Emailing teachers - directly or through the office

[ThrallsWife]

I will start this off by saying I am a teacher, so not only am I aware of workload, but, being secondary-based, I also have far more parents to deal with than primary-based colleagues on a day-to-day basis. Our staff email addresses are visible on the website, so all of us can be contacted directly, and it is honestly my preferred type of contact, because I can do this at any time, without having prolonged telephone calls or meetings to deal with. I get a few emails from parents per week, often clarifying sanctions, discussing homework issues or alerting me to family emergencies which could adversely affect their child. I reply as and when I can, within 48 hours.

Yes, I have had the odd angry parent emailing at stupid o'clock in the evening and one or two who may have been drunk - they get forwarded to the senior leadership team to deal with.

One of my children goes to a school where teachers' email addresses are not publicly shared, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out the correct address. They're in Y5 now, and I have had to email teachers a handful of times in all the time at school, only 1-3 times per year. Every single one of their teachers has been lovely and replied, in work time, to my messages and dealt with the requests or questions.
I cannot phone the children's school as I am teaching all day and even if I were free, the signal in my school is so bad I cannot make a productive call during work times, and obviously the office is shut before I get to work and when I get home. For the same reason, I cannot have a quick chat on drop-off or collection, so email is the only way of contacting said teachers.

I have had to email the class teacher yesterday after my child had some unfinished computing work that we cannot work on from home (it's not on the shared drive or in any app - we looked), but that needed completing and my child was keen on finishing the work, ready for a presentation they need to hold next week, and in their own words, they don't like leaving work unfinished. I have had quite a shirty reply back telling me to go through the office for future emails, and that my child will just have to do the work again at home if they haven't managed to do it in school time.

I am quite taken aback to be honest. This teacher knows I cannot contact them in office hours, the office have a 72-hour working day response time policy for anything deemed non-urgent (which unfinished work likely counts as), by which time my child will have embarrassed themselves in front of the class if the work is unfinished, and doing the work again will take unnecessary extra time, given the effort they'd already made in class. In their 5 years at the school, this is the first time a teacher has been anything but friendly about direct contact.

In this day and age, should teachers be uncontactable directly, with an office front to screen and essentially decide on what is, and what isn't allowed past?

Your school sounds a little like our primary, the head insists on seeing every incoming email so teachers aren't permitted direct contact that doesn't go via the office.

Secondary school for my eldest has been a revelation. Staff who actively encourage contact and share their emails so problems can be dealt with quickly. I've emailed once in over a year; this week DS1's form tutor rang just to introduce herself as we hadn't spoken or emailed and she wanted to make sure I knew I could contact her with any issues.

Can you not email the office? DD's school has a similar policy and you send an email with FAO <teacher's name> in and they'll pass it on. The 72 hours is for stuff the office actually has to deal with, and I've never known it not be passed on immediately if in working hours, although they do suggest if it's really really urgent you phone as the office are busy in the morning and teachers won't check email while actually teaching. My DD has SEN and I quite often send emails in the morning, teacher has always seen them before she arrives so long as I send them by 8.

I’d say if you’ve been given their email address then obviously that’s an invitation to email them directly. So in this case, you haven’t been, so don’t.

I could (and did, pre-covid), but the office response time is notoriously slow, despite it being a very small school.

Yes.

I worked in a secondary.

Some parents had our personal emails. We were regularly sent abusive and upsetting emails.

Some parents were banned from contacting their child's teachers and were required to go via a deputy head.

It really isn't reasonable to expose teachers to what comes in from parents. Some if it is ok but vast vast amounts of these emails go to the wrong teacher or the wrong place or are asking the wrong thing or are just unpleasant.

If it all goes via the office they can have several standard replies and deal with it easily.

I don’t know what you can do about your current issue, but I would email the Head or Chair of Governors to ask what the school policy is if you need to contact a teacher.

Well, my child has also come home to tell me that I need to email via the office in future, but that Miss would be as nice as possible about it (their words) when she replied.

I'm normally all for protecting teachers from some of the stuff going around, but it just seems a bit over the top. Maybe my view has been coloured because it is such a normal aspect of my job now that I find it unusual if teachers are not contactable directly. IME the lockdown periods have changed communication with schools a lot.

I'd understand any school that does not allow direct email contact. It should be made clear from the beginning though.

Look at all the threads about unreasonable behaviour from some parents, or even those who won't accept their child is ever wrong.

My daughter is a teacher. She is contacted directly (on her work email address) by students and parents and has no problem with that.

The school doesn't publicise most email addresses but they are easy to work out. My daughter's is published, both within the school and on its website, because she has a role in safeguarding.

It seems very odd to me to have to email the office. I suppose it may be because some parents ask questions that the office is perfectly capable of answering, so it just wastes the teacher's time if they have to deal with it or forward it on.

As far as I am aware no one has used my daughter's email address inappropriately. The emails are usually either about homework from the students she teaches, or about attendance/other pastoral issues related to her form/year group or about safeguarding. Either way, she is the right person to deal with them and in general she can deal with them more quickly if she receives them direct.

At primary (youngest left last year) we had direct email contact although WhatsApp to the class phone was preferred method of contact.

