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 work at a university and will be taking outlook off my personal phone (don't have a work one) as the convenience of answering emails on the way into work is far outweighed by the sense of frustration and never being off duty thanks to a deluge of non-urgent emails from students at all hours of the night and throughout the weekend, who then get arsey when they don't get an instant response, as I don't stay up til 3am on the off chance that I have to field a question on why the book they need is out of the library. I don't blame the school for implementing this rule and good on them for ensuring their staff have a private life.

I work at a university and will be taking outlook off my personal phone

Good on you for taking personal responsibility.

I don't see what the problem is or what it's got to do with them what time it's written some shift workers are in bed that time. I can't see how they can dictate when it's written but that's fair enough if they only access the inbox between theses times.

I'm sick and tired of some teachers wanting to be treated like they're special. Lots of people in lots of jobs get pointless emails after working hours, but you just have to organise and manage your own work and handle it the way that's best for you. Not impose a stupid rule that is inconvenient to every else, thinking they should get special treatment because they're a teacher, instead of taking personal responsibility.

Here we go with the teacher bashing.
@Springishere0 fuck off with your inane insults.

Why does everyone have an opinion on teachers, what we do and how we organise our workload. It’s got fuck all to do with you. This really annoys me. I don’t come to your work and tell you how to sweep up (credit to Billy Connolly for that line).

Why does everyone have an opinion on teachers, what we do and how we organise our workload.

Because we all have lots of experience of dealing with teachers, either in the past as a child, or now, as parents - not just the odd hour here and there as with other professions, but for prolonged periods of time. The more time you spend dealing with any profession, the more chance you have of suffering some poor examples of that profession, so there will undoubtedly be more unhappy people.

Because teachers seem to be constantly whingeing about how badly they're done to and how they have a harder, more demanding, less rewarding job than everyone else. They were at it in the 70s/80s when I was at school and they're still at it. They're unable to accept that other trades/professions also have problems. They seem to think that everyone else is on huge salaries with stress free jobs.

Because they make out they're martyrs and are only doing the job for the love of the children, but in reality, as shown on other threads on MN (all the "what can I do instead" threads on the staffroom board), they'd be out of the profession like a shot if they could find another job with child-friendly working hours on such good pay.

@Badbadbunny your post makes the most appalling incorrect assumptions and generalisations. It’s like saying just because we all speak English then we can all be English teachers.

So, as a teacher of 25 years standing, your opinion and assumptions can go and take a hike.

Get a grip.

I agree people think they know all about teachers because they have so much contact with them. I'm a university lecturer; part of my job is teaching. My contact with the non-student public is limited and I have rarely been told how to do my job. I also get to tell my students exactly what I think of "I left my charger in your classroom"/ "It's not fair I have to work with Millie" emails at 2am.

I am a teacher, I think this rule is daft. I actively encourage students to email but with an understanding I will not reply instantly.

I do think that what needs to be stressed to parents is that answering parent queries is not a top priority in our job lists. So managing the expectations of when they will get a response is a better way to address this. Obviously depends on individual role, but there are lots more parts to my job than responding to emails which I prioritise. For example - I am PT but have checked my email this lunchtime as I emailed a colleague yesterday about somethng I need to know to plan for next week. I have had a parents email - nothing major, and to be honest should have been from the student not the parent but thats by the by. I will not be responding till Monday as its not vital.

I choose not to have my email direct to my phone - its my phone not the schools and I can pick and choose when to read emails.

I think the difference to some professions is the fact that most evenings some level of work is required so not checking email late at night is hard to avoid if we are working. So if there is an email there it is hard to ignore and not worrry about it's contents.

This is not a moan about working most evenings - I knew that was part of the deal just pointing out all the people saying don't check them its not that easy not to look at our email for other reasons.

I think the school should stop allowing parents to contact teachers directly.

All parents would have to email the office.

This is still what happens in the majority of primary schools.

Eevry time I read threads like this it reminds me why I'm bloody glad I work in a school where:

• Most parents are supportive of school and aren't the type of 'know it all because I went to school and knee a teacher' person
• Most of our parents contact us sensibly and if they have concerns they raise them appropriately.

-There isn't a culture of parents bombarding staff with emails because their child misplaced their PE kit. -There's not a culture where people (staff or parents) send pointless emails

Unsurprisingly, we don't need to have rules on emails because 90+% parents and staff follow the 'don't be a dickhead' rule.

Noodle. What age would you want students to email instead of parents?

raspberry
For me it depends.

I'm happy fot GCSE/a level students to email me withon reason eg. To let me know they're missing a class and ask for work, to check when revision is on (though if I'm honest thry tend to come and see me). I also don't mind them emailing if there os a problem with our VLE online learning platform.

KS3 there's no need for students to be emailing directly.

