Stupid rule about sending school an email

[Winebomb]

So preparing to write an email to my sons school about snack times (see my other thread) but just remembered we got a newsletter the first week of school stating:

"If you want to email the class teacher it must be sent between the hours of 8am and 5pm, any emails sent outside of this time will not be responded to"

Now I get there are some parents who are batshit, and think that if they email the teacher at 11pm they will have a response personally at the school gates the following morning, when they drop off their precious little snow flakes.

But isn't sending emails like writing a letter. I will write it at a convienient time, it may have been written at 11pm at night. But I am not batshit and expect it to be read either the next working day or at least the next working day afterwards after it's been delivered.

I work in the private sector and receive/send loads of emails post 5pm, and the same rules apply. Who are these parents who are just being bonkers???

All I can think of is writing my email and timing it in Outlook to be sent within the allotted time. But it just seems pointless.

Sorry probably answered my own AIBU and this is turning into more of a rant! But really!?!? Who are these people...

I have the email address of all of my children's teachers and they have my email too. I regularly get updates from the teachers on pieces of work, trips etc and I respond to them in a timely manner if required. I occasionally send them emails, most often in the evening after I have come home from work and my child has talked to me about whatever is going on at school that might need communication from me. Most often they aren't emails that require a response, but if they do I'd not expect one immediately that evening or even the next day. We didn't have any of this in primary so all communication was via notes in the children's bags which wasn't great as ds lost most of them. Emails are efficient and quick and don't use children as middlemen.

My children also have their teacher's emails - ds sent most of his homework via email so it was fairly essential. I can't recall any issues, but where I live now teachers (at least at secondary level) have a much lighter timetable than in the UK.

Oh and I am pretty much permanently on call in my job, and I much rather get emails, even stupid trivial ones than phonecalls. I have filters set up on my phone so it goes quiet in the late evening except for from specified numbers/people.

Emails from parents are a (very very) small subset of work emails for teachers, Bees Many posters on here have said if you don't want work emails in the evening then turn them off. But I haven't heard teachers saying they don't want any access to work related emails in the evening at all, just not ones from parents.

I don't use my phone for work and get all school emails on my laptop suppled by the school. I set it so I have to log on the school's system to read emails, so don't get the pinging. Parents and pupils have my work email and I have theirs. I've never had any sense at all that the time someone sends an email confers any expectation for me to respond to it immediately. I'll often read them first thing in the morning before work and reply when I get there.

Couldn't they just have said that emails will be responded to within 48 hours if possible, or something like that. Or teachers could set an out of office on their email saying that emails won't be responded to until the end of the next working. Plenty of options instead of the rather odd wording in the newsletter.

Ha ha simpleton who came up with the rule probably doesn't really understand email!

Someone at our school office posted a message on the school app with such appalling grammar that the message was totally unintelligible. I've come to suspect the office staff are barely literate.

Basically the poor person was meaning emails will not be replied to!

"The school would prefer you to avoid emailing teachers directly outside 8-5pm. What's the problem with that arrangement?"

Because parents work full time and many are not able to email except when they are not working to pay teachers' wages etc..... never mind for some of us school fees.

I just about never have emailed teachers as they are quite busy and there is usually no need. Sometimes their school private music lesson teacher has emailed about times of lessons and I've replied. I thikn I have been very luck that with 5 children at a school over the last 30 years continuously I have never had a major problem with a child that needs me to contact the school (not that we had emails 30 years ago).

Because parents work full time and many are not able to email except when they are not working to pay teachers' wages etc..... never mind for some of us school fees.

Omfg.....🙄 what the actual?

If we put an out of office on, every email sent to us will lead to an automatic reply (I don't think could distinguish only ones from parents) which would lead to a lot of mail spamming the inboxes of staff (if part-time staff did it, even more so).

The thing is, September, the main thrust of this argument seems to be that teachers don't want emails from parents out of hours, because it stresses them out. And they may want other, work-related emails. (Clearly no-one on here is suggesting teachers should reply to parent emails out of hours). That's like me saying I don't want difficult clients to email me in the evening because it may make me worried... that's kind of tough! If people (in any walk of life) can't handle the contents of some of their emails out of hours (emotionally, I mean) they need to either not give their email address to the people that stress them out (parents in this case) or the system needs to be changed. It is so controlling and inconsiderate of parents' commitments to demand when an email can be sent. The onus needs to be on the recipient to take care of themselves.

You can have automatic replies set up to go only to external contacts (ie someone in a different mailserver). That would mean you wouldn't send replies to colleagues or management, only to parents / union / etc.

Thank you, MrsHathaway, I will look into that.
Bees giving staff email to parents is a bonus, it's not a requirement. So I don't see why the onus is on staff to work out how to manage the arrangement. If it's not working for staff the choice could be made not to allow direct emails to staff (although I can email my dc's teachers as the address is easy to work out, we have never been invited to do this so I don't - same at the school I work at). I imagine for most staff and most parents this is rarely a problem - it will be certain individuals who are having a negative impact only. But as ever in life, the few can spoil things for the many.

Because parents work full time and many are not able to email except when they are not working to pay teachers' wages etc..... never mind for some of us school fees

I have absolutely no objection to parents emailing me at anytime. I reply when I am able. Sometimes I will reply there and then if I am working anyway and sometimes I wait until the next day. Students also often email me and the same applies. Most teachers think just like me and so this is just one poor communication from one school that posters with a chip on their shoulder are using to attack teachers. The comment above is a prime example. Teachers also pay tax.

