AIBU to expect confidentiality after raising concerns with a charity?

Even before I was a teacher I worked see incorrect science. You don’t need to see a curriculum map/ SOW to know that what is being taught is wrong and introducing many misconceptions.

Mostly I just correct my children at home (primary level) with connects that teachers can’t be experts in everything and it is ok for teachers to make mistakes. I’m sure some got back to the teacher who might not be happy.

But it was a more fundamental issue and I was given the brush off I would seek guidance elsewhere.

teachers/ schools aren’t infallible and parents are fully justified in questioning what we teach. As professionals we should be able to answer those questions.

Excellent points, and good analogies. There certainly are many parents who would seek to change content and practice, with little or no expertise or evidence.

Good points 👍

I think this has to be considered within the context of scale and also responsibility.

Two different examples:

A house burns down, there are fatalities, and yet no smoke alarms were fitted. The fire service reports that the use of smoke alarms would have avoided the tragedy. The family pushes back and claims that if the fire service had responded more quickly, then there wouldn't have been any fatalities. While both are potential true, one is more easy (smoke alarms) to rectify than the other (structural problems due to funding).

A smoker and drinker has a stroke and is left with life changing injuries. The family complains saying that the treatment received in hospital was inadequate. At inquest it's found that although treatment could have been marginally better, the outcome would likely still have been the same.

In both cases the public are stakeholders here. Various campaigns have been run by both the fire service and the NHS warning people of the consequences of their action or inaction. However, for one reason or another, these haven't secured 100% buy in, and some of that is down to people not really understanding how fire or physiology works. At no point would we expect to see a member of the general public in charge at the scene of a fire or directing medical intervention. And yet, when it comes to education, everyone is an expert based on the fact that they're a parent / went to school. Just because you've been a patient / treated in hospital, we don't hold with the view that you're eminently qualified to practice medicine.

It's strange.

Well, we all have a "right" to do this. I wouldn't waste the time of the local firefighters by suggesting they adopt different practices, because I am not an expert.
However, it happens in schools a lot, and it very much depends what "heard" means. If your workplace changes because of feedback from the public, fine. As I said, it's more difficult with schools.
Perhaps the OP could enlighten us to allow for a productive discussion, though, as we are floundering in the dark somewhat.

I think there’s too much missing info to fully answer, but on the face of it, I don’t see the issue. You raised the complaint to the school and felt they didn’t take you seriously, so you went to the specialist charity, told them the school name and they’ve spoken to the school to discuss it further. It’s unlikely they gave your name, but it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist for the school to work it out.

It’s all well and good being an expert in a subject - that doesn’t mean you are qualified to teach it. There are things I am really good at. I’d be a shit teacher though because I don’t have that skill set! Presumably they are using qualified teachers meaning they know how to teach even if they don’t know the subject matter to the degree you do?

The subject would be useful to know here, and exactly what you’ve said to the school. What do you want them to do differently?

Why does a non teacher think they know better about how to teach any subject than an actual educational professional?

You sound arrogant I'm afraid. I can't imagine any charity that exists to facilitate random members of the public changing the way teachers work in a specific school.

As others say, how would you feel if someone made a complaint about your work to an external body? When they've never done the job once themselves. You'd be pissed off surely? Anyone would.

That's irrelevant. I am not validating her concerns about what the school is teaching or what action she may take, I am commenting on how the charity handled her enquiry.

And yes people outside of my workplace do make requests and suggestions, and they are listened to and if there is merit, its acted upon, if not, we explain why not and move on. If she is a parent (and I don't know that she is) and has concerns over what is being taught, she is perfectly entitled to discuss it with the school and if she feels unheard, she can seek information elsewhere to decide whats valid and her way forward. I am neither confirming nor denying the right of what she is saying, just that she has a right to do this and to have confidentiality unless its a safeguarding risk.