Equally, I have zero issues with parents who want to get reasonable info/check things (do tend to find most just leave a message at the office for a call back).

That sounds reasonable

think the difference to some professions is the fact that most evenings some level of work is required so not checking email late at night is hard to avoid if we are working. So if there is an email there it is hard to ignore and not worrry about it's contents.

I agree with this. Most evenings I am working and so are my colleagues and often a member of my department will email me for some information and I will usually need to reply before they can carry on with what they are doing. That means for a few hours at least my emails are open. I often ignore those that don't look important but to be honest if a parent or student emails me which happens most days I assume that it is important and I usually don't know if it is important until I have read it.

Once I have stopped working I am not disturbed by emails as they don't come through to my phone but it can take me longer to finish doing what I was because of the emails.

That doesn't mean that I think patents should not email me after certain hours but I can see why it can become a problem.

Why does everyone have an opinion on teachers, what we do and how we organise our workload.

I have an opinion on receiving work emails out of working hours because I, like pretty much every professional in the country, also gets them. And we deal with it without this ridiculous rule.

It is reasonable raspberry, but I feel very lucky that I work somewhere where reasonable expectations exist both ways (school to parents and parents to school).

Just reading some of the shite on this thread (and to be honest quite a lot of school threads) reminds me why having a nice school with a nice culture is so important.

I've been in places where keyboard happy parents had far too much say and it was horrible (and to be fair, utterly unfair on nice kids and parents who were reasonable because it was the loud gobby ones who were given the attention).

I, like pretty much every professional in the country, also gets them. And we deal with it without this ridiculous rule.
Same.
The difference is that in my pre teaching career I never had half the pointless crappy emails I have in some schools.
Equally, nobody in my pre teaching days would go and report me to a senior manager for not replying to their email because I hadn't replied in a couple of hours when I was busy doing my actual job.

I don't think the school rule is the way to go. But I absolutely agree with the principle behind it.

Are you a teacher @DailyMailReadersAreThick? If not, you have no holistic understanding of the workload or practices of the profession. That is a fact. You will more that most of the teachers on this thread are saying that the vast majority of parents they work with are totally “sound” as my Year 8s would say. It’s the tiny but loud and vociferous one’s who make unreasonable demands.

And, believe it or not, emails from these dickheads are a tiny but very annoying part of all of the emails I receive out of hours. I need access to my email at home and on my phone for the reasons I’ve previously outlined. I couldn’t give a shiny shite at 5pm on a Friday if a precious snowflake got a punishment in Maths for not doing homework. I really couldn’t.

Ones. Fucking autocorrect. I’m a self confessed grammar Nazi 😕

You will more that most of the teachers on this thread are saying that the vast majority of parents they work with are totally “sound” as my Year 8s would say. It’s the tiny but loud and vociferous one’s who make unreasonable demands
And it's the loud minority who spend their time harrassing teachers about how their child will not do detention/ has permission not to do homework etc that have kids who walk around school like they own thr place.

Also the ones who tend to be continually disruptive because 'my mum says...'

In short, the kids with obnoxious and rude parents also tend to be the ones who have an attitude problem. They are the childreb who take up most of school's attention and it's their parents who are a drain on school's time.

That attitude robs decent children of the attention they should get. Thosr parents delay me gettinf books back to a GCSE class because I've just spent an hour hearing why I have broken Chloe's human rights by expecting her to sit in a seating plan.

It's not the reasonable parents we mind. We love reasonable parents.

We just get pissed off when the same loud, rude parents/kids take our time away from what we really want to do which is educate children.

. And we deal with it without this ridiculous rule.

Very few if any teachers think this is a sensible rule. Some think the sentiment behind it is right but is anybody saying the rule is sensible?

As if often the case on threads like this, teachers are being criticised for something that a tiny minority say or do.

Some think the sentiment behind it is right but is anybody saying the rule is sensible?
Not that I've seen. I think the closet was me saying thay whilst I wouldn't choose that rule myself, i would probably support it if I worked somewhere where emails has become such a big problem that they needed it.

But that's not what people are interested in. Roughly speaking it goes like this: 'teachers are stupid if they can't solve it. In the real world people email directly. In the real world we get pointless emails. We are taxpayers so I should be able to email about any old crap to you because I pay your wages'

Inspired by this thread: out of office reply switched on til Monday, no checking til then.

Pengwynn
Surely it makes more sense for the school to reply that it will not be responded to until the following working day- and that the teacher may not be able to respond until after 3pm

Yes, I do understand school demands, I'm a teacher. Ok the 3pm was accidental rather than 3.15 and yes, I have days where I run after school clubs, attend meetings etc. What I meant was there would be no way of replying before 3pm (3.15 ) - I barely have time to eat or go to the loo before this time!