would you/did you tell your child's teacher that YOU are a teacher??

[aniseed123]

Hello
My LO has just started school. I had an initial meeting with the teacher and she is lovely. at the back of my mind was the thought that 'should i tell her i also am a primary teacher?' I didn't tell her then as i didn't feel it appropriate, but I know parent evening etc will come up and when comments are made relating to learning, would you tell?

Flowers just like Iggy said, whereas in other jobs I've had before teaching you could book a day or half day's annual leave for things, or flexi time, or Time Off In Lieu, I can't do any of these things as a teacher.

My experience of primary schools is severely limited (the same as most, in that I went to one once a loooong time ago!) so I would hope that the teacher did presume to know more than me and explains accordingly. Just a I'd assume a primary teacher parent might not be au fait with my specialist subject at GCSE or A level.

Any way, my perspective is all speculation and not necessarily valid. DS won't start till next year. I need to choose a school first! (And fitting visits in for that is my first challenge)

I'm afraid I think it came out when I was trying to ensure they didn't have too much faffing about in the "settling in process" in Reception - it's not a job you can take time off from outside of school holidays, and we don't have handy grandparents nearby to take and fetch at odd hours.

I'd mention it casually ASAP.

My telling the teacher was nothing to do with making a judgement on other parents knowledge about education or how she might treat other parents. I'm amazed anyone would think this was the case. Presumably if you were a lawyer and you met another lawyer through work or socially, you would tell them that you do the same/similar job.

The fact is that I work I education, I spend a lot of time in schools, I've taught KS1 very recently...I don't want there to be an embarrassing situation where the teacher spends ages telling me things for me to say actually I know about this already. Plus I'm no good at pretending - it makes me uncomfortable.

If I was doing a parents evening with another teacher as parent, I would assume knowledge. If I am doing it with a non teaching parent for the first time I assess their knowledge of acronyms/testing procedure during the conversation. My aim is to communicate rather than patronise. I treat all parents as I would wish to be treated.

I have told all of my child's teachers. I think it is just professional courtesy. Nobody likes the feeling like they've been teaching their grandma to suck eggs. It means you can cut to the chase far faster. In my case it means I can empathise with them over my ds's behaviour and they know I understand what it is like.

Flowers I don't understand why you are interpreting the op's question into lack of respect for non-teaching parents. The op didn't ask 'should I tell my child's class teacher I am also a teacher so she can get better treatment' It's actually something that most teachers ask friends about at some point or another. Different people take a different approach to it.

Soapbox you've just said what I wanted to, but much more succinctly!

Haggisfish I have my uses :-)

Mine already knew - small world in my borough!

I mean my DC's teachers already knew!