Why does my child's primary call the teachers Miss/Mr Firstname?

[cockles]

I've never come across this before in the UK - anyone know why it is? It's an ordinary state primary in a mixed inner London borough.

yuno yes but that is family

Its no wonder our education system has sunk to a world leading model to the laughing stock.

Can no one be seen to be deferent anymore?

FROM a world leading model - must preview!

DD calls all her teachers Miss, Mrs or Mr Lastname. So do we. I'm not sure she knows their first names and we'd struggle to remember them.

When I was at school teachers only referred to us by our last names and we only called our classmates by their last names or nicknames. I did't know the Christian names of quite a few children in my class.

When my FIL was a supervisor in saudi all the locals used to call him Mr Ron .... mysteron????

All the teachers are called by first names at my ds3's school. I found it very uncomfortable at first, and would often ask ds if Mrsoandso was teaching him that day, he didn't have a clue who I was referring to. He calls his HT by his first name, I still can't

nickschick - Mr Ron is HILARIOUS. I actually can't stop laughing. The thought of going to work every day and being called a Mysteron..Lol Thanks for that

Posy - I don't think evolution of language can be the cause of our education being a 'laughing stock' (and I don't believe it is a laughing stock). I live outside the UK and Miss 1stName is the norm here. My husband is only ever known as Mr 1stName at work. In many cultures, 1st and last names are not as rigidly confined to specific use as in our culture.

As an aside, when people want to be particularly deferential here, they call my husband and I Madam Yuno and Sir 1stName, which still makes me smile .

Yuno- I think that's an important point. Outside the UK (eg Asia) the context in which you use first name and last name is different to the UK and can get confusing. I haven't quite worked out all the subtleties of it yet.

One thing I learnt is that if, e.g., I say to my doorman, "dont call me ma'am, call me TheBride" that's actually kind of rude to him because it makes him feel like his job isnt so important IYSWIM. They value respect of a hierarchy more than what they perceive to be fake equality.

So whilst in the west, asking people to use informal terms is seen as nice and equalising, in Asia it's different.

FWIW I don't like pupils calling teachers by their first names. I think using more formal means of address draws an important boundary.

This year DS's teacher was Firstname. Next year his teacher is Mrs Lastname (I mentioned her above; she's the only regular teacher in the school to opt for Mrs Lastname as a mode of address, although it turns out I was mistaken and she's a Y1 teacher rather than Y2).

He hasn't even really noticed that the forms of address are different, or queried it (and he's normally fairly thoughtful about stuff like that; he's asked about why there are only two male class teachers in the school, for example, but has never asked why there's only one Mrs Lastname). So far as he's concerned their names are just Firstname and Mrs Lastname. I certainly don't think that there's the smallest difference in how much respect he has for them or how deferential he is towards them. It's the person and the position that garner the respect, and the names are just labels for the person and position.

It was never the case that you called a teacher by their first name (unless it was a nun or a priest and they were Sister/Father/Brother) when I was a kid and I grew up in America. My son is in primary 2 and outside of the drama teacher, they are called Miss/Mr Surname. I don't like the idea of a teacher being called by their first name. It is disrespectful. I don't even call my inlaws by their first names. It's weird, because I feel like kids should call me Mrs Biscuit. They call me Biscuit's mummy most of the time!

At my last school all staff were known by their first names which was fantastic. The only exceptions were if someone else joined with the same name; for a while I was Y6 SE13 and my colleague was Y5 SE13. At my current school staff voted to be known by title and surname which I'm less keen on. I do not answer to Miss and make it VERY clear to the children that my school name is Mrs SE13 and that they only get to call me 'Miss' if they and their parents are happy for me to ignore their given names and use boy/girl instead.

So if a child says "Rebecca, you are the best teacher in the world and I am very lucky to have you as my class teacher" (to a teacher who wants to be known as Rebecca and has asked to be called Rebecca) that is automatically disrespectful? Wow.

Absolutely agree with ProfLayton.

I think people say 'It doesn't show respect' automatically without actually thinking about what respect means.

The name you use for someone has nothing to do with how much you respect them. It's about formality and tradition. Which in schools, belong in the Victorian era. To be honest, I've found the more you do away with stuff like uniform, formality and unnecessary rituals, the more children can get down to actually learning. But I HE

mine call me Mrs ... and then pronounce it wrongly
that si even WORSE