Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

Really quite annoyed about this but not sure the best way of broaching it?

Anyway... it started a few weeks ago.
At the end of January I had a call from the receptionist at our youngest sons school as we had not filled in the transfer form for him to move up to the junior school in September, had we been staying though he would not have gone there anyway we would have sent him to a different junior school.

She said they had been contacted by the people who sort out the transfer papers and we had to nominate a school, she asked why I had not filled it in - now in HINDSIGHT I should have said thats confidential however I thought any information about a child or children in the school had to stay within the school???
So I said we might be moving elsewhere so he would attend another school.

I didn't think any more of it until a week or so later when both my older two boys started getting hounded at the high school as they'd heard we were moving :$ my husband had a go at the boys for telling people which they were adamant they hadn't and at the time there were very few people who knew we were selling out house, none of them lived in this village.
Our boys best friends still didn't know at the time they were first confronted and they were quite upset about us thinking it was them - I can normally tell when they're guilty and after being hounded they always fess up... so we know it wasn't them.

Anyway more and more people started finding out and I was getting asked questions by 'sort of' friends and acquintances that live in the village.

So we then had to come up with the story that yes we were moving but just up the road - closer to where husband currently works (was a back up plan if we didn't sell the house in time anyway).

Anyway end of last week my eldest son was approached directly by a girl at school 2 years below who funnily enough is the daughter of the receptionist I spoke to on the phone when i said we 'might be' moving!
She admitted to my eldest son that her mum had told her we were moving.
She then starts asking if we were going back to Australia cause her mum had noticed I was selling several things!
Today he's had loads of people going up to him asking if we're moving back to Australia !!!! Our sons have said we're moving closer to where their dad works but they're now being harassed about it all daily - which I'm far from happy with.

Alright so like I said in hindsight I should of said something else or said thats private or at least not to say anything of it outside of school - but stupidly I thought whatever you told them should remain within the school on a need to know basis.

The grating thing is we've literally just finished filling out paperwork for the house sale - we've not even told the estate agents yet what our real plans are, we've had issues with the buyers so hubby isn't even telling work yet until the paperwork is confirmed as signed by the buyers and we agree a date!

We have a parent teacher meeting arranged for next week with our youngest sons teacher - do we discuss this with her or do we wait til everything's confirmed and then go to the headteacher - who to be honest has never really been very helpful in the little contact we have had with her.

What do I do ?

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

I would be furious and report it to the School head. Has your house sale gone through? Your buyers can't back out?

This is a major breach and that woman needs to be stopped and quickly.

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

That is not acceptable. So would she start broadcasting if one of the kids at school was ill with something serious? If a parent had a past they would rather kept quiet but had to be disclosed? Parents who instigated court orders for who is allowed to pick up their child? There are so many delicate situations out there and the receptionist is privy to a lot of the information. Should it be confidential? Absolutely.

I've worked in a school where the receptionist was privy to some information that the family only wanted the Headteacher and the immediate classteacher to know. Did she tell anyone else? Of course not!

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

I would complain to the LEA. The school will definitely know how serious you are when contacted by the department. What happened is not on.

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

Thank you

I've been formulating a letter, for weeks we've been interogating family and the few friends that know, only when half the village seemed to know did we post a confirmation of sorts on facebook.
It was a yes we're moving but only going up the road (fib:blink:)kind of post so didn't feel it necessary to tell you yet as the house isn't sold we're only having viewings!
Before end of last week we had nothing concrete to go on but we're now satisfied that her daughter admitting to our older son that her mum told her was the start of it all, annoying little interfering village!

I hadn't thought of the LEA but will speak to my husband when he gets home.
We've got so many things going on at once it's surreal

Our sale hasn't yet gone through, we received all the paperwork Friday afternoon in the post, spent half the weekend filling it all in, and will be dropping it off at the solicitors tomorrow as he needs proof of ID. We are going to push for the buyers to sign the contracts within the next week which should be made clear in the paper work as we have requested as much notice as possible to move out a minimum of 4 weeks and as they want to be in at the end of April/ early May they need to get a move on!

That said you can see why we had intended not to tell anyone! Good job I didn't say we were thinking of moving back to Australia!!!! Could you imagine all the ramifications of that getting out - even our estate agents still don't know whats going on!
(Last time we had half the village coming in for a nosey but just basically wanting a gossip and to try and invite themselves over for a holiday!)

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

I can understand your wrath - there is no way such information should be spread around - but I can't quite understand why the move back to Australia should be such a secret.

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

There seems to be a fear, amongst people migrating, that as soon as their house buyers know they are planning to emigrate that they will immediately reduce their offer.

It has been expressed many times on here

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

Not that so much.
I grew up here and when I left home I lived in a town where you got the odd nosey person and a few who would try and intefere but nothing on the scale of where we live, where I grew up. I'm not exaggerating when I say half the place is related to most of the other people here!
If a man is cheating on his wife half this village seems to know before she does and vice versa.

We decided when we moved back here in 1999 having lived where hubby had settled down nearer the city that we would as much as possible keep ourselves to ourselves.

Plus after returning from Australia in 2008 we were going to go back 2 years later and people found out then but we weren't too fussed as it was all go, we felt it did have an impact on selling the house, we ended up accepting less than we were really prepared to but the buyers held out knowing we wanted to get on that plane.....
until hubbys brother died and it really knocked us for 6, we knew it was coming but had no idea that it would affect us all so badly with the older two and hubby in a state and me struggling with it all we panicked and bought another house the kids got loads of grief for telling a pack of lies basically!
Plus hubby works with some of the other kids parents and people he worked with could easily have made his life hell at work and when it came to job security and thought if it fell through they could push him with any job cuts.
We have found that it's best to say as little as possible to people round here, and it has made our life easier til this moo bag at the school started flapping her trap !

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

Reading this stole 5 minutes of my life.

Can I have them back?

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

Definitely complain. Your situation is relatively unimportant but if she's prepared to tell the world your private stuff then she'll do the same with other people's more serious stuff. Not on. You get a job in a school and you're automatically agreeing to a confidentiality clause, written or not.

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

doh....if only you was a Doctors receptionist at her local GP's. You would of had great comeback to her lack of confidentiality then!!!

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

In hindsight, as you say, you are probably kicking yourself for not using the word 'Confidendetial' when giving the Receptionist your answer, but the fallout is more likely a case of Chinese Whispers than anything else. She tells her daughter that Johnny may not be going to her school next year because he may be moving and before you know it he is off to Australia! It happens. People are curious and probably just excited for you. By all means express your disappointment that it wasn't handled with more consideration but don't make a mountain out of it. You want to be leaving on a high, not with bad feelings.

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

It shouldn't. She should know she shouldn't tell her daughter she knows child x has a cold, let alone anything else.

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

I know it shouldn't happen, but unfortunately it does.

Re: Advise needed with regards confidentiality breach at sons school?
 

I would be having a word with her myself!

I always saw moving to oz as a positive in selling the house. Told buyers that otherwise we would never give the house up bla bla bla, but as we were moving to oz we could not possibly go any lower on price as without that price we couldn't afford to move at all.