School asking parents to only email teachers during working hours

[cautiouscovidity]

We've had a message from DCs' (primary) school respectfully asking parents to only email the head and class teachers between 8:30-5:30 on school days and not during the evenings / weekends / holidays, for staff well-being reasons (they deserve protected downtime etc.).
AIBU to think that this is ridiculous? I work in a job where I don't always have access to a phone / computer during the working day and so, on the rare occasion that I need to contact a teacher, I tend to email in the evening at home or first thing before I get ready to leave. Obviously I don't expect them to reply out of working hours, or even to read it there and then, but I had never considered that it would be intrusive. In my job I get loads of emails at all times of the day and night and they just sit in my inbox until I am working!
Surely if it's impacting on their downtime so much, then they should just not check their emails in the evening and turn off notifications etc.

Many people get emails from demanding people at 11pm at night. Anybody who is interested in protecting themselves from burning out won't read it until the morning and will then respond. It's not unprofessional to have boundaries with parents - it's actually more unprofessional to answer an unreasonably demanding email at 11pm than to wait until the morning.

Teaching is stressful, yes. Why would a teacher make it even more stressful for themselves by reading and responding to emails out of work hours? People will take as much as you allow them, teachers need to implement boundaries not expect people to do it for them.

Education - in schools, colleges, and universities - is not a business. People need to stop thinking of schools as if they were businesses.

I agree the best solution would have been to say we aim to reply to all emails within 2 working days or something.
As a parent I am bound by working hours to correspond with DCs schools.
As a former teacher some parents can kick off massively if they don’t receive an instant reply which can impact negatively on the working relationship for the benefit of the child. So I see both sides.
Saying 2 working days manages expectations nicely.

I kind of get it - if you send an email on a Friday night but it gets resolved, that's unnecessary chasing up for the teacher on Monday. But lots of people have to email out of work hours so it would be better for them to say 'it would be helpful if...' rather than making it a policy.

@Mistressiggi

MrsTP in your own example - nurses have patients, teachers have pupils! Parents are not the equivalent of our clients in another job. Nurses have patients with family members, would be closer. We are not answerable to parents, and while we want to work with them that is not at the expense of our well-being (I am not affected in this way - but some staff at the school in the OP clearly are)

We are not answerable to parents,

Interesting. I work in inpatient mental health and very much feel answerable to the parents of the children we care for. Why wouldn't I be? Why do you feel teachers shouldn't be?

Total nonsense from the school. I work with the emergency services and they email me at all times of the day and night - because that's when they're working!

They don't expect a response outside of office hours. Surely that's the beauty of email over a call?

Really @unmarkedbythat you feel answerable to them? Don't you have a line manager/code of conduct etc? I note you did not quote the next part of my sentence that said "of course we want to work with them". Working in a cooperative manner with parents is not the same as being answerable to them.

I’ve never emailed any of my DC’s teachers, is that weird? I’ll just think myself lucky. I work at a school and the only reason I can think of is the auto response saying a reply will be received in 48 hours and they don’t want the timer to start ticking until absolutely necessary 🤷‍♀️ Otherwise that’s just weird.

Seriously? All those teachers out there fucked off with the 11pm email which demands a response and it's the teachers that have poor organisational abilities?

Uh, yes, if they made the choice to read the 11pm email. I mean, in general my sympathy is with the front line teaching staff and my irritation with their SLTs, who need to embed a culture of not expecting teachers to read or respond to emails after a reasonable hour at night and support teachers getting abuse from parents or anyone else who makes reasonable demands. But a teacher who chooses to open an 11pm email really needs to think about doing things differently.

And how can you not email during the day but post on here 😂

Having thought more about this Idont think parentsshouldhave secondary subject teachers emails. HOYS or HODs get extra time for administration so they should be first call. I used to get all sorts of emails that required a lot of time, some asking for curriculum breakdown.

Remember teachers have a huge amount of emails anyway from management, etc. Givibg out subject teacher emails en outages a lot of useless emails. There are live managers to deal with subject or pastoral issues.

I've also had the inevitable drunkenparent on a Friday night emails. Rants. To protect staffsubject teacher emails should not be given out. There is NO need for a parent to email specific teachers when their first port of call should be to HODs or HOYs.