Secondary we have an app which all communication should go through and we can message each teacher individually. I choose the child, it gives me a list of their subject teachers and I choose who I need to message. There's also the staff room number. I called it last week and it wasn't recognised so I called the number my DC2 had been given (same school, different building) and they said to use the app. I said I had but had not yet had a response so the teacher I spoke to explained the phone lines were down in the other building and gave me the mobile number of DC1's teacher!

Our head didn’t want parents having access to our email. Parents would often send a note in with their child if there was something that they needed me to know urgently.

I think there isn’t a right or wrong answer here. You may prefer being emailed directly and your emails are publicly listed for this purpose. At this school, emails are not public but you worked it out and the teacher requested you contact them via the office. That’s okay. The admin can triage those emails. It won’t take 72 hours for them to forward your email on. But it sounds like the teacher is reinforcing a boundary, perhaps for good reason (because there are reasons why parents emailing teachers directly has been an issue).

Email the office, ask your dc to speak up and advocate for themselves and send a handwritten note in with them if you think they need support speaking to the teacher.

I like the fact that at my school parents don't contact teachers directly. At my school, in the homework situation you describe, it would be the norm for the student to email me, not their parent. Once a child is at secondary school, their parents shouldn't need to intervene with teachers for them about individual pieces of homework!

Clearly if the teacher's email address is publicly given on the website (or other official school document), then that's an invitation to email directly.

If not, then email the office. You shouldn't be "guessing" at their email address, however obvious, as they clearly don't want you to email directly simply because they've not publicised it.

I am a TA. We have recently changed to all emails going through the office.
This was done to protect teachers from unnecessary, trivial, unpleasant, late at night, weekend, or vexatious emails.

I'm a primary teacher...just send in a note. That's what most parents do...either pop a note in their bag or in their home-school diary. I ask my children (Year 3) every day when I'm taking the register, if anyone has a note for me in their bag/diary.

In Year 5 it’s up to the child to speak to their teacher about any homework problems. They could have done it the next day in school.
Getting mummy to sort out every little problem is not teaching them resilience and is really not doing the child any favours.
It would have been more beneficial to talk to your child about coping with the situation as it was and what they could do to resolve it themselves.

Yes, I have had the odd angry parent emailing at stupid o'clock in the evening

We have recently changed to all emails going through the office.
This was done to protect teachers from unnecessary, trivial, unpleasant, late at night, weekend, or vexatious emails.

Slightly off topic, but I'm a bit puzzled by the complaints about late-night/weekend emails (obviously, abusive emails are a different matter). Emails are not phone calls. You don't have to read or respond to them the moment they drop into your inbox. Surely you'd just leave your work emails until, you know, you were at work? I'm afraid I regularly send emails at "stupid o'clock" - not because I expect or want a response at that time, but simply because I'm working similar hours to you and can't send personal emails during work time. So I pay my bills, do online shopping, send emails etc in the evening, when we've all eaten, homework has been done, kids are in bed. Why is this a problem? I'm not being snarky, but am genuinely mystified as to why you would feel the need to deal with work emails in your downtime.

Yes, I have had the odd angry parent emailing at stupid o'clock in the evening

Why would you be reading emails as stupid o clock? You just need to change your email system settings so you don't get email notifications at times you don't want them. It's down to the recipient to control when email notifications are received. You really can't blame someone for sending an email at an inconvenient time for you. It's not like a phone call, when you receive and read emails is entirely up to the recipient to control. Most people send personal emails "outside school/work" hours because that's when they have the time to do so,

This.

When I worked as a teacher I made sure my laptop was set up so that I had to log on to the school's system to access emails. I logged on first thing in the morning to get the overview, but never at night or the weekends. I only ever used my phone to take photos of board work to put up on a class's resources page.

This

Actually I disagree. Where I work parents can contact staff directly but are firmly encouraged to go via the office. It means that the office direct things to the right people. It has significantly helped with workload.

I would always be polite if emailed directly but I think you sound quite demanding. The problem with direct contact is that everyone thinks their request is urgent or important. I found that when I did reply to direct emails, it encouraged more. Some were trivial and even asked for information that could easily be found on the websites such as dates of this or that. Some were expecting me to chase up lost hwk sheets and find out info from other members of staff. Some were rude. Many were out of hours or at weekends. Centralising and formalising contact is much more effective and efficient.

My email is not on the website but it's guessable. I much prefer direct emails because I don't then have to wade through other people's irrelevant waffle before things get to me.

I check my email at my convenience, and if anyone chooses to be rude, they'll be told in no uncertain terms where to go

One of our schools bought in class email addresses a few years ago, that were monitored by the class teacher. The new head has just stopped this and there is an alternative email address for all classes monitored by the deputy head. I imagine it cuts down the volume of queries.

Our other school uses an app, so you can message teachers directly on that.

If I've understood correctly, your year 5 child had problems finishing a computer-based assignment which is needed for the following week.

I don't see why you or your child couldn't just mention this briefly in person at drop-off, or (your child) during the school day? Aside from the burden on teachers, email also takes responsibility away from the pupil themselves - a Y5 pupil should be able to explain a minor issue to their teacher and seek help, without an email from mum. I'd rather the teacher was interacting with my child rather than reading my emails.