Is it okay for parents to call teachers by first name?

[thisisnot]

Hi,

At my child's previous school we referred to all the teachers by their first name, and they signed off with the same (in emails etc.).

But in this new school, despite the email address including the first name, the teacher always signs off as Mrs last name - even when I have sent the initial email with her first name.

I also sign off with my first name and she responds "hi mrs last name".

What is going on here? Is it wrong for me to call her by her first name? I don't want to be rude so I will stop if I am being unreasonable.

It just feels odd calling them mrs, but I understand there may be some etiquette I have missed.

I also don't like being referred to as mrs, but not to the degree that I would bother correcting anyone. Just not something I would use myself.

Please let me know what you think!

When I was on the PTA we were all on first name terms at meetings and behind the scenes but never in public.

I'm a school governor and call the teachers by their first name, unless talking to them in front of the pupils. If I mention their name at home DH always says 'but teachers don't have first names!'

I’ve always called them Mr/Mrs/Miss XX unless they’ve asked me to do otherwise.

I volunteered a lot at DD’s primary school and was always told to call them by their first name if we were painting scenery after school or something but I always stuck to Mrs/Mr/Miss in school.

One of my best friends was a teacher at my DDs’ primary school. My daughters were never taught by her so I never had to deal with her on a parent/teacher basis, but she was still Mrs X in school.

On the odd occasion I need to email, I start with Hello, then sign off as with first name and surname and then follow their lead from their reply.

One of my DDs’ primary school teachers gave up teaching and set up his own business. At work, he’s now one of our suppliers and I still refer to him as Mr X. Everyone else calls him Dave, but it feels too weird

Frankly i think it is ridiculous for parents to call teachers Mrs / Mr last name. Ok for for the kids, but parents I just don't get it. We're all adults. Why the tiltles?? I don't call my boss Mr Lastname, so why teachers? We're all on the same level here. Also i think refering to each other by first name actually helps to break down the them / us barriers. We're all on the same side when it comes to the kids education, surely?

I am a teacher and personally it doesn't bother me either way but we are told by SLT to use our teaching names to keep a professional relationship. I will always sign an email Miss Cric but not worried if a parent starts an email with 'Hi Jo....'

My SIL is a reception teacher and it's a way to demark your role as teacher from your life outside the setting.

So my kids nursery teacher I will alwssy refer to as Miss X, even though I find it a little odd as she is a decade or more younger than me and I know her first name, but I respect her capacity as teacher and therefore I will refer to her as Miss X in that capacity.

When I was a kid (I mean I'm only 38) I used to call neighbours and parents of friends Mr and Mrs X unless invited to do otherwise, whereas these days that seems to have gone out of favour and my young children call everyone bar teachers and doctors by their first names (by invitation).

OP it's more normal than not to call the teacher mr mrs or miss

Are you from outside the UK?

Surely you don't sign yourself off as Mr/Mrs, though. That's hardly correct form.

What do you mean? Correct form is whatever is correct according to the convention of your workplace. But no, I sign off as First Name Surname, as do my dc's teachers when they email me. But we would still address each other as Mr Surname/Mrs Surname at the beginning of the email.

I'm also used to thinking of my dc's teachers in terms of their surname, because that's how my dc refer to them. I'm assuming your child is at primary school, OP? Once they are at secondary you're unlikely to even know the first names of the many different teachers who will teach your child, unless you deliberately try and find out.

Unbelievably some parents (I know at least 2) use teachers first names in a sort of power trip passive aggressive way hmm
As in I will call you by your first name as I don’t have to follow your rules because I am the parent

What an odd way you have of looking at it! It's increasingly rare for adults to address other adults as Mr/Mrs/Ms so I find it odd that teachers wouldn't be comfortable with being addressed as John or Chloe. I'm certainly not signing my emails to them as Mrs Crow. I'd feel daft!

@verybadhairdoo

Frankly i think it is ridiculous for parents to call teachers Mrs / Mr last name. Ok for for the kids, but parents I just don't get it. We're all adults. Why the tiltles?? I don't call my boss Mr Lastname, so why teachers? We're all on the same level here. Also i think refering to each other by first name actually helps to break down the them / us barriers. We're all on the same side when it comes to the kids education, surely?

I agree with this. Apart from in a situation where you are a customer in which case the person serving you or helping you might call you Mrs.... but normally they ask if its OK to call you firstname.

I join in the convention of calling teachers Mr or Mrs this or that. But I still think its odd, old fashioned, puts up unnecessary barriers between us as parents and them when really we are equals.

Children should be calling them Mr/Mrs and I would still refer to them as that when talking to my child.

I find it odd, but not enough to make it an issue or break the convention. I still wouldn't use their first name even though they do normally sign off with both first and last names.

