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...

This seems like such a strange rule. I understand stipulating that emails sent out of hours will only be read and responded to between 8-5 but it seems odd to have a ban regarding emails being sent between those hours.

I'm a teacher and I check and respond to my emails at all hours and at weekends (I can use my phone to check work emails) - tbh I'm probably more likely to respond quickly to an email sent outside of school hours because I don't have much time in the school day for sitting at a computer.

Anyway, I would send the email at a time convenient to you put just say near the beginning you're sorry to be emailing outside of 8-5 but it's difficult for you to manage those hours (which must be true of many working parents) but that you understand the rule you absolutely do not expect the email to be read or responded to yet or outside of school hours.

Hopefully so long as the teacher you're emailing is fairly reasonable they won't see a problem with that.

MyNewBearTotoro
I can't believe you reply to emails on evenings and weekends.

People doing that is exactly what created a culture in a former school of parents expecting replies and homework guidance. I lose track of how often I'd not do it and then they'd say 'But Mr Smith send Timmy some guidance so Bob did his homrwork. You couldn't be bothered so he hasn't'.

I will reply to emails from parents between 8 and 5:30 and that is it. Doing anything else puts pressure on colleagues to do the same.

But emailing about something routine at midnight isn't being a "dickhead" (and no rule will discourage the diehard antisocials, who rant or expect magic, anyway).

Reading it at midnight and getting stressed is the problem. So;

Filtering.
Dedicated email addresses.
Policy for staff not to check email after Xpm.
Staff simply not opening parental communications outside business hours

These are all reasonable strategies.

Telling parents when they may SEND email is silly, unprofessional and damages the school's credibility.

What, these teachers must be thick if they can't work out how to deal with emails sent after 5pm. That's the good thing about emails, they can be sent any time but you control when to read them. These are normal work skills. Teachers aren't special. If they can't figure out this easy task, then I wouldn't want them teaching my kids.

I had one parent who stated they expected an email by reply...and they were emailing staff on a regular, if not daily, basis. They now have to email the head's secretary directly in all their comms with the school. We're a big school and they wanted to make staff readily available via email but most staff have had to take their own personal stance on emails because the expectation - mostly from students - was staff were there 24hrs. And occasionally parents too thought the same.

I used to respond promptly because I like to action emails immediately/get them out the way. But I don't now.

I have my work email in a separate app on my phone. With the notifications turned off. And I've imposed a self-cut off point in the evening and at weekends.

Our school had a system of all emails being sent to "admin@the name of the school.co.uk " with For The Attention of "teacher name" in the subject line.
This meant we could email anytime and they would only be passed on (by the lovely admin), during school hours.
Problem solved.

Getting an email and reading at 9pm that x parent is furious about how their pfb is treated, could be very stressful.

Then, in that case, he/she should switch off notifications for the work account outside of work hours. I'm sure it's only a minority that get in the news/on Mumsnet, but schools seem in the last year or two to have decided that they have the right to make whatever ridiculous rules they can think of and expect to be obeyed.

I'd quite like a rule like this, after having twice last year received lengthy post-10pm ranty emails from the same teacher, both times lecturing me on poor parenting, and which sent my blood pressure sky high just as I was trying to go to sleep, and had me lying awake staring at the ceiling, mentally composing cross replies half the night.

To put my terrible parenting in context - the first email was four paragraphs about how my SN 9yr old and his feckless mother had LET THE WHOLE SCHOOL DOWN (actually a quote) because.. wait for it.. he didn't have his branded special sports socks in his bag at a sportsmatch and had to play football in his grey day socks.

The sports uniform comprises 42 separate items of kit. Parents aren't ever allowed in changing rooms to find missing stuff (for safeguarding reasons, fair enough) and there are 50 boys to a changing room, all with identical kit. It's a nightmare. As a matter of fact it was ALL clean and in school. I'd sent the bloody socks in freshly laundered just that morning. He just forgot to transfer them from his school bag to his gym peg.I was also irritated that only I, mum, got this email, despite ticking on the comms form to ask all correspondence to both parents. Apparently socks are just my problem 😡

The second one was on a subject equally stupid and infuriating.

So yes, some teachers and some parents can't be trusted to exercise judgement on what emails should and shouldn't be sent out-of-hours, and to save the blood pressure of teachers and parents, a guideline to save us all from the feckless few is helpful.

I would not expect a teacher to have access to school email after school hours anyhow.

How is the data protected, what systems are in place to safeguard sometimes very private information being passed from parent to teacher and v.v.?

Reading it at midnight and getting stressed is the problem. So;

Filtering
Dedicated email addresses.
Policy for staff not to check email after Xpm.
Staff simply not opening parental communications outside business hours

Telling staff they can't go on emails is a massive issue for planning. Most of my stuff is stored on cloud linked to email.

I've also said what I think a reasonable reply time is.

I have already said I would be more than happy for all emails to go to thr office (but you know people would bitch about that too because this is school)

The problem is people not thinking before sending. Your average teacher gets 3 hours PPA time a week. I'd say in my former school 75% of emails I had from parents were either arsey, unrealistic or unnecessary.

