To think a hard boundary should be drawn with teachers?

I get a lot of emails and messages on our school platform out of hours. I don’t open them and keep them confined to my work issued laptop or iPad. I have colleagues that keep ClassDojo on their phones to answer out of hours, it’s a trap.

DH is a teacher. As he's in a leadership role, he's the designated point of contact for one parent who appears to have no boundaries. For the record, he gets paid no more for this. This mother calls and emails constantly - she's turned up to the school site on several occasions when he doesn't respond within a few hours. There have been evenings on the phone to her for hours and hours about her life, her worries, her stresses, every inch of her life... She needs a therapist.

I never had one anywhere near as bad when I was teaching but it's ridiculous. It quietened over the summer (down to maybe one or two calls a week) but it's ramped back up as they start back next week.

I don't know who these parents are that expect this. In dc's school it is pressure from the stressed HT I suspect wanting an outstanding OFSted report. Anyway staff aren't staying.

I keep getting school administration messages. Are these automated, are people working from home? It's nuts, I had a bastard message come through randomly mid-summer holidays saying I owed £2.40 for a school meal from last term.

When l was teaching all staff email was turned off between 7pm to 6am and at weekends.

I don't think it is wrong to email a teacher out of hours. That's often when many people have the time to send them. However, it is wrong to expect them to reply out of hours.

It may or may not be a good reason, but a teacher has the right to a home life and a reasonable balance and it is not reasonable to ask, expect anyone to check emails after the end of school and not at 7 or 9 pm ffs. There is no good enough reason unless it is a total emergency and then an email isn’t appropriate. My sister works in as a Senco and does respond to emails as the parents feel ‘their email is reasonable’ she emails an update on each of her pupils every day, staff leave all the time as the head says this is contact by emails and a response is reasonable request. They always have shortages. Always. Staff are demoralised. Don’t be one of those parents. My sister is ill with it all and has had cancer and parents expect replies to ‘their little emails’ as ‘I don’t email often or unless it’s that important’ - you are one of ‘those parents’ don’t be. Phone the school office in an emergency. Read comms. Don’t email teachers even for a ‘good reason’ in any evenings. Do your bit.

I've only seen the opposite tbh, very firm boundaries about this sort of thing... increasingly so.

Unless there is an issue that I know of, with the vibe in my son’s school I feel that would seem demanding. I don’t feel a just checking in to see if everything is ok would be welcome as it feels like asking for something not offered.

I spent most of last year unsure of how DS was getting on. Yes, I’m his parent but I don’t what is reasonable to expect for certain things such as reading.

I don't think emergencies should be communicated by email - if something needs to be addressed immediately in relation to the safety of a child, a teacher isn't the person to address it!

If it's not an emergency, it can wait a day or 2 for a response. If it is a safeguarding issue the DSL can be told the following day.

As a social worker, I sometimes have to remind schools and families (and social workers) that emergency services are there for emergencies. A teacher would be very much in the way there was an actual emergency out of hours.

Just because a parent wants us to jump doesn't mean we have to.

My child is in my class this year. Would quite suit me to go no contact after the long summer 😁

There is a huge difference between wanting a response instantly and waiting over 2 weeks for a response from the teacher though. That is the case for me I've got a quick question about one of my child's subjects and been waiting almost 2 weeks for a reply so far.

Oh and not in UK so currently not on school holidays before anyone pipes up.

I had to email school quite a lot, especially the SENCO but she liked me to email after 9pm as she likes to work then.
One of her teachers doesn’t do emails after 7pm, but did for me! I did appreciate it, she also said she knew I only emailed for good reason.

At my school, parents are told that teachers only answer emails between 8am - 5pm, when they have the chance, and if the parent desperately needs contact outside of those hours, they have to contact the head. I really appreciate it, but really all schools should do that as a matter of course.

On the whole, I absolutely agree that teachers should have boundaries in place and not feel pressured into responding out of hours unless they prefer to.

But there should be staff available in the days following results to discuss grades and reviews with. Leaving it until term starts may be too late for those who have missed their grades and need to make alternative choices.

