Do teachers share things about pupils with their spouses.

[Starlet7992]

As above ^^ today was called in about an issue with Ds. All been resolved now. But the teachers spouse is an old family friend and I don’t particularly want her knowing as she may tell others. It’s nothing anything terrible. Just an issue that is now resolved but still I’m a very private person. Don’t like people knowing our business.

Are teachers allowed to tell their spouses about issues with an individual children?

No. Of course they could, but most I know wouldnt. If anything might say had to deal with a general scenario, but would never say names!

@saraclara Yep agree it’s not really ok but my point was that it happens in situations where there’s school/home crossover.

I’m not a teacher but I do tell my DH everything including confidential things friends have told me.

I find your response interesting.
I always assume anything I say to a friend is also being shared with their DH, and they will always say 'this doesn't go further than you and Mr Butterfly" In confidence doesn't include not telling spouses in either of our circles.

Sorry it didn't quote that was @saraclara

I used to teach and most of my friends at the time were teachers. We used to offload to each other (not safeguarding issues). Then at home it just becomes a story that you tell.
Don't need details as it's just part of 'how was your day?'

Just like your partner coming home and complaining that Frank from IT doesn't know his arse from his elbow.

PP said about what stresses you about a parent not affecting the teacher. It really is the case. Teachers get to the point where someone has usually already done it twice with bells on. Unless it's a CP issue it's kids and kids are kids. Most of them work it out in the end and whatever happened with your son will be forgotten by everyone including you in time. Apart from embarrassing stories in his adulthood!*
*
*disclaimer no one in my house knows anyone in any IT dept called Frank!

Yes and their friends I’ve heard many a story no names but thing like the new year 7 or some year 9 in 4th period etc.

I’d assume yes, and I’d not believe the folks who say they don’t. Why would you be married to someone if you didn’t trust them and hid details from them

Of course they tell them, assume she knows op but she won’t mention it or let on

I share bits with DH, but not with names just "a child" and I wouldn't share something even without names if I knew he knew the childs family, in case it accidentally came out in conversation somehow.

The exception is a child with SEN in my class who has the same hobby as DH, him I call by first name but in the context of needing DH's geekiness to try and get the child to engage with things.

Pretty sure my DS’ teacher spoke about him to her spouse as when we met him at the Christmas fair he said “oh THIS is BabyKaleJuicer”, but in a nice way and I didn’t mind. Can see how it could be a tricky feeling for you OP.

@Bluntness100

I’d assume yes, and I’d not believe the folks who say they don’t. Why would you be married to someone if you didn’t trust them and hid details from them

Of course they tell them, assume she knows op but she won’t mention it or let on

Because it's not their right to know?

Just because someone's married to you doesn't mean they have to share your every thought and experience. It's perfectly fine to know something and not share it.

My daughter's a nurse. She's not even allowed to say that someone I or her DH knows is on her ward, or that she has seen a mutual acquaintance in the hospital for any reason.

I know she sticks to it because a colleague came back to work after sick leave, and bounded into my room to say how lovely my daughter was and how well she'd looked after her after her op two weeks earlier. My daughter hadn't breathed a word to me.

My mum is a teacher. There would be sharing of each of our days over the dinner table when we lived at home, but we knew it never went any further. I know stories from her school, but no names, and often it was trying to find solutions to issues. I did it, my father did it, my siblings did it. I couldn’t tell you the names of any of her kids over 20+ years - but we did talk about whether a certain child might enjoy additional sport or art; or when one was selectively mute, and new activities planned for them (I don’t think I even knew that child’s gender...)
It was kind of the same as me discussing potential project management approaches, my brother taking advice on interview techniques, etc.

I’d assume yes, and I’d not believe the folks who say they don’t. Why would you be married to someone if you didn’t trust them and hid details from them
Firstly, it's not their information to know.

Secondly, I'd never marry someone who wanted one of those relationships where trust seems to equal betraying confidences and sharing professional information that has nothing to do with them.

It's like when you have a friend you have to watch what you say because you know everything you tell them, no matter how private, will be shared with their husband/partner as 'we don't keep secrets'. 🙄 Eventually it affects the friendship because their husband is inevitably a third party to all conversations.

Just because someone's married to you doesn't mean they have to share your every thought and experience. It's perfectly fine to know something and not share it

Well eh, yeah but talking about a kid at school is not sharing your every thought and experience, nor did anyone say you had to share everything.

