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?

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.
Not being obtuse at all.
It's perfectly possible to talk your partner or spouse about your day without sharing personal or confidential information.

It's not a case of 'don't tell your partner anything about your work' or 'sit at home sharing the details of children's lives'.

On this thread there's countless people who think that it doesn't count if it's just your partner, that if you don't trust your partner then that's the bigger issue (not that refraining from sharing personal information from work should link to trust in a romantic relationship), that it's normal to tell your husband or partner things your friends have confided. Some people act like them and their spouse are a single entity and justify unprofessionally sharing information or breaking their friends' confidence by saying 'but I trust him'.

@user1493413286

No they’re not allowed to; whether they do or not is a different point but if you caught wind that the teacher had shared it you’d be within your rights to complain about that teacher. I’d expect a teacher whose spouse knows yours family to be particularly cautious about talking about children at home

I talk to mine about kids, but if he knew one of them or their parents I definitely wouldn't. The father of one child that I teach works for a relative, and I certainly wouldn't mention it, to neither child nor relative.

My parents were teachers. DF and DStepM would share stories, but they worked at the same school so knew the same children and families. Like talking to a work colleague at home.

I don’t think people really understand how serious and unprofessional it is to share confidential information with your family and friends.

My job is in Education safeguarding. We had training from our local authority about information sharing and the stories we were told about the fallout from confidentiality breaches were shocking.

One person shared everything with her partner, names included, then they broke up and as revenge he reported her to the local authority and told them everything she’d told him. She was fired, obviously and the local authority received a massive fine.

As pp who clearly work in the area have said, it is not your information to share. It has nothing to do with how close you are to your spouse or friend.

If you need to talk something through, ask for a meeting with your line manager. If you find yourself unable to separate your home life from your work, maybe working with confidential information is not for you.

There is a vast difference between sharing safeguarding issues and "one of my little darlings drew a rocket and it looked like a cock, don't know how I kept my face straight".
Not all sharing your day with DH involves sharing confidential information.

TennisButterfly
That's what most people are saying.

Unfortunately some people seem to think that naming children and sharing personal information about them doesn't count if it's your husband/partner because you trust them.

Most people who work share details of their working lift with their spouses and close family. But the key is to do it in an anonymous way - so you don't say 'Fed Smith' did xyz today. It's more 'this child' bit names. In the same way as my solicitor husband will tell me stories of his day with clients but not use specifics.

Lift?? Life

They probably will but they would be talking about that child who always does this or that, or remember they one I told you about who did this etc.

I doubt they would identify anyone, their spouses would not be able to put the stories to names or faces as its the incident being discussed rather that the gossiping about an identified individual.

I don’t think that teachers should tell their spouse - or friends - anything about their pupils in a way that identifies the pupil. But I know some do.

DC1 was diagnosed with ASD a few years back, obviously his primary school and class teacher Mrs Smith* were aware he was being assessed, and of course once he had received a diagnosis the school were told about that.

Shortly after this, I was chatting to another mum in the school playground (whose DC was in a different year group to DC1), and I told her that DC1 had recently been diagnosed with ASD.
And she said “oh, I know, Mrs Smith told me all about that when we were out at the weekend”.
Turns out other mum was good friends with Mrs Smith so saw lots of Mrs Smith outside school.

I let it go at the time, because I was thinking that well, we weren’t trying to keep it a secret, but in retrospect I really should have said something to the head teacher.
The other mum had absolutely no need to know about DC1’s ASD diagnosis, she didn’t work at the school, or even in any area related to ASD / SEN, so it was purely gossip on Mrs Smith’s part.

It did make me wonder what else Mrs Smith was telling people about the kids in her class.

*teacher’s name has been changed

MinorArcana
That's awful. The teacher was out of order.

Sadly there's gossips in every job.

I've been for post school drinks with colleagues and had to tell younger staff that the pub isn't the place to decompress and release from work if they want to talk shop, however quietly. Unfortunately they had made friends with the school gossips and thought I was being a bit of a prude.

@MinorArcana that is terrible. My son has autism and I would be mortified. Like you I don’t really keep a secret but that was out of line!!

My DH is a Vice Principal in the local secondary school, he tells me nothing.

It is hard at times as the other Mums at the Primary school gates think I know things but he likes to keep school seperate from home (and he thinks I talk to much)

When friends children do GCSEs he won't tell me how they get on, doesn't tell me about the children he teaches even the ones I know as they are friends of our children.

He wouldn't even look up to see if our children had got into his school (our 2nd choice) or our preferred school (faith school) which we on the edge of the usual catchment area.

I know a lot of teachers, they tell funny or interested stories about their pupils, but never anything that would identify them. I talk to my partner about my patients and she does the same, but it stays between us and/or is anonymised. I think it would be very unusual for someone to never discuss pupils or patients etc with their partner, but their partners know to keep it to themselves/it’s anonymised/they have no idea who the person is anyway.

Just to add to what most teachers on here are saying, my DP is a headteacher (so knows loads of secret stuff) and I’m a teacher in another school and would talk in general terms sometimes about incidents that have happened, if day they are funny, or interesting, or one of us is stressed out, but we would never go into detail about anything remotely sensitive, and certainly wouldn’t name names.

That said, everyone is different a sadly we can’t reassure you that this teacher definitely won’t say anything..... But the balance of probability is they won’t.

General "one of the kids did xyz..." stuff I share.

Safeguarding stuff I try not to. BUT occasionally I share small bits without any names because I need to for my MH. Usually stuff gets filed under "crap day" however sometimes talking it through helps me to process. I make sure that the students are unidentifiable and usually change gender/age.

I'd never share anything identifiable with anyone.

Isn't it a bit naive to assume the teacher wouldn't use names in this situation? Understandable just saying 'a year four' when talking about a random faceless child, but this is a child that the spouse knows personally.

Ok we need to know now what it is

Deffo but I like to think there would be some level of anonymity, particularly if they're familiar with your family.

They're human but they're not complete idiots.

As I teacher I’m sorry to say I’m horrified by the indiscretion of my colleagues. Stories get told, with names, sometimes in public places like pubs. I can honestly say I do share with DH when something has been stressful but never with names and say nothing if it’s someone DH knows. I’m not saying all colleagues over share but many do. As teachers we are told about confidentiality in general terms but in 20 years I’ve never been given specific guidance and I think we should be.

My DH is a Vice Principal in the local secondary school, he tells me nothing
I always thought it was amazing that some people can't see that there is usually a divide between home and work, but as this thread shows there are people who are total gossips with their partners/husbands and can't keep their mouths shut.

I've taught several colleagues' children over the years and it's very clear that there is a difference between Mel who is my colleague and Tommy's mum. I've been friends with them and socialised with their mum friends (also parents of school pupils) and nobody has any difficulty knowing professional boundaries .

Safeguarding stuff I try not to. BUT occasionally I share small bits without any names because I need to for my MH. Usually stuff gets filed under "crap day" however sometimes talking it through helps me to process.

If you need to discuss information in this way you should ask your line manager for supervision or at least regular check-ins with someone so you can talk about and reflect on your work. Discussing it with friends and family to protect your mental health is not the answer.

No. Believe it or not we have better things to talk about.

Love how this has have turned into another teacher bashing thread

I used to work at a university and once mentioned to my sil that one of our students had swallowed a teaspoon.....dont ask! My sil worked for the student heath..she said..I know I've seen the x Ray's!! No names but......