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If your child studies in the school where you teach, the arrangement has real upsides: one commute, one school calendar, a familiar building. It also creates three pressure points: who marks your child's work, who you are at the dinner table, and what classmates say.
A qualitative study published in Psychology in the Schools in 2025 interviewed children aged 10 to 13 who attended the school where a parent worked; for six of them, the parent was also one of their teachers (Yıldırım and Canpolat, 2025). The interviews grouped into four themes: advantages, expectations, “artificial friendship” and the children's own recommendations.
Can a teacher mark their own child's exam papers?
For board exams, CBSE keeps parents away from the sensitive jobs. Its examination bye-laws say no one whose “near relation” is appearing in a Board exam that year may be appointed paper setter, moderator, secrecy officer, head examiner or coordinator. The same bye-laws say board answer books are converted to fictitious roll numbers before evaluation. This is an archived copy and the Board also issues detailed instructions, so check the current rules with your principal.
For class tests, unit tests and internal assessment, we could not find a single national rule, and that is where most of the awkwardness lives. Some exam systems write it down: in the UK, the JCQ General Regulations (section 5.3) require schools to tell awarding bodies when a staff member is teaching and preparing a family member, such as their own child, for a qualification with internally assessed parts, and to keep records. You can borrow that habit even if your school has no written policy.
Ask your school for these, in writing:
A colleague marks your child's answer sheets in your subject, or second-marks them if a swap is not possible.
You do not set or see, before the exam, any paper your child will sit.
You do not invigilate your child's exam room.
Practical and project marks for your child are given or checked by another teacher.
Any re-check request about your child's marks goes through the class teacher, like any other parent's.
The point is not that you would be unfair. It is that nobody, including your child, should ever have to wonder.
How do you keep teacher and parent roles apart at home?
Much of the strain shows up at home, not in the staffroom. These house rules help:
No staffroom talk. Don't discuss your child's classmates, their marks or their teachers at home, and don't pass on what colleagues said about your child.
One channel for school news. If your child's class teacher has a concern, ask them to tell you the way they would tell any parent, not in the corridor.
Homework belongs to your child. Don't check their notebook with your marking pen. If they are stuck in your own subject, let someone else do the explaining. Fermi's AI tutor works out what a student already knows and teaches through the problem, checking understanding as it goes, so the explaining does not fall to you at 10 pm.
A switch-off phrase. Agree on one line either of you can say, such as “Parent mode, please”, when a chat slides into a lecture.
What should your child say when classmates tease them?
Teasing about a parent-teacher usually sounds like “You'll get the paper early” or “Of course you topped, your mum checks it.” It stings because it questions marks your child earned. Peer bullying in general is common: almost one in three students (32%) had been bullied by their peers at school at least once in the previous month, according to UNESCO's 2019 report Behind the numbers.
Practise two or three short, calm replies together at home:
“Yes, my dad teaches here. No, I don't see the papers.”
“Another teacher marks my answer sheets. Ask them.”
“I studied for it, same as you.”
Then change the subject or walk away. A short, bored reply keeps it from turning into an argument.
Your part is harder: don't step in as a teacher. If the teasing continues, raise it as a parent with the class teacher, the way you would want any parent to. Our guide on what to do if your child is being teased at school has a step-by-step plan.
When should you step back further?
Watch for your child avoiding school, hiding marks from you, or saying friends don't trust them. If colleagues keep comparing your child with classmates or a sibling, our posts on what to do about teacher favouritism and when a teacher compares your two children suggest what to say. Sometimes a different section, or a different teacher for your subject, is the simplest fix.
If your child seems persistently low or anxious, talk to the school counsellor or a doctor. Tele MANAS, the government's toll-free mental health helpline, answers on 14416 or 1800-89-14416, day and night.
Send the start-of-term note this week: it protects your child, you and your colleagues at once.