In a school now where the CULTURE is different. Staff don't have email on phones, we don't have to reply instantly and crucially PARENTS don't send pointless emails. Now I'd say 95% of my emails from parents are useful, things I need to know, genuine things to discuss etc.

I would not expect a teacher to have access to school email after school hours anyhow.
Why not? Our planning and stuff is on there.

How is the data protected, what systems are in place to safeguard sometimes very private information being passed from parent to teacher and v.v.?
The same way it is wjen thry access it online in school.

The irony of this stupidity is that if you have a dickhead parent who thinks it's fine to email whilst drunk in the middle of the night about some irrelevant matter, they'll still do whether there's a "don't send emails" rule or not. It'll still end up in teacher's email so they'll still see it and get stressed by it (apparently!!) even if they just decide to delete it. So it's a crazy rule that doesn't actually achieve anything - though why am I surprised, isn't that how schools are run - lots of crazy rules that don't work and aren't logical!!

The problem is people not thinking before sending.

And how will a silly rule help with that. The idiots will still be idiots.

There are rules against parking on the zigzags, but the idiots still do it.

There are rules about school uniform, but idiot parents still ignore it.

The idiots need dealing with directly - not by the type of "punish everyone" mentality loved by teachers.

not too inconvenient.
You mean that it's more important not to inconvenience a dozen or two teachers than not to inconvenience a few hundred parents?

There aren't many professionals or service providers that you expect to be able to contact directly, rather than through a central office or secretary
There aren't many professionals or service providers who would be so unprofessional as to tell clients "Only email me when I say you can or I'll ignore you". If they are worried about teachers' work/life balance, then they shouldn't expect them to be reading work emails at home, in which case emails from "precious snowflakes" wouldn't get seen until they are working.

There aren't many professionals or service providers that you expect to be able to contact directly, rather than through a central office or secretary

Yes there are. It's commonplace these days to have the direct email of people like accountants, solicitors, architects, etc. It's a bit archaic out in the private sector to send emails to the generic/office address to be passed on - can't remember the last time I saw that with professional practices.

There aren't many professionals or service providers who would be so unprofessional as to tell clients "Only email me when I say you can or I'll ignore you"

Exactly. I can just imagine what would happen if I followed that policy - even with colleagues. I'd be sacked. I did work somewhere where the MD said that any emails that came in while he was on leave would be deleted so you'd have to resend once he was back, but he was the MD!

Quite a few teachers appear to have trouble distinguishing between kids and adults. Especially headteachers. I realise that sometimes adults behave worse than kids do, but you have to treat parents as adults regardless of your view of them.

It is entirely possible to ignore an email until you have time to respond to it. Even if you are using Microsoft 365 or whatever. You can switch off the notifications.

But the best idea would seem to be to use the school office email address as a filter. Which will only be manned in office hours anyway.

We can't email the school, only fax them!
I don't know if it still works, but you used to be able to email to people's fax machines by using
remote-printer.recipient_name@fax_number.iddd.tpc.int
Don't forget to drop the initial 0 from the area code and add a 44 instead for the UK.

"There aren't many professionals or service providers that you expect to be able to contact directly, rather than through a central office or secretary"

I was an SW, I could be contacted via my work email, by clients, so could the Family Support Workers. Both teams had Managers that also could.

My Specialist Nurses have their own Email address, as did my Mum's Community Nurses. My DDs Speech Therapist does.

My DD, who is a Supported Living Manager and all of her Staff Members have work Emails.

Some Police Officers and the like do.

Adult Tutors/Teachers all have their own Email.

Of all the Professionals, Children's Teachers seem to be a special, set apart group.

It sounds as if it's some of the teachers who are "snowflakes"

I deliberately send emails outside working hours about my son's medical condition because on a few occasions the teacher has absentmindedly left her email open for all the class to read on the white board - so ds has made me promise to send personal info out at time when his teacher will definitely read it at home.

I want to know if any teachers in here who think this 'we can tell you when to email' policy is a good idea, have ever seen it anywhere else, ever? In any school? In any other organisation? Anywhere??

And do you think that it's such a great idea, that you're going to suggest it at your next staff meeting?

My point being, I think some pp are arguing in defense of teachers (and I can understand the sentiment, they do a great job and get a raw deal sometimes) but I don't believe anyone really thinks this is sensible, to the extent that they would actually try to implement it in their school. Or am I wrong?

There's nothing wrong with ending a sentence with a preposition. I suggest you update your knowledge
"Ending a sentence with a preposition is the kind of language up with which I will not put" (or words to that effect): W. Churchill - and before anyone points it out, yes I know that "put up with" is a phrasal verb.

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

Simples. Each teacher has two email addresses: [email protected] for staff and internal matters, and [email protected] for parents. Easy enough to do, easy enough to manage, and you can just check one of them to avoid urgent missives complaining that little Tristram was given strawberry quinoa granola instead of raspberry.