AIBU? Working during annual holiday

You were away from home and took another phone with you. Simples.

I think your issue is that your school haven’t communicated to you or the parents about what’s expected over the summer in terms of communication.

We got an email from our DCs school to say teachers won’t be checking emails over the holidays and just gave a single safeguarding contact email for emergencies.

If you are on the standard STPCD then you cannot be expected to work during the holidays - that's all the holidays, not just the time when you are sitting on a beach. (Yes, in practice most people do quite a lot of preparation in the holidays, because it makes the work-life balance a little less crazy than in termtime, but that's by choice; you should not be required to do anything.)
It doesn't matter what other jobs expect - it's what your contract says that matters.)

Put a bounce message on your email.

Actually plenty of people earning a lot less than £40k a year do this.

If they are emailing your work email, don’t check the emails.

Our parents managed not to bother the teachers all the time we were at school. Why should it be necessary to contact them over holiday time now? If it's something like a new medical condition/allergy school does need to know about, if they contact the office at the beginning of the term, they can take the necessary action.
I wouldn't run up to my doctor in town and ask about my medication, and I wouldn't expect my child's teacher to communicate with me outside school hours.

I am honestly not fussed about this in the slightest. There’s no expectation to reply in the holidays so if you don’t want to reply then don’t.

If you teach part time then you do get used to quickly checking emails on days off so you don’t come back to hundreds of ‘could the person who called the parent of Oliver Jones in Y9 please call them back!’ type emails!

Unless a safeguarding issue, it can wait until September.

I’ve been on holiday this week and have kept an eye on email. If anything super simple for me to reply to but work for someone else came in I would have sent the answer to my back up and if anything major had gone wrong I would rather know it’s coming on Monday than be blindsided. Should I do it though & should anyone expect a reply? No because I’m on holiday. For what it’s worth as with a previous poster if I emailed in a school holiday with a question I wouldn’t expect a reply until the new term started. I was concerned enough by my youngest’s teacher replying to me at 11pm once when I emailed that I have subsequently set any mails to school to go during the school day.

Eg for my job the sorts of things that would come to me on holiday, the equivalent might be a parent with an urgent ehcp deadline asking for a specific bit of info to be forwarded on, that really cant wait.

My childs school emailed once during holidays because a member of staff quite unexpectedly died.

My sister (a teacher) tends to pick up stuff when its her pupils exam results.

You could include the dsl email in your out of office, would that make you feel more comfortable to then ignore them until you’re back?

Out of office automatic reply? That’s the normal thing to do when on annual leave regardless of profession.
Specify your return date and supply an emergency contact details if there’s one for your school.

I absolutely do not and am not expected to even think about work when I’m not there. It’s one of the really good things about where I work tbh, when you’re off your time is totally protected and it would be entirely frowned upon to log on to work emails when you’re on annual leave.
Im off sick at the moment (well, I’m off recovering after an operation so not technically poorly), I met with my manager before my planned absence and sent cover details in advance (so we had the opportunity to meet and discuss anything before i left) to my planned cover while I’m off, I put my out of office on and that’s the end of that.

It depends on your industry if people will see an out of office and still try to call you on teams. However, it’s rare in most industries that someone would take more than two weeks in one go. People might be allowed a 3 or 4 week holiday but it’s rare and a lot of other management would go on to ensure that could happen. Someone might be expected to monitor emails if they wanted such a big break.

I think with parents, it’s likely that they are doing while they remember. Put your out of office on, it doesn’t mean you have to answer. If someone catches you in town just say sorry, you don’t have any work things with you at the minute can they email it to you and you’ll pick it up in September.

I wouldn't be responding immediately unless urgent, I probably would check and deal with things that are very brief if that means someone else can then do whatever they're trying to do.

I think school summer holidays are difficult because they are so long so if someone is looking for information, it's not just a few days, it's 6 weeks.

Maybe it would be a reasonable compromise to set aside 15-30 mind every two weeks and deal with anything you can in that time. Anything complex send a holding response saying some approximation of "really sorry but this is my summer leave and this is a complicated thing so I'll have to respond when I'm back on X date".

And chuck an out of office on for good measure.

Yes, i check things when on holiday - it might only be 5 mins every other day or so. Or if something quite important comes up my team might teams/whatsapp/call me.

Just put an out of office on your emails surely? And if someone approaches you in town politely tell them you’ll deal with their enquiry once school starts again

Why are you checking work email if you don’t want to be contacted on holiday? Just set an out of office and leave it at that. If someone approaches you in person explain you can’t deal with their query out of work time/place and direct them to email you.

In answer to your question, yes many jobs do require a level of contact while on leave but it’s for you to manage expectations if you don’t want to do that part of your job while on leave.

Why do you check them though? What else would you expect to be in your emails that leads you to log on whilst you’re on holiday?

When I am properly away, so about 2 weeks, then I don’t check my work email at all.

The rest of the summer I might check once or twice a week but it would be rare for a parent to email that I would need to deal with.

Well until the last couple of weeks then I might get some more

Yeah, I answer stuff on annual leave. Not expected to but I'm not an arse and if it only takes me a few minutes or so, so be it. I like to keep on top of things.

But surely it's up to you if you check your emails or not? Just don't open them?

I have messages, emails, Facebook notifications, WhatsApp messages and once a particularly determined patient tried FaceTiming me.
I usually reply with a standard response “I’m sorry I don’t have any more appointments available, keep an eye on Facebook, I will post all openings there asap.” I have it as my voicemail, it’s front of my Google page. I have it pinned to the top of my Facebook and it’s my auto-reply response. I cannot do any more to let people know that I absolutely cannot offer them services.
However people are still stupid enough to message. Which drives me crazy.

Lots of jobs do expect you to be responsive to clients/customers too. Albeit probably more senior jobs which are likely to be much better paid than teaching.

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I am away until X
I will deal with emails wren I return

Depends on your school’s policy. At my DC school all parents are made aware of what the expectations are in terms of communication with teachers and there are few reminders throughout the school year. If I emailed a teacher during the school holidays (I may have done so once or twice during say Xmas or Easter break), I wouldn’t expect a reply until school starts; it’s more of if I don’t send it now I’ll probably completely forget rather than expecting a swift reply.