Working at Dcs school

[user109842]

What's the protocol? Not teaching same year group as my kids obvs.

Can you have playdates at your house?
Can you be Facebook friends with your kids' parents? Or did you delete them?

I don't think there's protocol as such, but personally think it's a bad idea all round. It makes things awkward for DCs teacher, DCs friends, DCs friends parents and definitely you as parent and teacher.

I’m Assistant Head at my daughter’s school.
The benefits far outweigh any negatives.

I work in a school and almost every staff member has their kids there or been there.

I am Facebook friends with a teacher at my kids school as her ds is in same class as my dd. I think you need to be more cautious especially about play dates but you don't want to spoil your kids time at school too.

Carefully chosen play dates should be fine.
I would delete the Facebook friends so you don't end up in a friend of a friend said... situation.

Could the DC's other parent take the lead with school communication and decisions, in case you or the teacher have issues to raise at any point?

It’s down to your judgment. I worked in DDs school and loved it.
I kept the FB friends I had already but didn’t accept anyone that tried to add me after I began working there. Play dates are fine. Just don’t ever discuss anything to do with work (either in person or on social media) with any of them. That was my only rule. I didn’t discuss the school with other parents. Confidentiality is obviously massive.
I found staff members generally ok, in fact really helpful (one teacher kept her in “doing jobs” while I was at an emergency meeting). Try and have childcare back up too. Don’t expect that your boss will allow them to stay with you after school finishes for children. I worked till 4 and had to pay for childcare for that 45 mins of the day.
That said, I loved being there for every single performance of hers, I loved truly knowing how wonderful the people that worked with her with and I loved that whatever issue she had I was there within the minute. When I left that school my DD presented me with my leavers card in assembly, I’ll never forget that.

Thanks that's helpful. I'm really looking forward to it.

I started working at my DD school in September. I didn’t teach her set for my subject though I taught some of her casual friends. I changed my surname on Facebook. Kept the parent friends but added no knew ones. Blocked the pupils who were friends from seeing anything on Facebook. I don’t tweet on the school twitter feed. It has worked fine but my DD was in year 11 so old enough to handle it. She is a model pupil and staff are forthcoming in their praise of her but I never talk the her teachers about her unless they do. It was nice to have an insight into her world. She is thinking of moving for 6th form but I don’t think that is to do with me being there.

In September my youngest starts there and she is happy at the idea I will be there but that may change in time. I will have to wait and see.

I would be wary of teaching in a school if your dc is likely to have issues of one sort or another. That could be difficult in the staff room. I miss going to parents evening though. DH had to do that as I was on the other side. I will try to avoid teaching my youngest DDs age group so I can be the parent for her. So far I think I am not having to teach year 7 next year.

DS is at my school, quite a lot of teachers have their children here. It's a brand new school, so most of them started as a whole new intake, or in their first year of schooling. I try and keep things separate as much as possible. I only have one school parent on my Facebook and we were friends before I started here. For playdates, I tend to offer to take DS and a friend to a play centre and pay for it, same for parties, as I don't really want students in my home.

DS just comes to my classroom before and after school and hangs out. He knows that he can't interrupt during meetings. I used to have him in after school care on the two meeting afternoons per week, but he preferred to just hang out in my room, watch the ipad, draw pictures on the whiteboard or play with the Lego, so I didn't see any point spending money on it. If he wants to get back into it later on, I don't mind if he goes. It's up to him.

It's been good for him, as he finds some of the classroom time a bit overwhelming, so he will often come into my room and lunchtime and have a bit of downtime, or even just a hello or a cuddle. It's also great that I get to see all of him assemblies and events. Our team is made up of 7 teachers, 3 of us have kids here, so when there is a mothers/fathers day afternoon or open afternoon, we team teach anyway, so we all get a chance to go and spend some time at the events.

I’ve known two people who did this. It worked out very well for one and not the other.

The one it worked out for (was at the same school whilst his son was aged 13-18) had a fantastic relationship with his dad because he saw him at work as well as at home, took it upon himself to give that bit extra at school because he didn’t want to embarrass his father, and realised the value of school and working hard. He wasn’t actually taught by his father at all but, as his dad was deputy head, came into contact all the time.

The other, child aged 4, was a disaster. His mother was in his classroom and he would play up for her all day and every day. I don’t know why the situation was allowed to continue, especially as the child picked on others and excuses were made. Parents voted with their feet (me included) in the end.

My children attended the school where I taught. They weren't in any sets I taught, but their friends were. I would find said friends sprawled in front of my telly when I got home...

Quite a few staff in my school have kids at our school. Some manage to separate their professional and personal role fine, most do not, to differing levels of unacceptability. Ranging from turning up at DCs assemblies (it's a secondary so is completely not appropriate), to checking the behaviour points of DCs friends and forming judgements about them. But by far the worst experience I've ever come across was when a colleague disagreed with my professional decision to enter their DS into the foundation paper, so took the matter into their own hands and entered an external GCSE exam hall AND SWAPPED THE PAPERS OVER!!!!