September - exactly - it's not a requirement, so if it isn't working for staff, the head shouldn't facilitate it! The onus is on anyone, whatever their job, to either manage their own notifications / emails in a way that they can cope with, or their management, to change the policy. There's no parallel situation in any other sphere where people can only send emails at certain times. The flexibility about when you send and respond to emails (unlike phone calls) is part of the effectiveness of email communication. I totally get that emails from unreasonable or aggressive parents must be rubbish, but telling people when they can message staff is surely not the solution! Anyway, my theory is that the OP is quoting a message which is just poorly worded, and was meant to say 'staff will only be able to reply between 8 and 5'. I honestly can't believe the alternative!

If you have your work email on your personal phone (or use a work phone as a personal one) then you don't have any right to complain about receiving work-related emails on that device outside office hours. I've been there and done that and now have a separate work device that goes on silent when I get home.

So, as it is worded it is stupid and unprofessional. Of course you should be able to send an email at any time convenient to you, but should not expect it to be responded to until at least well into the next working day. I would say the school would have been better to state that any emails received will be responded to within 2-3 working days where possible and that emails received outside office hours won't be read until at least the next working day.

I can't believe there are hundreds of posts about this non-issue.

You can still email the school at any time, they are just asking that you don't contact the teachers directly outside 8-5.

So if you work full time, or work shifts, or are utterly outraged that you can't contact your pfb's teacher about his lost PE kit or whatever, well then don't worry because you can still simply email the school's main business email address.

Many schools don't even provide direct email addresses at primary level. It's not a requirement. 8-5 is better than 'not at all' isn't it? Such a shame that a school tries to offer something extra and instead is vilified for still not being quite good enough.

Because parents work full time and many are not able to email except when they are not working to pay teachers' wages etc
We pay your wages = another standard bollocks argument. The sibling of 'in the real world'.

Maybe the school haven't phrased it best, but their intent is good
I'd quite like this rule 'please remember that teachers are not employed to deal with every single silly email you want to send. Pleae be reasonable and sensible. Think before you send and our staff will get back to you in 2-3 working days'.

I'm not sure how a school expects the confidence of parents that they are competent to educate children if they can't organise a recipient-end solution to this issue.

It's just bizarre to impose such rules on email correspondence.

I don't see your point serf.

Many of us like the principle behind what the school are doing. I'd rather they let people send what they need to when they want to but not expect a reply for 2-3 days.

It has nothing to do with schools needing to inspire confidence in parents when the school wouldn't need to issue guidance if some parents didn't take the piss emailing about every tiny thing because they have a smart phone to hand and can fire one off in 2 minutes.

Having worked in a school with a parental email problem and one that doesn't, the difference is a culture thing. In one school parents felt entitled to ping one off whenever and demand replies within hours and at the other school they don't.

I've never heard of strictures on when users/clients/what-have-you can SEND email to organisations in any other sector. Have you? I've never heard of anything remotely similar from any organisation at all.

It seems like madness to try to handle the issue by controlling the actions of the parents. Why not do the normal thing and have a policy on checking and replying to email?

A simple "email from parents/carers will only be dealt with during office hours" is all that needs to be said to parents.

No. But we don't know what has taken the school to this point.

As I've said, I'd go for a policy of expect a reply within 2-3 days. That works for most people.

I don't get the argument of 'but teachers will get notifications' because it's simple. Don't have work emails to your phone.

But equally, it used to do my head in when I went on my emails on an evening to do some of my own planning and I would have emails from parents/students about homework due the following day expecting help/excusing it.

I don't think it would be unreasonable to tell parents to think before they send. For every '2 minute reply about Timmy's snack / Lucy's cardigam / extention for Noah's homework' there's actual teaching stuff that is pushed to one side. If every parent acted like these people we'd do nothing but email.

Iran not really clear which way you're arguing this maisy Younsound like you're on both sides at once

(I don't know how Iran crept into this.)

What I mean is I like the principle behind what the school are doing (e.g. sending a message to parents that it's totally unreasonable to fire off emails whenever you see fit about any issue you like)

I don't think the 8-5 thing is necesarily the way forwards I would choose, but would support an organisation doing it if they had such a problem of people taking the piss because parents can still email the office out of those hours and it will get passed across to the teachers.

I think teachers whining about email notifications on phones is their own problem. Don't have them synced.

But i did hate signing onto emails on the computer (doing my own planning) to find arsey parental emails about non issues at 9pm because there's no unseeing them. I do think if the parents had to send those to the office rather than direct to staff when they're furious about the latest trivial thing then we wouldn't have as many.

Well maybe separate email addresses for parent contact versus internal comms is the way to go? Much better than what's outlined in the OP.

I'd say it just requires people to not be dickheads.

We don't have an official email policy. It's a culture thing. Guidance to staff is 2-3 days and if I parent wants to complain then school will politely remind them we are not their admin assistants. Thankfully, almost all our parents follow the 'don't be a dickhead' rule.

In that school, I think they should have gone down the route of 'all email correspondance to go through the school office email'. Nice and simple (and deals with the issue they were probably facing).