the gate) They didnt bother, just drove straight past us from the car park !! Maybe we are just more chilled here !

With AD the "walk of shame" at Primary was an almost daily, definitely weekly occurrence (many years ago now, though) - in Year 1 we parents would hang around the classroom door (which opened onto the playground) and I would almost always be "spoken to" about AD's behaviour - she "couldn't focus", "wriggled", "didn't listen to instructions"; "had been rude or dis-respectful" ... I tried providing all sorts of resources for the teacher and pointing out that I can't help a child not to wriggle when I'm not physically present but can suggest some strategies that might work. Year 1 was awful. Year 2 and 3 moved to bullying and further rudeness / defiance and then Year 4 to stealing. Still the walk of shame but with more emphasis on my then visiting the school to "explain what I was going to do about it". Errr ... With AS (who is still in Primary - Year 4 and about to move into Year 5) they take a completely different approach. If AS is found to be "not doing the right thing" one of the Deputy Heads calls to discuss it with me (always during the school day or appropriately afterwards - never after 5pm). They really do want a discussion and I think that they are learning about behaviours from my responses as much as I am benefiting from their supporting AS (there is another, slightly more challenging, adopted child in AS's class whose parent arranged for Family Futures to come and educate the school staff, which definitely helped). It also helped that with AS I consulted, and still consult as necessary, a Clinical Psychologist to help to understand what might be going on for AS for him to do some of the things that he has done. Have to say that with the transition from Year 3 to Year 4 (so almost a year ago) I had on average 3-4 calls per week (once stunningly 6 calls in a week) for the first three weeks (DH and I called in for a meeting with the Head on this one this is when I called in the Clinical Psychologist)) and then nothing . We sorted it out together. Deputy Head (appointed as AS's "go to person if in any need") and I are working on a transition plan for the move to Year 5. With AD at Secondary it was all fairly OK for most of the time, early days. No, what am I saying? We got calls (rarely after 6pm till Year 8 or 9). We would get follow up letters saying roughly "Your child has done this bad thing [insert bad thing here] ... I'm sure that you'd like to discuss this with your child". Errr. But with AD through Secondary and the swirling soap opera that she created for herself from around Year 9 / 10 (only relatively minor stuff prior to that) her Head of Year (who moved through the years and was still her Head of Year for Year 11) used to call me as and when he could. I also called him; he was receptive to my calls. We did work things out together. He was frustrated that nothing really seemed to work; DH and I were equally frustrated - "go to" people; mentoring; mediation; time out passes - that AD could initiate - nothing seemed to make any difference. But I guess that what I'm getting at is that the school's way of handling (and understanding) of certain children's behaviours is really key. My AD's Primary didn't understand and didn't want to. My AS's Primary do understand and really try to understand more. My AD's Secondary took a bit of poking to get them to understand but in the end they did and they were incredibly supportive in difficult circumstances for them (they excluded her for various reasons). So, the school and its understanding and attitudes really do make a difference, in my experience.

I never had this at the three primary schools my girls attended. My problem was the opposite- barely any communication at all!

Now AD is in year 6 we don’t have this at pick up anymore as she walks herself home so we miss the walk of shame, I regularly get phone calls from the schools SW/counsellor she’s very sweet about everything but doesn’t listen to our suggestions. We used to have a really good relationship with the schools SENCo and the head of KS2 strangely both were men who AD had a good relationship with, both have since left the school and been replaced with females which AD has a rocky relationship with and we have a non existent one. Plenty of e-mails also go between the school and us we include our PASW for moral support. I do think that schools could find a better way of communicating with parents other than the walk of shame (which we did at least twice a week before year 6), maybe an e-mail after school and a meeting the following day in an office rather than in front of the whole school.

Mine are all in secondary now so not so much of an issue. One secondary doesn’t know the meaning of the word communication but I have tracked down HoY email address so go straight to him if I need to. The other school uses home school books, Dojo and WhatsApp. And if there’s anything important pick up the phone and call!

I would challenge this, if it ever happened. An email after school ( or a phone call at time of incident if urgent) and maybe a meeting if required seems good practise. If my boys schools can do it ( two state, one private) then any school can. They will be unlikely to treat your response with respect if they think they can treat you this way. It's too public, shaming for kid as well as parent, and simply not good practise and we have enough troubles with our children not to need this kind of thing. If we want to have respect we need to call it out, even if it's just " not thinking" . I would have kept my head down and ignored it, or asked for email or telephone next time, and complain in writing or have a word with head if it happened again. ( or next level up if it was the head doing it) I do like Ford Prefects' response of returning the beckoning finger though !!!

Younger dd's head of year is amazing - luckily hoys at her school move up with the year so I'm hoping he'll stay till the end of year 11. He will phone if there's an issue (it's never about her behaviour so far less worrying than calls we got re dd1.) . Also he answers emails very promptly. Recently dd was in a state about her first lesson the next day. I emailed him to ask him to see her before the lesson. She scoffed that he wouldn't reply till the morning (this was 9.30 at night) and I responded that I wasn't expecting an immediate reply and next morning would be fine. However to my huge surprise he replied within 5 minutes and dd went to bed happy! (Doesn't say much for his private life but hey, it helped us out!)

Now that's what I would call, not a walk of shame but a walk of pride ( if another section of society hadn't already appropriated that definition !! )