I'd never marry someone who wanted one of those relationships where trust seems to equal betraying confidences and sharing professional information that has nothing to do with them

Fairly sure folks are just being obtuse. Maybe the lock down vino is hitting. The point was clearly many people wish to tell their spouse about stuff from work.

It’s clearly it’s not they have to..

@Bluntness100

I’d assume yes, and I’d not believe the folks who say they don’t. Why would you be married to someone if you didn’t trust them and hid details from them

Of course they tell them, assume she knows op but she won’t mention it or let on

That is bollocks. I love and trust my dh but have NEVER shared identifiable details of people I have worked with. I used to be a frontline social worker and have also worked in primary care. Of course I told him anecdotes about my day but no details of who the person was. If GPs, nurses, social workers etc. can do it then teachers should be able to. Confidentiality is paramount.

Of course they do! My DH was a teacher and I knew all the details about the kids, especially the worst ones. A close friend is also a teacher and she shares it all too. Just human nature to discuss your job with your friends and family.

@namechanging2020

Of course they do! My DH was a teacher and I knew all the details about the kids, especially the worst ones. A close friend is also a teacher and she shares it all too. Just human nature to discuss your job with your friends and family.

No, no teacher should be sharing details about children who could be identified They absolutely shouldn't.

You can discuss your day or your job with your family without being unprofessional. There are many many jobs where it is absolutely vital that confidentiality is kept and maintained. And people in those jobs manage to do that.

I would talk about things in a general way. There's no need to be identifying about full names anyway.

There was one time I did let a full name slip out in a rant to a teacher friend. I was just starting as an NQT with no support on supply on the HoD's timetable. I'd had a tough day to the point where we aborted the Friday night away, crashed out and travelled early
Sat am. Had a good vent to my friend, including the words "and bloody (insert full name)..." and she said that name sounded familiar... he'd just moved house 50 miles from her school to my school bringing carnage in his wake!
Fortinately GDPR and safeguarding weren't up the agenda back then.

Working in local schools with community overlap, you have to be particularly careful.

OP, does the teacher know that you are a family friend of his spouse? If so, it could go one of two ways I reckon- either he tells the story deliberately in a gossipy way because he knows that the spouse will be particularly interested, or he is extra careful to keep quiet because of being aware of the social connection. Hopefully it will be the latter.

Do you know that JK Rowling’s post Harry Potter secret pen name (Robert Galbraith) was leaked by a friend of the wife of one of her lawyers? She was understandably furious and reported him to the regulator.

Rowling was furious. Not the wife or her friend.

@namechanging2020

Of course they do! My DH was a teacher and I knew all the details about the kids, especially the worst ones. A close friend is also a teacher and she shares it all too. Just human nature to discuss your job with your friends and family.

Seriously? I would lose my job if I discussed details of a Service User by name. There is a huge difference between saying " God today was difficult, I had a family who really put me through it" to saying "Mr and Mrs Bloggs from x village...... Similarly its fine for a teacher to say to thei partner "Today was difficult, one of the Year 10s disclosed a really awful situation and I had to report it" to " Sammy Smith in Y10 told me that his stp father is beating his mum up every day and threatening Sammy and his sister.

@saraclara

My daughter's a nurse. She's not even allowed to say that someone I or her DH knows is on her ward, or that she has seen a mutual acquaintance in the hospital for any reason.

I know she sticks to it because a colleague came back to work after sick leave, and bounded into my room to say how lovely my daughter was and how well she'd looked after her after her op two weeks earlier. My daughter hadn't breathed a word to me.

That's good she does but some nurses are awful at confidentiality, I was out with a new acquaintance who may have become a friend when we bumped into one of her friends who was a nurse on an outpatient ward. She said she was sure she knew me, I said she didn't but the stupid woman insisted that she did know me from somewhere and wouldn't shut up even when I gave my teacher Paddington bear stare.

I can confirm some do and not just to family. A former friend of mine is a teacher and his Friday evening in the pub was happily telling me who the bastards were that week, staff and pupils, by name.

I have teacher friends that share such stories with me. They generally won’t tell me names/other identifying details (why would they, it’s not interesting) but if it’s a child/member of staff we both know then they may tell me. It’s only the very interesting stuff though, funny stories or school politics mostly. No one is really interested in stories of general misbehaviour.