@SuziQuinto No, we don't know exactly what the OP is talking about, but there are numerous comments along the lines of 'unless you're a qualified teacher, you can't comment', which is a really problematic attitude. Yes, people outside my workplace make suggestions and we actively engage with our stakeholders to get their views and feedback. We do it when we develop a new strategy, when we update our implementation plans, when we finish providing support to someone, when we are reporting to our funders, when we are applying for funding and we also welcome unsolicited feedback at any point in time. That's really standard in the charity sector and any charity not doing it will struggle to attract funding nowadays. I absolutely get that there will be some people who take more time in giving feedback and may push the boundaries but when the default seems to be 'oh you must be a nightmare parent' or 'well if you're not willing to teach it yourself then stop criticising' that is a real problem and I do believe our public services are significantly worse because of these attitudes.

How do you know how the subject is being taught? Where you in the lesson? Are you a member of staff?

Yes, I'm also curious as to the subject, I wonder if it's related to gender / sex education, i.e. a site of contest.

I'm going to assume that the subject was something sensitive that affects pupils' personal & emotional lives that teachers may not necessarily be experts in (think disability, mental health, gender, sex education. . . ) not something more academic. But it would help if you clarified.

If the charity is there to provide advocacy, educate people about the issue and support those particularly affected then they have been really inept because this has backfired. What you did (talk to school twice with no effect then seek their advice) was perfectly reasonable but of course the school will feel defensive and of course you will be concerned about the repercussions for you and your child.

I would contact someone higher up in the charity (as I suspect this is incompetence rather than policy), pointing out the embarrassment they may have unwittingly caused you and that this has left you questioning whether to seek further help from them or support their campaigns. For me, it's not simply right or wrong and whether they were allowed to do this, it's that they have shot themselves in the foot and done something that has undermined their work and the good relations they rely on. If you care about their work, they need to know this.

I'm a teacher.

This is a tricky one. Your expectation is that the teachers' confidentiality doesn't need to be respected but yours does. I assume you would have preferred to make an anonymous report.

I'm also unclear about how you know what you know, are you in the classroom to identify what is and isn't best practice?

In terms of loving your subject and seeing that there could be improvements in teaching, you would need to specify what and how. I know that often I'm frustrated myself because the strictures of the National Curriculum, especially with regard to the volume of content, mean that I can't teach something the way that I think would be most effective. No amount of training around this will change the structural problem that I can't fix.

It's not about "not suggesting anything". Do people outside of your workplace make suggestions to you?
Genuine parental concerns are addressed. However, schools do get parents who seek to influence and change lessons and the curriculum, often claiming more expertise than the working professionals.
We don't know what the OP is talking about here.

Excellent post! 100% agree. Also demonstrates the difference in culture across the sectors; the default isn't 'Oh the charity can't have done anything wrong' but instead 'here's why it might have gone wrong, here's what they should have done, and here's how to fix it'. I could cry at the responses on here that basically suggest no one can ever question anything otherwise they are 'a nightmare parent'. These attitudes are endemic in our public services and go a long way to explaining why many of them are of such poor quality.

@HarvestSky If I am honest, and having worked for a charity with a helpline, I think if you had talked to the school twice and then spoke to the charity and the agreement was that they would come back to you and not the school, I think you need to feed this back to the charity as unless there was a safeguarding issue, this shouldn't have happened.

However it may have been inadvertent, as in the charity had close connections with the school and they mentioned they had had generic feedback (without naming you directly) and as you had already complained to the school, the school connected the dots. Still not acceptable. When someone approaches a specialist charity for advice, best practice, or guidance, the usual expectations are:

• They treat the enquiry as confidential by default, unless told otherwise
• They anonymise any examples they use
• They only contact third parties (like a school) if:
• There is a safeguarding concern, or
• The person explicitly consents to them doing so

Most charities are extremely careful about this because trust is their currency.
So your reaction “Why on earth did they go to the school?” is completely reasonable.

This doesn’t excuse it, but it helps explain the dynamic:

• Some charities see themselves as system‑improvers, so when they hear poor practice they instinctively think, “We should help the school fix this.”
• They may have assumed that you were seeking change, not just information.
• They may have thought the feedback was already known to the school because you had raised concerns twice.
• They may have been careless and not considered the impact on you personally.

