In the UK, it's very common for secondary school teachers to be referred to as one of the following:
- Sir/Miss
- Miss/Mrs/Mr Surname
This would be both when the students are talking about the teacher, and when talking directly to the
Can you help me with this question Miss?
Mr. Smith, what does this mean?
Please Sir, can I be excused.
However, all of these are quite clearly gendered.
When introducing themselves to a classroom, which forms of address could a teacher instruct their students to use that are gender neutral?
Instead of calling me "Sir", please refer to me as "X"
or
Instead of calling me "Mr. Surname", please refer to me as "X. Surname"
Note, this would be for day-to-day in-person classroom interactions, and not specifically written communications (although my gut feeling is the same terms would work equally well).
I've looked at professional titles, and academic prefixes. However, in the UK these have very specific meanings and requirements to wield them:
Dr (Doctor), should only be used by those with a Doctorate qualification, or who work in the medical profession as a Medical Doctor
Professor, should only be used as a academic professor at a university. It does not apply for high-school level teachers.
Ideally, what I am looking for is a gender neutral term or title, that can be used in place of the above "Sir", "Mr Smith"; that also does not specifically identify the user as non-binary.
That is; is there a form of address which works similarly to "Dr." that would be applicable to a non-doctorate educated teacher, working in a UK highschool?