Principal's 'bloody brilliant' note sent home to 'critical parents'

A school principal who pulled no punches in a letter sent home to parents has been praised for defending his teachers.

Colin Dowland, principal at Woodridge Primary School in London, sent a letter home to parents on Tuesday (local time) acknowledging it is “an exceptionally difficult time for all of you and your children” during the country’s third Covid lockdown.

Schools in England remain closed except for children deemed vulnerable or who have parents working in essential jobs such as medical professionals.

It means most children are learning from home via Zoom or some form of online education.

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In the letter, Mr Dowland thanked parents for sending “helpful and supportive” messages to teachers during this time and said he hoped they have found this “unprecedented access” to their children’s educators helpful.

However, he then wrote a withering takedown of “highly critical” parents who are interfering with the teachers’ work.

“A number of parents have taken advantage of this new access to send highly critical messages of advice to teachers about how to do their jobs and questioning their training, skills and competence,” Mr Dowland wrote.

“Can I encourage all those particular parents, who now consider themselves to be educational experts, to sign up for teacher training at their earliest convenience, since there are never enough teachers and I suspect many will be leaving the profession after this year.

“I will also update you if we have any teaching vacancies at Woodridge over the next few weeks, which if such messages continue, I am thoroughly expecting.”

The principal didn’t stop there.

He also provided a link to where people can get trained in teaching.

Principal’s letter praised online

While some people might have taken offence to his letter, a majority of people praised Mr Dowland on Twitter.

“How many of us can relate? Mr Dowland, I salute you sir,” one man tweeted.

Others called the letter “bloody brilliant” and an example of somebody “telling it how it is”.

“Outstanding well done Woodridge Primary School,” another man tweeted.

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