Confidentiality Issues

[Guest]

Hi there everyone.

 

I'm going to have a moan about confidentiality issues with parents in schools. Here's my gripe:

 

On Friday, I accidently left a piece of paper on the side in my classroom stating all the children's parts in this years Christmas Play. A parent came into the classroom to say goodbye to their child, and saw the piece of paper, picked it up, and then started telling the children what characters they all were. I was so annoyed with her, as the list was not finalised and we hadn't told the children their parts yet because of this. I asked her not to tell the children the parts, and her reply was: 'you shoouldn't have left it lying around then, should you'.

 

Maybe i shouldn't have left it on the side, but as i'm sure many of you will appreciate it is always very hectic in the morning in Reception, and I wasn't expecting a parent to pick the paper up if it clearly diddn't belong to them!

 

It has now really made me feel that maybe it is not worth having parents into school to help out etc, if they do things like this. Am thinking of providing all parental helpers a booklet on induction explaining confidentiality, and what they should/should not be doing.

 

Has anyone else had this problem, or am I just making a mountain out of a mole hill??

 

Thanks for listening

 

Tiny

[Guest]

Hi Tinyone,

 

How annoying! I would have felt exactly the same.

 

I can really sympathise with you, a couple of years ago I was in a school where the staffroom was shared by all staff and helpers, because the school was quite small often meetings were held 'in the corner'. One day a parent helper overheard a confidential conversation about a child protection issue which she then mentioned to some other mums and so on. The problem got quite serious and I know that the school reviewed its parent helpers policy.

 

On the other side of the coin the majority of parent helpers are brillent - I have met many lovely hardworking mums and dads that go out of their way to help the school out and before the era of TA's were a vital part of school life.

 

I definately think that a letter explaining a bit about what there role will be and how thankful you are for there time etc would be a great idea.

[AnonyMouse_79]

hi Tinyone, the parent was way out of order! It was not your fault, you should be able to have things about that you are using like this, although you now know that you will have to be more careful, at least while this parent is in your class! Thank goodness it wasnt something more important. It does raise issues of confidentiality however and this should tackled by your head teacher.

 

We had an induction policy in my last school that stated amongst other things that things that happened or were observed etc were confidential and anyone coming on to the premises to work with the children in whatever capacity, was asked to read and sign their agreement to all the clauses.

 

It is a shame though that the obvious always seems to need to be stated.

If you havent already done so, alert your head or deputy as to what happened.

[AnonyMouse_3139]

Hi Tinyone, I have a small leaflet which I show to students and as it has proved useful in narrowing down the routines, policies and general day to day stuff I have decided to make it into a permenant one for parent helpers. It is anoying if a parent does this, we used to have one who once opened a pack of photos which belonged to a member of staff. Hope you're happy with 'your' choice of players

[Guest Sycamore]

Iwould have felt so angry too! We are only human and we do leave pieces of paper around....it wasn't highly confidential re. a specific child but it was not for the parent to announce the parts! I have my cast list on my desk by my door and that could have so easily been me!

We had an incident recently where a parent came in to my room and picked up my planning folder and started commenting! I have nothing to hide and they could have read it if they had asked but the point is some parents just feel it is there right. It is called common courtesy surely. I would never even do that in a colleagues classroom. It resulted in us always locking our classrooms....wouldn't have helped in your case or mine actually but it made a point to the parents.

I hardly have parent in to help now as they just look at their own children and compare them to the other children. Such a shame.

[Guest]

I noticed one parent used to regularly flick through my diary. So I wrote in bold red letters saw XXXXX reading my diary again. This parent also used to invite children back for tea and then go through their school bag to see which reading book they were on.

[AnonyMouse_1027]

in total agreement with everyone else Tinyone, put a big note up about confidentiality