I guess the school should have named staff who can be contacted, or a specific email address to contact for this. My DD’s school didn’t communicate this to us so I guess we’d have to contact subject teachers if needed.

My email has not been checked all summer. We were told to set it to auto reply to that effect on the last day of term and request office is contacted instead over the summer

in normal term time again under HT instruction email says auto reply my working hours are 8.30am to 4pm on …. Whatever your days are. School policy is to response wherever possible in 2 working days. In an emergency contact school office or safeguarding team. During office hours we are normally teaching and therefore not able to respond instantly,

This has only happened since Covid as parents were emailing at 10 pm and then going loopy that we hadn’t replied by 8am. So the headteacher just said no.

even engaging with students on social media in some cases.

If they are doing that report as a safeguarding issue

All my teacher friend either dont have social media or use false names.

Schools policy is very clear tbh

Your always going to have chancers

Your school needs to support its staff with a reasonable reply policy. We have a 48 working hours policy and it's stated in automated footers at the end of all our emails, together with a reminder about respectful communication. This came after a series of hideous and threatening emails to a number of staff from a very small number of families, and our Head will contact parents who are abusive if brought to their attention.

You could ring the office in the second term and ask for a short meeting with the teacher if there’s anything in particular you’re worried about. Or schedule a phone call with the teacher if that’s more convenient. A relative of mine is a teacher in Ireland and this is a fairly regular occurrence.

ETA if the teacher is good at his/her job then you will be contacted if there’s an issue anyway. You know your child best, however, and sometimes there are things they don’t see but need to know (eg meltdowns at home because of the stress of school). Quiet children with issues can also fly under the radar for a while in my experience.

On the platform my son's secondary school uses you can't send any message from 8 pm to 8 am, nor during the weekends. This was put in place a year ago due to parents abusive messages at night (some May have been drunk I suspect).
I never expect an answer the same day but I do expect one in the week that follows. My DS had one teacher who always responded to all communication the same day before 8 pm and one teacher who simply did not respond at all even when repeated requests so parents had to contact the principal in order for her to respond.

After 34 years teaching I'd love to draw the boundary prohibiting parents from contacting teachers by email at all.

If we could go back to the days when parents had to write a note or telephone the office( within school hours) then we'd see a drastic reduction in the number of matters that "need our attention"

The amount of time wasted replying to non issues, demands or complaints is ridiculous.

If you are worried, angry, confused, wish to express your every opinion or just want information about anything to do with your child's education, then I am more than happy to meet face to face. Honestly prefer a quick chat/more formal conversation to back and forth messaging.
Just spare me the unnecessary emails.

As for contact on Social Media... massive No as well.

Not a reasonable inference at all imo. The OP posted about a problem that she knows about in a specific sector. Do you expect her to know all about the extent to which this is a problem in all sectors? If it's a problem in yours, maybe start a thread about that.

I think we're all pretty sick and tired of the assumption that when we mention any problem with teaching or schools, we mean it's the only sector with that particular problem or indeed with any problems at all.

Hmm, my SIL was my child’s teacher so that wouldn’t have worked for us 😂
It depends on the community doesn’t it?
If you’re in a smaller, rural community you could easily know your child’s teacher as a friend or relative.

I’m in Ireland and DS went to a village Primary school and yes, with the brief parents evening and end of year short written report.

However, it was easy enough to speak to his teacher at home time about a minor matter or arrange a meeting to discuss other issues, if required. The teachers were always very willing to accommodate a request for an meeting and all of them had left the car park by 4pm at the latest.

Teaching in Primary in Ireland is far less stressful than in the UK according to the last Head who had worked in both countries, as there’s very little extra prep required. The curriculum follows the set workbooks and all the homework comes from the same workbook.

I email teachers when it is convenient, but I expect they will read during working hours.

social media is tricky because at the higher levels we have teachers using it to communicate with students for activities outside of school hours. If they need to change a meetup time or location, they message the students on whatever app everyone has agreed to use. The students have school email on their computers, but don’t check it constantly enough to get real time updates. For those they need something on their phone with push notifications.