Are teachers allowed to divulge personal info about a child to another parent?

[Frascati]

My friend's dc was hit by another child in the playground. This child also hit another few that day too.

My friend complained and the teachers answer was "dc is on the autistic spectrum".

Now was I right to be furious when df told me? At the end of the day my own dd has sn (adhd and asd) and I don't want that kind of info to be the playground gossip. I will tell who I want when I want to. Surely this info can not be given out so freely?

I am just stunned tbh and thought that teachers had to be discrete and confidential.

I am going to link this to sn to see what they think but would appreciate comments from teachers Thanks

you are right...no!

I would have thought that divulging that kind of information to another was totally out of order and you are right to be furious.

I'm a teacher, VERY inappropriate.

Highly inappropriate. Sounds like she was trying to justify what happened but she shouldn't have given out that info!

That's what I thought. Surely it should be highly confidential?

No - very inappropriate. Does sound like the teacher was trying to explain why it might be treated slightly differently. OTOH, maybe we should be more open about children's SEN etc, so less stigma is attached.

no, they shouldn't.

Make sure that was what was said though, sometimes things get garbles in the re-telling (and there have been several cases on MN)

TBH I think it happens a lot at primary- and can be helpful to explain biting. Would help if the recipient of the information wasn't a blabbermouth though. A vague "has SN" would probably be better than has ASD. Bit specidifc. My friend had a nightmare with her dd (who has ASD) as she was very quick to spot others on the spectrum and would go up and talk to them about it if she felt so inclined. There was one boy who hadn't been told he had AS and my friend lived in absolute fear of her dd telling him.