AI-generated parental complaints overwhelm teachers, education leaders warn

Educators are reporting an exponential rise in AI-generated parental complaints that is keeping some teachers up at night, education leaders say. A survey by Teacher Tapp found that 61% of school heads have noticed artificial intelligence being used in complaints they’ve received, a trend described as a growing administrative burden for schools.

Some families are drafting letters that stretch to dozens of pages, leaving teachers with hours of reading and responding to do. In one case reported by education leaders, a complaint concerned a pupil being given a cold packed lunch rather than a warm meal. In another, a mother criticized a teacher for covering a pupil’s verruca with gym tape before a gymnastics lesson. Educators say AI-generated letters often pull in random case-law from other countries and demand draconian sanctions that do not reflect the facts of the situation.

Louise Clements McLeod, a National Association of Head Teachers representative in Norfolk, told Schools Week that late-night emails are a common pattern, with heads worrying about mounting complaints and the impact on staff wellbeing. John Walker, a partner at PHP law who assists schools with complaints, said he has observed an exponential rise in AI-generated letters since January 2024, now accounting for roughly a third of his cases. He cautioned that many threats in these letters are not grounded in relevant law. Adam Jackson, a senior associate at Winckworth Sherwood Law, added that some parents quote old or foreign laws and present rights that do not apply in the local system.

At Lakenham Primary School in Norwich, a headteacher received a four-page formal complaint the morning after a pupil’s verruca was covered with gym tape during a PE lesson. The letter, written by the child’s mother, laid out steps of “what they were going to do towards us because of us breaching human rights.” Daniel Cusani, deputy head of Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Kent, described a 60-page document generated by AI that criticized exams and quoted material from the internet.

The broader context includes a 2024 summer poll by Parentkind suggesting more than five million formal complaints about schools in the previous year. In July, Sir Anthony Seldon warned that many teacher friends in the state sector had noticed a rise in vexatious complaints, arguing that they consume time in a system already operating near capacity. A Department for Education spokesman emphasized the importance of partnership among parents, schools, and government, while signaling a move toward making the system more robust and capable of resolving issues earlier in the best interests of children.