Mr and Mrs

From what I remember from when I was in primary school we never called a male teacher sir. It was always Mr "so and so". Female teachers were usually called Mrs or Miss "so and so" but if we couldn't be bothered with the full name we would shorten it to miss. When ever I have gone into schools to do work experience I have always let the children use my first name to address me. This is mainly because I was quite uncomfortable being called Mr Corlett when I was still at school my self. Most of the children were happy to call me by my first name but I found some were not accustomed to the idea. I had this interesting conversation with a year 4:

Boy: Whats your name?

Me: Richard

Boy: No, your last name.

Me: Oh...Corlett

Boy: Ah, thanks Mr Corlett 

As you can imagine I found this quite odd but it is interesting to note that as a teacher you do loose your first name as both parents and children will call you Mr/Mrs in and out side of school. 

Now on my first university placement I've come across another interesting phenomena to do with names. I'm with a year 1 class and as yet only 3 or 4 of them have manage to remember and use my name. Thy do know who I am when the class teacher says "Mr Corlett" and it's not that I don't try to reminded them of my name but I have found that I am very often responding to being called "miss". This is something I've never come across before and I know it's not a joke as children I have never met before will still call me miss. I've thought about this and I think I know why.

As far as they're concerned the tag "miss" is applied to all "teachers". It is not gender specific. This is due to the way the school is structured; they have very little contact with male teachers until KS2. As all of their teachers are female up till then and they don't often see the male ones, "miss" becomes the generic term to use when speaking to a teacher.