Asked to resign

[Mossiebonbon]

My husband works in a secondary school in pastoral care, whereby each year group is assigned a support member of staff. There are 5 Members of staff with the same role as him, he currently works with Y11.
Next year he has been assigned to work with Y8 , the year our daughter is in. My husband does not feel comfortable working with our daughters year group , potentially having to reprimand her friends for behavior or liaise with parents that he knows personally.

The head teacher has suggested he will have to resign if he doesn’t work with this year group. There is no explanation , to our knowledge, for why the other pastoral members of staff can’t swap to be with Y8. Headteacher just says she wants consistency.

AIBU to think headteacher cannot threaten my husband like this? I appreciate your comments

The head is ridiculous. No teenager wants to chat to their mates dad. It’s a ridiculous placement.

I wouldn't like it if I was a parent of one of your child's friends and a situation came up at school. I don't always like divulging personal information to people I know, it doesn't feel like neutral ground. Someone I knew became a GP and I had to ask for a different one every time I rang the surgery.

once they were in sets etc she taught my dc and hers. Another parent of one of dc friends taught another subject at some point, it’s not an issue. Personal and professional lives are different

Teaching is different from pastoral care, though.

Hwo to you come to that conclusion? It's likely the pastoral staff follow their yrar group and the OPs DH is due to cycle back to Y8. To move other staff is dusruptive to those year groups. The HT has just stated that if the DH doesn't follow clear instructions, he may fins himself out of a job, which is totally accurate. Nothing about power here.

The headteacher isn’t threatening him. She’s being very clear - if he’s not happy with her expectations, which sound completely reasonable

Her expectations aren't remotely reasonable. It is perfectly normal for a school to have staff members who have children who attend the school. It is common sense and accepted practice to avoid giving the staff member responsibility for a class or year group with their child in it, unless it is virtually impossible to do so.

OP, your dh shouldn't refuse, but he should calmly list the very sensible reasons why he would rather have a different year group, and keep a record of this communication.

This is what can happen if a parent works in their child's school. Even if he wasn't assigned to her year group, he's likely to come across her friends or friends' siblings and possibly parents anyway in the course of school life. The important thing is for him to distinguish between what is personal and what is professional. There may be very compelling reasons why the HT has deployed the staff as they have and doesn't want to divulge what could be personal information to your husband. An HT has to be able to deploy staff in whatever way is best for the school as a whole. Personal preferences can be considered b5it are not a right for an individual member of staff.

If he feels he can't continue on the job, he should look for another one. But personally I've known a lot of parents who've worked in their child's school and managed it perfectly well. I had a class once where one child's mother supported another child in the same class on a one to one basis. Both mother and son were totally professional about it. An observer would never have worked out their connection.

I have worked the same/very similar job to your DH in Pastoral/Safeguarding capacity.
I work in an area reasonably close to home, therefore have been involved in a professional capacity with children on people I know and two I was related to.
I have stood in the school yard to collect my youngest child alongside parents who's older children i have supported with mental health, social work, health issues, bullying etc.
It's not ideal but if kept strictly professional it's worked fine.
I never talked work outside of work even to families I supported. I supported my cousins DC throughout her mental health issues in a work capacity and dealt with my cousin as a 'parent', giving the same support, advice and guidance I would to anyone.

I was asked to remain with the year group cycle rather then cause disruption. I was apprehensive but it worked for all concerned.

If it's the case that staff normally cycle through years 8-11, the obvious thing is for him to go back to year 8, but an alternative would be for the year 7 pastoral support person to move up with the year group this time. However there may be reasons why they want that person to stay with year 7.

If there's a line manager (teaching HoY, pastoral support coordinator?) he could chat to about it, they may agree and be prepared to take up the argument.

It's not just dealings with kids in school - how are the school about things like your daughter having her friends over for a sleepover? Has the head really thought things through?

I don't get it. That would mean he'd be stuck with his daughter's year group forever, for consistency. Surely by that system, he'd move up with the year group he had last year and see them through yr 12 and 13. or if the school has no 6th form, he should be assigned the incoming yr7s so they get consistency throughout their school life.

Well I think it's is an accepted risk that if your DH works in the same school as your DD attends that their paths will cross at some point. The school can only juggle things around so much and cannot be expected to accommodate everyone's needs.

Maybe I’m being thick as I’m not in teaching but how is changing from Y11 to Y8 consistency? What am I missing?

I think in some schools there is a year 7 specialist who stays in that year whilst the others cycle through years 8 to 11 then back to 8 again. So, in some schools if you're year 11 now you'll be year 7 next year and in other schools you'll be year 8 next year. In which case, yes it would muck things about if DH decides he'd rather not do year 8. The OP could clarify this.

I was asked to remain with the year group cycle rather then cause disruption. I was apprehensive but it worked for all concerned.

Say this was in the op's husband's situation, how could you know it worked? It worked for you. And you think it worked for the people you helped. But how would you know whether your daughters friends would be put off coming forward for help? You know you'd never break a confidence. But those who are trusting adults with confidences won't have the same sureness.