I use surname. Its weird not to

The teachers at my dc's school use first names to sign emails to introduce themselves on the phone (they use my first nam too). I suppose if a teacher was calling themself Mrs X I'd call them that, but it seems unusual to me.

Once they are at secondary you're unlikely to even know the first names of the many different teachers who will teach your child, unless you deliberately try and find out

At my DC's comp the teachers' first names are in the email address so no detective work needed!

Its a little bit too deferential I think.

Thanks everyone. I don't want you all to think I'm ignoring you - I am reading all the posts!

Glad to know some of you face the same confusion! Maybe if my kids previous school weren't on a first name basis I wouldn't have thought twice about this - I do think I'm overthinking it. I realise it's probably to do with the professional capacity as some of you have pointed out.

It just felt odd I think because previously I only really had to refer to someone like this when I was a child in school.

Mrs last name it is!

I have taught one of my DCs teachers and I would never refer to her in front of him or anyone else by her first name but only as Mrs last name. I wouldn’t refer to any of the other staff by first name at all - none of us do atparent forum meetings etc even when there aren’t many of us there and we all know their first names . Parent helpers were always referred to as Mr or Mrs last name by the teachers. Just the usual school formality I think. Where I work most students just use our first names - but our US exchange students always use more formal address.

I do think it's wrong of you to call her by her first name in repeated email when she's constantly using Ms. X as it's quite a clear signal from her

Then it is also wrong for the teacher to persist with Mrs X when the OP has a clear signal that they do not like that.

There is no right or wrong here, but if the rule is what you sign off is how you should be addressed, then that applies as much to the teacher as to the OP, and given the OP would've been the first to send the email in the exchange they were the first person not to have this protocol followed.

@verybadhairdoo

Frankly i think it is ridiculous for parents to call teachers Mrs / Mr last name. Ok for for the kids, but parents I just don't get it. We're all adults. Why the tiltles?? I don't call my boss Mr Lastname, so why teachers? We're all on the same level here. Also i think refering to each other by first name actually helps to break down the them / us barriers. We're all on the same side when it comes to the kids education, surely?

I kind of feel this way too but don't want to start a thing!

I wouldn’t refer to any of the other staff by first name at all
Surely in staff areas you address teacher colleagues by their first name though.

We're all on the same side when it comes to the kids education, surely?

It's got nothing to do with that. Nor is it anything to do with actual individual teachers having any particular desire to be formal or them thinking you are on an unequal footing with them. It's just a convention borne of the fact that Mr/Mrs Surname is what they are called in school and what most parents naturally call them, because it's usually the name they hear their dc call them.

My dh works at my dc's school, and I have taught there in the past, so I know some of the staff a bit. I would still refer to and address the teachers by Mr/Mrs/Miss Surname in the context of them teaching my child. Dh wouldn't, obviously, as they are his colleagues and he knows them well and sees them every day.

I much prefer to use my first name when communicating with parents via email. My feeling is that we are working together as a team for the good of the children. By calling myself Miss Lie, I feel like I’m imparting some superiority. Which is just not me.

I prefer to call the teacher's/TAs/other staff Mrs Smith or whatever. I think otherwise is overfamiliar, unless you have a relationship outside school.

I am very active in the PTA at my daughter's school and notice the other PTA members use first names for the teaching staff - 1. this is confusing for new parents who only know the school staff by their title surname and 2. we aren't friends - PTA/governors to school staff is still a professional relationship, and it makes me cringe when parents use the staff's first names a- it perpetuates the myth that parents volunteer at schools to gain some sort of advantage and makes it look cliquey.

@sirfredfredgeorge

I do think it's wrong of you to call her by her first name in repeated email when she's constantly using Ms. X as it's quite a clear signal from her

Then it is also wrong for the teacher to persist with Mrs X when the OP has a clear signal that they do not like that.

There is no right or wrong here, but if the rule is what you sign off is how you should be addressed, then that applies as much to the teacher as to the OP, and given the OP would've been the first to send the email in the exchange they were the first person not to have this protocol followed.

That's not what I'm saying the rule is so I'd disagree on that. If one person is more comfortable being formal and another prefers informality, I think it's better to stay on the formal side. I guess you could consider it a form of playing it safe.

Addressing OP by their first name while expecting to be Mrs X themselves could be seen as rude so I understand why the teacher is keeping to surnames for them both.

This is why I explicitly tell parents I prefer a first name basis at the start of the year (but also if you send me an email addressed to Ms Teacher, I don't mind) - so much easier to be forthright about these things!

Friends have taught my children, in a school setting it was always their moniker and name I used.

I use my title and surname in written communication.

On the phone, I greet the parent with, ‘Hello, this is (First Name) (Surname), is that Mrs Whoever?’ because it’s polite to use a title and a surname if you don’t know someone personally. It’s not professional or good manners to address someone you don’t know by their first name.