Parent working at school - favouritism

[Titsend]

This happened with my Dd's friend (let's call her Lucy). I wouldn't have a problem with it but she got so much special treatment and favouritism for stupid things. Her mum was friends with her Lucy's and my Dd's teacher and would always nip out for words with her about various things. The teacher would let Lucy skip lesson to go to the school office and borrow Vaseline from her mum. She would always reserve seats at the front of any school play for her and her friends. My Dd got second by a wide margin in a sports day but they awarded Lucy second because her mum was judging. My Dd got fourth instead. Lucy always got to do jobs (organising things at break with friends chosen by her mum). My Dd unintentionally hut Lucy by saying she wasn't ready to sing for the school play in a really nice text trying not to hurt her feelings and the teacher got really mad a my Dd because Lucy was crying. Gave my Dd a shit role because she got so nervous her teacher was going to judge her for apparently "blowing Lucy off" and ran off after one verse. Lucy's mum also had contact via Facebook with other teachers and was always telling them that "Lucy is working hard at this so can you do x activity so she can show you?"
The teachers always view Lucy as more worthwhile of attention.
Things like this really piss me off - but is it unreasonable behaviour or normal at schools?

Is her mum headteacher.
The reverse happens i my experience. Teachers children never get to do anything like be Mary or be on the eco committe in case people accuse staff of favouritism.

I know someone who ran the PTA so her dd got what she wanted

I agree with @wagtailred, staff children are judged far more harshly than non staff children, they tend to be held to higher account, ie what do you think your mum would say if she saw you doing xyz.

A girl in my daughters year had both parents working at the school as teachers. She constantly told everyone they had to do as she said because her parents were teachers. Not a popular girl at all, always moved from friend to friend as everyone got fed up with her.

In year 6 it was announced that the head girl was now elected by teachers and not the whole of year 6 as it had always been. Yes she got head girl. All of year 6 girls and parents were so angry.

I don't get how texting someone to tell them they're not good enough to sing in the school play could be done in a 'really nice' way or why it was necessary to do so.
No wonder the kid was crying.

She is a goody goody (always bragged to my Dd about how everybody said she had manners of an angel, never lies etc.) not a bad thing but used it to push Dd around (so did her mum), So nobody questioned her behaviour. And no, she worked in the office (since left after Lucy left Y6 this year).

Yes, ime this can happen in schools.

@msbevvy no she didn't do that, that would be horrible! They hadn't practised before the audition and didn't feel comfortable performing the song in front of the year. She said it wasn't Lucy it was her and she still wanted to remain friends.

I think children of staff goes one of two ways in schools and it all depends on how much of a handle the SMT have on it

Either they get away with everything, although this is rare it does happen, or they get away with nothing and never get roles in the play/starwriter because there is too much worry of not looking to favour them. The latter happens much more often.

This seems to happen more with children of school staff rather than children of actual teachers.

You need to ignore it tbh.

So she’s favourite at primary school, it won’t last forever. I was in the second sets in primary for maths and English because the top set was the teacher’s favourite children.

Even as a 10 year old I could tell it was a favouritism thing, but I didn’t mind as my friend was also not a favourite so we got to sit together on the second set table which I enjoyed.

Now as an adult it makes me roll my eyes. There was nothing to gain from the teacher having favourites. Tbh it’s a bit weird! Imagine being such a people pleaser or so cliquey that you ignore the objective test scores that tell you which children are the best at each subject, and sit certain kids together just cos you like their parents. Odd.

It didn’t stop me from progressing to where I am now as an adult so in the end it didn’t matter.

I’ve taught my dc at school & I would say i was the opposite! I would hear all the class read everyday, except mine. An inspector come to observe my lesson & asked why I had given all my attention to a group of children and ignored one (my dd). I think you’re so aware of not having your own child as getting better treatment you go the opposite way. Obviously not everyone, but I certainly did.

Depends on child and parent to be honest. I was a teachers child and so was my best friend. My parents took the attitude of your are on your own deal with things as if we weren't at school, my friend on the other hand the complete opposite so people bent over backwards to not upset her dad a very lovely but stroppy teacher!

I treat any child I teach with staff as parents as the same as anyone else, will speak to parents at school but not if I wouldn't phone them. Will also not give them additional feedback constantly even if they ask.

Op I think your situation sounds unusual. Both my dc went to the primary I work at and the exact opposite seemed to happen in my opinion!
I think staff were conscious of not looking as though they were favouring them and although they loved me working at their school, they certainly didn't benefit from it.

