Relationships with teachers

[Daydreambeliever88]

Hi!
Please could any teachers out there tell me if there’s anything in their contract that states teachers are not allowed to date or start a relationship with a parent of a student they used to teach? Also, is there some sort of online system that the parent would be placed on, to let all staff members know in the school that this parent was in fact dating the teacher that once taught their child? Little one is not in the teachers class anymore but is still in the school.
Many thanks.

I’m a teacher and one of my colleagues dated one of the parents. I’m not aware of anything in teachers contracts stating that this can’t happen.

There is also no online system.

I've worked at 2 schools and their policies prohibited this, citing a conflict of interest.

It didn't matter if the child was in the teacher's class or not.

Thank you. I was told by someone in another school that it isn’t allowed, and that I (the parent) will be placed on some sort of online system and the whole school staff will be told. I was also told that it will follow my child to high school as well, and that all staff at the high school will be told about me. I guess it all depends on the individual schools policies then?

Thank you. Was this in the teachers contract?

I think you would probably just need to let slt know.

Someone is just trying to scare you. There is no ‘online system’ for this!

No, there isn’t.

I've also worked in schools where this fine.

In fact one parent was chair of the PTA. Teacher also had children at the school.

Out of courtesy the parent and teacher ran it past the HT before going public.

Didn’t this happen to Bridget Jones!!?

If the teacher doesn't teach the kid and isn't going to teach the kid I'm not sure what the problem is?

PMSL at the idea that the tech in the education sector is joined up enough for a relationship between a teacher and a parent to be tracked for years, through school changes.

Does your 'friend' who told you this also believe the government are cloud seeding or whatever it's supposed to be?

Teaching Standards are here.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/61b73d6c8fa8f50384489c9a/Teachers__Standards_Dec_2021.pdf

If the relationship doesn't impact negatively on the standards then there is no redress.

I suppose the standards could be impacted, say if the teacher is not making accurate use of assessment (6) for the child ( but hard to prove it is because of the relationship).

The other would be part 2, if there is a policy that is not being followed or if the teacher is acting unprofessionally ( caught kissing in the classroom cupboard perhaps 😉…)

I think the online system they were on about is called CPOMS, each child and adult has anything and everything logged on there and records transferred to new schools. It’s a very robust safeguarding system.
the teacher should let the head know just to be curteous, and the teacher may be asked to sign a non disclosure form of some kind.
it depends how vulnerable the parent is as well, to be honest. If the school know there is potential for the teacher to be taking advantage then yes, they would need to follow safeguarding protocol and log that on cpoms

Would it always be logged on that system you have just mentioned? If there’s no issues with parent being taken advantage of or anything like that?

Not all schools use CPOMS. We do but less than half the schools in my area do - these systems cost quite a lot of money.

If OP as the parent of a Y3 child was dating the Y6 teacher it wouldn’t be considered an issue. To record something on CPOMS you create an “incident”, to create an incident you start with the child’s name. The parents name will be on the system as the parent. I suppose I could record an incident with the child Jane Doe saying that I had become aware that Jane Doe’s mother is in a relationship with ABC (we use initials) but it wouldn’t be a safeguarding concern, a behaviour issue, a health issue, a SEN issue…..

We have children of staff, stepchildren of staff, grandchildren of staff at my school. At my previous school a member of staff (non teaching) DID end up marrying the parent of a pupil…. it wasn’t an issue. I’ve known members of staff to get married. Staff relationships do have to be declared and it would be good practice for the staff member to tell SLT if they start a relationship with the parent of a pupil but unless it becomes a safeguarding issue there is no need for ant “recording”.

Absolutely no way parent dating teacher goes on Cpoms. That is not what it's for.

Someone is trying to bully you OP. It’s fine.

My school would probably log it for records and tag it as such, just in case leadership changed whilst the child was still in school as they may prefer not to move the teacher back into a class with that child. It’s not a safeguarding concern as I said, if the parent isn’t vulnerable, but it would be logged as could lead to friendship stuff e.g. relevant if that child got picked on due to the relationship.
i don’t think it’s a bad thing it would be logged. As a parent you can ask for all records regarding your child to be given to u if u are worried about it

I've seen a news report (will try and find it) citing a teacher being sacked for this (and other!) reasons, I think the justification was that said teacher couldn't appropriately safeguard the child and there was a conflict of interests. This is a vague memory from a couple of years ago but really stuck with me (I work in a school).
Update: had a quick Google and plenty of news stories on various teachers but all were doing all sorts of other stupid and quite immoral stuff so this might not actually stand.
FWIW I think in general this might not be a great idea. I think it muddies waters and professional boundaries. Other parents will be CONVINCED your child will get some sort of preferential treatment or will just generally gossip. However, I also accept that life happens! I guess just be transparent?

I know a teacher who married a parents whilst the children were still at the school! It all worked out well because she was an ace teacher to be fair and everyone loved her!