None of these justify naming or identifying you but they show how the misunderstanding could arise.

Was it a breach of confidentiality? Morally: Yes. Procedurally: It depends.
Because there was no explicit confidentiality agreement, the charity can argue they acted within their normal practice. But ethically, they should have:

• Asked permission
• Checked whether you wanted your identity protected
• Clarified the purpose of the information you were to be given

So the real problem for you is that you feel exposed before you were ready?
That’s the harm here. You weren't prepared for the school to know you’d sought external advice before you decided on the way forward (if indeed you chose to take it forward and now you feel compromised, potentially labelled as “difficult” and worried about repercussions for your child if you are a parent of a child at the school. Those feelings are valid.

I think I would go back to the charity and say something like “I approached you for best‑practice information, not for you to contact the school. I wasn’t ready for them to know I’d sought external advice. In future, please check with me before sharing anything that could identify me.” I'd ask the for the info if they haven't provided it and then contact the school to explain what happened and that you were researching the subject and say it was unfortunate how it unfolded but it was not how it was intended. The either let it rest or discuss any concerns you feel you need to address.

You sound like a nightmare parent, perhaps the school and their trained staff may know better than you...

It's really difficult to comment not knowing what subject it is, if it's a critical subject like maths or English I can understand you getting so involved, if it's a minor less rigorous subject there are many ways to tackle them. I think you need to say what subject it is to get sensible feedback on here.

YABU to ask us for advice but not tell us what the subject matter is!

If you truly want any of us to assess it and tell you what's reasonable we need to know more about the situation (and you say the school already knows who you are so why the faux-anonymity here?!)

The nature of your relationship with the school is also extremely relevant - are you the parent of a pupil? employed by the school in any capacity? a governor? a local councillor? an ofsted inspector? someone who lives nearby? or just someone who deeply, deeply cares about how this mystery subject is taught across the entire nation?

But, @Kepler22B , how would the OP know it was being taught incorrectly without observing a lesson and looking at the curriculum maps? There's a lot of detail being left out here, which makes responding difficult.

The charity shouldn’t have identified you at all.

If you have concerns then maybe other people do too, so it might not be obvious to the school that it is you.

I can’t see what you have done wrong here, you have concerns about something, you had addressed it with the school and felt fobbed off, the next step would be to get more information and see if your concerns are valid or not,

I don’t get where everyone think the OP must be a nightmare parent, she hasn’t gone in ranting or raving. She is asking questions, which parents are allowed to do.

Example from my own subject (physics) - teachers are teaching energy types rather than newer terminology energy stores, OP queries it but is given the brush off, so contacts the Institute of Physics to check. The IOP then contacts the school to offer support.

OP, I've no idea why you're getting such a hard time on here. The charity should have checked what support you wanted and confirmed what action they planned to take before doing it. And this idea that noone can say a word about our public services or ask questions unless they are fully qualified / willing to step in and deliver them themselves is one of the biggest reasons they are in such a mess. Education and health in particular seem to suffer from this culture and it is extremely problematic.

I would go back to the charity and ask for clarity on what's been done.

I understand why you went to the charity because you felt the school were fobbing you off. The charity are supplying resources and training to the school, so the staff can teach the children. What isn't clear is how you know that staff aren't teaching this subject correctly? Have you been in the classroom at the time? Has your child told you what's being taught?

The charity told you they would pass your email onto their teaching department. However, because you mistakenly gave the charity the schools name, rather than keeping it anonymous, they've contacted the school directly. As you've made numerous complaints to the school regarding the subject, even if your name wasn't passed onto the school, it's going to be glaringly obvious it was you who complained to the charity.

In all honesty, I can't see what the charity have done wrong here. Even if the charity hadn't told the school your name, by your own admission, you know it would be obvious to them, it was you. If the charity did give the school your name, then that's a whole different ball game. The issue is, you didn't know the charity would contact the school without telling you. I'm not sure they were obliged to tell you. You've made a complaint, they're following it through. The fact the charity knew the schools name in the first place, is down to your error.