This can be a tricky one; I've had the sons of several colleagues in my form, and one in particular I worked very closely with. We agreed before term began that I would only speak to him in circumstances where another parent would be summoned, and in my experience most teachers go out of their way not to show favouritism.
Mostly, the child will have it drummed into them that they are just the same as everybody else, indeed showing up the parent is a serious matter! I can remember the look of horror on one lad's face when he realised that he'd slipped up and called me "Aunty Twosheds", rather in the way that pupils forget themselves and call you "Mummy".
But I have seen it happen, and it does the child no favours; a rude awakening when they move on can be one consequence. It can be galling for your daughter, but she will see "Lucy" come unstuck sooner or later.

The school I worked in, it was the governors children who got all the special treatment.

I was school nurse and was told on my first day who they children of the governors were and to always treat them first and very thoroughly if they were hurt or sick. I was

The office staff and teachers used to lick the governors and their children’s arses.

Never mind Lucy, you sound a nightmare - poor teachers!

Staff's kids deffo preferred in our school! Esp if the teacher is on the SMT! Their children are selected for everything - I'm tempted to take my kids out of the school because of it!

My Dd unintentionally hut Lucy by saying she wasn't ready to sing for the school play in a really nice text trying not to hurt her feelings and the teacher got really mad a my Dd because Lucy was crying

That's bullying, whoever is the parent of the child who gets a message like that.

I’m not going to deny that favouritism does happen, but you seem to be blaming it for things that are irrelevant. If your dd ran off stage during the audition then she’s not going to be given a good role. If she’s said something to upset someone else and it carries over to school then that is going to be discussed in school.

It’s not Lucy’s fault if her Mum saves a few seats for the school play. Tbh, I couldn’t get worked up about that, there are very few perks related to working in a school and this isn’t something that would affect the children. Other parents can get good seats too if they’re there early enough, school staff can’t do that because they’re usually helping with the play somewhere until the last minute.

I think sometimes parents assume favouritism even when it doesn’t exist just because they’re worried it might.

It will teach the other children a valuable life lesson.

That sadly, it's not what you know but who you know!

You only have to look at the world of politics globally to see that's true.

Life's not fair, eh.

We've actually just been talking about this at lunch.

At primary school DD's class included 6 children of teachers and staff who weren't just picked for everything such as school plays, teams etc, but were just generally favoured in class.

In DS's class there were a smaller number of staff children but the favouritism extended to their friends too. There was very little that could not be predicted e.g. Head Boy, school plays - even down to which individual would open almost every window on the advent calendar (petty, but it went that far).

The reason we were talking about it is that they were saying looking forward to going back in September and they mentioned the lack of favouritism - reward is based on effort/ability/behaviour.

Fortunately they've gone to a non local secondary school as it seems that most of the staff parents (non-teaching) have transferred to the local secondary with their children, who will presumably retain a rather skewed version of entitlement. I dont think its healthy for anyone involved.

This is quite unusual. As others have said teachers usually go the other way. My ds in Yr10 come September has a friend who's mum is the Head of Year 7&8. There has maybe been one or two occasions where the ds has been in trouble for something at school and my ds has commented that the other boy involved got a more severe punishment than the teacher's son. However, that has only happened rarely. At primary school, I had a teacher who was known down the generations for upsetting and humiliating children. Shocking.He had the sweetest, most gentle and quiet daughter who was in our year but not his class. She was shown no favouritism but I still wonder if she went out of her way to be so nice because of her father.

At my secondary school in the first year play all the kids teachers got the main parts. It was so blatant!!

Titsend you have my 100% sympathy, I experienced this at my children's primary school. I was friendly with a lady who after 2 years of our sons being in the same class became the school receptionist which then increased her popularity and as time went by I started getting invited to evenings with her gaggle of friends who liked nothing better than to discuss private information ie which pupil receives pupil premium, or who pays for trips or not, divorces, family problems, pupils position in the class we're all fair game. I work for the NHS and am aware of peoples privacy so I expressed my concern at such sensitive information was being openly discussed and politely excused myself along with another lady. We both decided to bring this to the attention of the headmistress, both our husbands were governors and we also thought that this group of parents were receiving greater privilege than other kids all our concerns were dismissed and we were assured that we had misheard, we hadn't but that's fine as 8 years later the extra privilege had absolutely no effect on what their kids achieved in high school and to be honest I used it as a good learning tool to my kids about unfairness and they understand that