Teachers I need solidarity before I leave the profession

I have regular email contact with my boys' teachers. Both have SEN but are in mainstream. We have open communication because sometimes there is no other way for us to talk about issues with the kids. Until recently, I worked full time, and I'm a single parent. This meant that by the time I got them home, fed, lunchboxes washed, dried, refilled, uniforms sorted, washing on, kids in bed etc (you get the picture), it was usually 9pm or later by the time I could sit down and organise my thoughts enough to write an email. I stuck to a few rules though:

• I intended to schedule emails to send the next morning. I often forgot in exhaustion, but I made it clear right from the start that if I forgot to do this, I had NO expectation of receiving replies out of hours and that it wasn't intentional to email late at night.
• I don't email to complain about things. If I did have serious cause to complain then I'd email the head or the office, not directly to a teacher.
• I think the teachers and support staff are amazing and I make sure they know this! They support my boys brilliantly. Issues do arise because they both have SEN, but I don't blame them on the staff. I make sure I give credit where it's due. Eg year 1 did a brilliant Christmas show and I emailed complimenting them on this. This was passed on to all staff and they told me how much they appreciated it. They work bloody hard and it should be recognised.

I'm sorry that you've had such a shit time. The bakery experience sounds brilliant. Surely this is an ideal learning opportunity for parents to teach their kids that disappointment is part of life and we have to learn to deal with it? That's what I'd do with my boys.

I've experienced it from the other side btw. I've recently left my 15 year role as a TA in a specialist school. Some parents (not many) were a part of it, but SLT was the main issue for me.

OP is trying not to make life harder anymore and considering no longer teaching. Good advice to all teachers - stop teaching. Problem solved. No teachers making entitled parents and their children disappointed anymore.

WHY DID YOU TRY TO DO SOMETHING NICE FOR THE KIDS, OP? THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT.

Exactly. It's a bloody awful job.
Glad I don't do it anymore

I was joking! I'm a (retired, thank god) teacher.
I've already 'fessed up to skimming and missing the residential stuff that made my joke about the inaccuracy of 24 hours a day, seven days a week of a teaching role, fall flat Then, again jokingly, I said to be strictly accurate on a five day trip, it's 24/5.

I messed up a joke, basically. And yes, I've been that teacher getting woken up at 3am on a residential many many times.

Again, apologies for messing up what was meant to be a humourous post.

i often email the school SENCO at 11pm because that’s when she is online and replies to me, even if you email at 2pm , it seems to be when she replies.
I know another teacher I regularly contact doesn’t read emails after 7pm, but I know if I send it late she can reply first thing.

Go. The parent stress made me leave. Never felt happier

Following a weekend residential (with no time off given in lieu so straight back to school on the Monday) a parent complained that her DD had been made to feel different. This was because children with food allergies were put to the front of the queue and supervised when selecting their food. The children were 8 & 9 so fairly young. Apparently, I should've known that the allergy wasn't that bad (the child had an EpiPen) and close supervision wasn't necessary. Can you imagine what would have happened if the child had had a reaction?

I'm aware of that. But it actually doesn't work on my school email when I'm at home. Scheduling it just means it never goes.

Kids email me at all manner of stupid times. I reply when I get to work.

Schedule send is a thing, though. No one needs an email to arrive at 10.30pm. By all means type it whenever suits you but there's no need to just press 'send' at an antisocial hour.

Sorry, but it also wouldn't have occurred to me that it would matter at what time I sent an email. I would have assumed that people would check their non-emergency work email at a time that was convenient to them and that it wouldn't matter what time it had been sent. 🤷

Emailing at 10.30 pm is outrageous

On most email platforms - gmail, outlook etc - there's a "schedule send" button. So you can write your email at 10pm but it only gets sent the next day during work hours. You can choose the exact time and date.

Was it? I don't care what time anyone emails me.

I check my work email at work and our policy is simply that we keep our own hours. We're expected to reply within 24 hours but not within a specified schedule.

If a parent emails me at 10.30 because it suits them, that's fine... as long as they don't expect me to reply then. And if they're abusive, they simply won't get a reply from me.

It's so demanding as entitled to ask you to show video of the draw! I can see being upset at their kids being excluded but that's life and a lesson in itself. Are you allowed to just ignore them?

@Embroideryemma "The head called me out for emailing the teacher at 10:30 at night. As though I have a choice about when to squeeze life admin in."

You WHAT? Emailed at 10.30 at night??? Of COURSE you have a fucking choice when to do that.
Well done that Head for calling you out. That was outrageous behaviour on your part.

Ok, small typo with the "a" but otherwise I stand by what I wrote.

When we take the kids on a school trip I have children knocking on my door at 3 a.m. because there's a fly in their room etc. I most certainly am on duty 24/7 for 5 days. And, at least where I am, we're not paid overtime, it's just an expected part of the job.

But let me guess, you're one of those parents who seem to think that they're doing us a favour by letting us go on holiday with their kids. They seem to think the teachers are lazing around and have nothing better to do than answer stupid emails while managing a whole class full of children.

No good deed goes unpunished.

I no longer do anything outside of my direct role, except for students in sixth form. And even some of them need to wake up and smell the roses.

"Why can't we stay in a hotel?"
"why do we have to share a room?"
"why is the trip so expensive?"

I used to pay my own way on trips and ask my colleagues to do the same. I no longer do. I'm giving up my time to organise and run it. That's enough.

Beyond sick of some parents. Totally hear you about the constant drip drip of negativity and they literally take any opportunity to moan but v rare to receive thanks or praise. I try and put myself in their shoes but ultimately I think they are mostly just selfish and entitled. They don't want their child upset for any reason and they don't want to do the normal parenting conversations to try and build resilience or set realistic expectations. It makes me want to cry too and then has an impact on my classroom practice and ability to work after school. I guess I need thicker skin but it's hard not to take it personally when you sacrifice a lot of time and effort to make things engaging for pupils. 15 years in and every year it gets worse.

Not too mention that half the parents would resent paying for the ingredients. And then question the judging.

Had almost identical issue as this a few years ago.

Had a trip with eg 50 places. 100 applicants. Couldn't do exactly names in a hat due to rules about numbers of pupil premium and SEND children being representative, including the young carers who never get a trip, numbers of additional staff for the students with disabilities who need 1-2-1 etc etc. The trip, which would take four hours of my evening for obvs no additional pay, took approx 30 hours of time I didn't have in admin and planning beforehand.

One excoriating email from one particular parent about how Little Johnny should have been on the trip, calling my professionalism and dedication to the children into question, nearly sent me genuinely over the edge. I wish I could copy it here so you can know how batshit it was but honestly it was so rude. To be clear, LJ visited the location at least monthly already with his family and was deprived of nothing except manners.

Mrs Johnny was told he would absolutely have first dibs on the next trip.

I never ran a trip again.

D'oh. Missed that. Must have skim read, so apologies to that poster.

(Not absolutely correct though. 24/5 surely!)

They do that at our school. Ask the head to do it for yours.

And I’d have a good laugh and ignore the email about the bakery. Delete!

Who's going to organise a baking competition?