Primary school tells students to stop saying 'mum' and 'dad', as 'grown-ups' dubbed more appropriate

A primary school has told students not to use “mum” or “dad” when referring to their parents, claiming that the term “grown-ups” is more appropriate as it does not discriminate.

St Luke's Primary School in Brighton features an ‘Equalities and Diversity’ section on their website where they list several ways in which they are trying to eliminate discrimination to “foster good relations between groups of people”.

The groups which they list as having a “protected characteristic” include: disability, gender reassignment, sex, sexual orientation, race, religion and belief, looked-after pupils / children who were previously look-after, young carers, pupils eligible for free school meals or living in poverty.

Under the family equality section of the site, the school explains: “We use the term ‘grown ups’ as a general term rather than ‘mums and dads’ to refer to children’s significant adults so that children who live with one parent; 2 mums; 2 dads; foster parents or who live with extended family don’t feel that their own family make-up is not included.

“We ask club providers to use this language too.

“Not only do we avoid certain language, we also actively talk about different family types and children regularly hear all family types recognised in our language.

“We buy books that include a variety of family types.

Elsewhere on the site, the school says that staff use language "carefully" to reflect gender equality.

They explain: "For example: we wouldn’t say ‘ladies first’, we would teach the children about letting each other through a door as a polite thing to do; we would talk about fire-fighters not firemen; police officers not police men or women; nurse not male nurse which suggests a man as a nurse is unusual."