I would never have told my friends' parents if I'd had a problem at home. The mother of a friend was a doctor's receptionist and told her 15yo daughter (who told me, obvs) that someone we knew from primary school was pregnant. But I already know, long before that, that I wouldn't be telling friends' relatives anything I didn't want my friend to know.

My form tutor for four years was also the father of one of my form group (who simply called him 'Dad')! Probably not ideal, but it was accepted and they got on with it... It can work out.

The lack of flexibility on the issue is not what you'd want obviously, and on the face of it seems a little unreasonable, but I can't see how it's threatening in the slightest.

He has the option of continuing in his job as is and maintaining the employment but has himself approached the head to say he cannot perform that function in his opinion, or doesn't feel comfortable doing it/does not want to. What option is there other than for him to resign if that's the case in the same way anyone else would if they really didn't feel they wanted or were able to work in the area they were being assigned for personal reasons.

Absolutely it's worth him putting his concerns in writing to the head or requesting further conversation about flexibility on this but I would avoid using terminology such as "threaten". Ultimately it's for your husband to deal with this issue with his employer, work towards a compromise or satisfactory result if he can come to one and to make the decision if not, whether he wants to leave, or wishes to try it and see how it goes first. Clearly the Head does not share his concerns and would welcome that.

I would say there is more to this than your husband has told you.

Most students don’t get the option of what school they go to and most schools avoid having parents working with their children.

In all the schools I’ve worked in the teachers were never given a class that had their own kids in.

Can you imagine if a child parent was their teacher or higher up.
There would be a lot of accusations of favouritism.

I am assuming the pastoral role is in addition to teaching role. It might be tricky to run the timetable with him never teaching his daughter or possibly friends. I assume that the headteacher means resign the extra role. On the face of it it would seem the head could be more flexible here. However, maybe she is prompting him to think about what would happen if he were to be promoted to a leadership responsibility in the future where he might be responsible for the whole school.

I think he should consider talking to your DDs friends if for example they are at your home and say look at school I am a teacher and will give you a detention if I have to but socially I am just DDs fun dad. Maybe he needs to find a way to navigate
the situation.

The son of the headteacher at my sons primary was a pupil at the school. She used to have his friends (including my son) for play dates at her house. I am sure she will have had to be strict with / tell off some of those kids at school at some point.

I did what sounds like the same job as your husband, and my daughter was in my year group. It worked fine and the kids recognised the separation between me being Mrs Caken the pastoral lead, and Caken-child’s parent. I had to reprimand and set sanctions for her friends at times but they know it wasn’t personal because they’d done the things deserving reprimand. Likewise when my daughter stepped out of line, I stepped aside and a colleague handled the situation so that I couldn’t be accused of her having preferential treatment etc. I dealt with parents who I would say were existing acquaintances rather than friends, but it didn’t muddy the waters.

I think he’s unreasonable to not give it a try but that’s based on my own experience. Perhaps he could come up with some scenarios where he would like to work a little differently to accommodate his situation and put that to the head ie, if your daughter needs additional support or her friends need reprimanding, husband’s equivalent from another year group will step in to support?

Looking at OP’s post, I’m not sure the role is as a teacher. Many schools have pastoral workers who are not teachers. I’m not convinced this is HoY role or that the DH teaches.

The reaction of OP in terms of calling it threatening and thinking anything particularly unusual has happened, indicates to me that her DH is probably not a teacher.

Many schools will try to avoid timetabling teachers to teach their own kids. This is not the same as keeping them out of pastoral roles or other roles which might have involvement with the year group. Teachers know and u derstand that they have to be professional and that in their role, they might end up dealing with children they know outside school or parents……and they just get on with it and act professionally. It doesn’t become a big issue for them. In that sense, I think OP and presumably DH is over-reacting, and actually the Head hasn’t threatened them or asked them to resign….the title of the threat is totally misleading.

It really is best not to take a job in a school your DC goes to or bri g your DC to a school where you work, if you can’t deal with the fact you will have to deal with children and possibly parents you know outside school in a professional capacity. It’s just professional maturity to know this and get on with it.

Hmmm…thread launched and then no rely!

It is totally reasonable. My school has 400 pupils per year and it's not fair to disrupt them for one pupil.

Thank you all so much for your comments, putting kids to bed and came on to so many helpful responses , thank you mumsnetters. The balance that is provided from different peoples input helps give us some perspective so very grateful to you all.
(context is pastoral assistant to the HOY so not teaching/HOY) . Same team Y8-11 so potentially 4 years of this.
again thank you again all

I suspect they want him out.
I would be interested how it’s been worded in RL and how he has conveyed that to the OP ie not accurately

I wouldn’t be surprised if there is quite a back story that the OP isn’t aware of

My husband does not feel comfortable working with our daughters year group , potentially having to reprimand her friends for behavior or liaise with parents that he knows personally.

during his interview for the position, did he make this clear?