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A top-performing London sixth-form has told pupils to stop referring to teachers as ‘sir’ and ‘miss’ in a bid to challenge “cultural misogyny”.

In an yesterday, Harris Westminster‘s executive principal James Handscombe told students that the terms were “deeply unequal”.

He added that while 鈥榮ir鈥� invoked gallant knights such as Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad, ‘miss’ was “how you refer to a small girl, or an Edwardian shop assistant”.

Instead, students will be asked to refer to teachers by their honorific and last name, such as Mr Handscombe.

‘Teacher’ is admissible, as long as staff agree.

Handscombe told students that the terms fed into “a view of the world that diminishes women”.

“Men get to be fearless leaders and alpha types, get credited for hustling whilst behind the backs of women it’s asked whether they deserve it, whether their career comes from good ideas or good looks, power moves or diversity lists.”

‘Madam has a stroppy connotation’

The policy is not being adopted more widely across the Harris Federation, which operates the sixth-form, or Harris Clapham Sixth Form, where Handscombe is also executive head.

In the case of the latter, Handscombe said it had a “different culture” and was at a “different stage of their evolution”.

Harris Westminster, where 49 students received Oxbridge offers last year, was set up in 2014 as a selective free school that gives priority to disadvantaged pupils with high academic potential.

At the time, Handscombe proffered the idea of adopting a similar policy around monikers, but staff had “too many other things to think about”.

But after the idea was raised again by a female staff member in a meeting earlier this year, the school decided this June was a “good time” to implement the approach due to current year 13s already leaving for the exam period.

Different terms for female teachers were discussed, but staff decided “madam has a stroppy connotation, and ma’am sounds like you’re a royal or from the 1920s,” Handscombe told Schools Week.

The “fanciful” sensei 鈥� the Japanese term for teacher 鈥� and the “very Hogwarts” professor were also discussed as replacements, before being discarded.

According to the executive principal, both school staff and students are “very on board” with the new approach.

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A lot of schools have ‘other priorities’

Rather than enforcing the policy, or sanctioning pupils who lapse into old habits, Handscombe said it would be “something where we shift the culture by reminding each other”.

Teachers will 鈥渋gnore鈥� pupils who use the now-banned terms, but will 鈥渞ecognise鈥� not all pupils will know their names so will give them 鈥渁mnesty to say 鈥業鈥檓 sorry, I鈥檝e forgotten your name鈥� 鈥� or, more likely, 鈥業鈥檓 afraid I鈥檝e forgotten what title you use鈥欌��, Handscombe said.

But if pupils refer to a teacher as sir or miss “in order to be disrespectful…then [we] would quite rightly sanction them appropriately”.

He admitted that while he thought “cultural misogyny” was a “global problem that I would like all schools to think about”, he did not anticipate a mass rollout of the policy.

“A lot of schools have got particular things to think about and other priorities,” he added.

The Harris Federation was contacted for comment.

The LGBT+ charity Educate and Celebrate recommended last year the terms 鈥榮ir鈥� and 鈥榤iss鈥� be replaced with ‘teacher’ 鈥� but that was based instead on the idea of moving towards a 鈥済ender-free鈥� model of education.