Parents’ evening. Two words that many parents assume are a source of dread for teachers. But most will tell you this is a misconception. Why? Because the evening tends to offer a rare insight into the children we teach. It is, generally, a positive, purposeful discussion.

There are, of course, the dreaded meetings with parents who are convinced you have it all wrong about their child. They will be at pains to point out that an incident with an exercise book, for example, was misunderstood. The book, they will argue, fell accidentally from X’s grip. This, despite the fact your own eyes observed it being unceremoniously flung across the classroom.

Then there is another trying bunch who, in exasperation, ask if they should take their child’s iPad, PS5 or smartphone off them. To which the only answer can ever be that I, as their teacher, am in no place to say since I am not the parent. Meanwhile, their child sits mute, clearly desperate for the ground to open up and swallow them whole.

Now, though, there is the possibility of a newer type of encounter. In this fraught exchange, a parent may ask a teacher to apply values of tolerance and inclusivity to views the teacher believes threatens those values. Given the way that the culture wars have a stranglehold on our politics, it is no surprise schools and teachers are seeing them cross the school gates into our classrooms.

In a lesson on a Shakespearean text designed to discuss the issues of empire and colonialism at the heart of the play, a student may defend the benefits of empire. And a teacher, worried they could be labelled a member of the “woke mob” that the rightwing press claim is taking over our public institutions, may leave the view unchallenged.

This fear for teachers is real. When staff at a Warwickshire secondary school sent home a

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