Hone

Lessons · Teaching · confidentiality, and the staffroom

Confidentiality, and the staffroom

What you learn about a learner is shared only with people who need it to do their job, and the staffroom is not that test; the test is whether this person needs it to teach or protect this learner.

Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.

What it is for

The most common breach in any school is a kind one: a tired teacher telling a sympathetic colleague something a child said, in a room with eleven other people in it, one of whom coaches that child's sibling.

How to think about it

Before the sentence starts, ask who needs this and what for. If the answer is that it would help them understand the child and they do not teach the child, that is not a reason. Then move the conversation to somewhere it belongs.

Worked example

Ask first: who needs this, and what for?
One question, before the sentence starts.
Yes: the other teachers of that learner, the named lead, the office where the process requires it
People who need it to do a job.
No: the staffroom, a colleague who finds it interesting, your own family
None of these are doing that job.
11 other people in a staffroom is 11 people who did not need it
The count is the argument.

Your turn

Write the line that says where a conversation about a learner belongs.

A conversation about a learner belongs in a room with a .

The trap

Believing that leaving the name out makes it safe. In a school this size, a child in year four whose mother is in hospital is a name.

Practise confidentiality, and the staffroom on HoneA question on it now, a real problem where there is one, and it is remembered for review. Free, no email needed.