I simply dont have half an hour to spare with curriculum details when all that information is available on the school site. My job u6s to teach a subject not to have I individual contact with parents. There are parents evenings for that.

I'm teaching in Ireland now and it is unthinkable here to email subject specific teachers. As it should be. Most jobs have answering emails integrated into the time allocated at work. Teachers dont, unless of course this is part of their responsibility proposition within the school.

A great head looking after staff well being sounds a good school

Some parents shouldn’t have access to email full stop 🛑

I'd say this is in response to some dick of a parent sending emails at all hours and expecting immediate responses. Ime that's always what prompts these things.

Anyway, just put your emails on scheduled send so that they send to class teachers during school hours.

@Enoughnowstop

If teachers are not capable of managing their handling of email themselves, I'd be very concerned about their general organisational abilities

Seriously? All those teachers out there fucked off with the 11pm email which demands a response and it's the teachers that have poor organisational abilities?

Yes, it is their poor organisational abilities if they cannot set up and manage a system whereby they read/respond in a way that suits them.

If you don't want 11pm emails, turn off notifications and use separate email accounts for work and personal life. Then just don't check the emails outside hours.

@Mistressiggi

Really *@unmarkedbythat* you feel answerable to them? Don't you have a line manager/code of conduct etc? I note you did not quote the next part of my sentence that said "of course we want to work with them". Working in a cooperative manner with parents is not the same as being answerable to them.

Yes, really. Of course I have a line manager, and legislation and guidance and policy and procedure and a code of ethics and a regulatory body. But yes. Really. I feel answerable to the parents of the children we care for. It is entirely reasonable for them to expect me to answer to them along with the myriad others I am answerable to. Why on earth would I not be?

"I note you did not quote the next part of my sentence that said "of course we want to work with them".

Oh, dear . I quoted your entire post and then highlighted the particular line in it I was responding to. Exactly as I have done here.

Any professional working with children who genuinely feels that they are not answerable to those holding parental responsibility for those children could probably do with reflecting on that.

Maybe they’ve had lots of drunk angry parents email in at stupid o’clock?
I work in a Prep school and this is a thing that happens. They wind themselves up and get bolshy after a few drinks.

@Readandwalk - I'm teaching in Ireland now and it is unthinkable here to email subject specific teachers. As it should be.

Depends on the school. I have communicated with various subject specific teachers via email. Provided you know the teacher's full name, you can email any of them. They are all [email protected]

@MissMarplesGlove

Education - in schools, colleges, and universities - is not a business. People need to stop thinking of schools as if they were businesses.

have the past 30 years not happened to you ?

Ochon,that may well be the case for you, in my school the expectation is that the head of year is emailed. I would not answer any email from a parent and would pass it to a line manager.

I was letting my work phone go to voicemail at 6.15 this morning. Emails ping through at 3am when the people concerned would have been better off getting a good night's sleep before writing it.

In my last place, you were expected to get your emails pushed through to your mobile so anything important would ping. Of course, this was largely stuff that could have waited, but that SLT thrived on 'we need to have a meeting to discuss some concerns' at 4am Saturday morning. And I changed my phone number when my boss started calling me at 1.30am in holiday time when I wasn't even being paid (TTO contract) demanding that I sorted x, y or a by 6am.

You also get parents who expect an answer to their query immediately/before 6am at the latest and are furious if you don't respond. Do they really think I'm going to call a colleague to check which colour socks they need for netball at midnight?

Boundaries are important.

Teacher here. I refuse to have work emails on my phone. I refuse to check work emails at the weekend unless I feel like it.

I work in 2 schools. The primary Head has said categorically that he doesn't want staff emailing into the evening unless it is their own personal choice. One colleague has a SN child. She likes to eat dinner with him then settle him down for the night before tackling emails, but it is her choice to do it that way. In my secondary school, if my HoD needs something urgently (or more likely has forgotten to tell me something), he texts, emails my home email or WhatsApps me. The first line is always "I'm sorry to bother you at the weekend..."

@Readandwalk

Ochon,that may well be the case for you, in my school the expectation is that the head of year is emailed. I would not answer any email from a parent and would pass it to a line manager.

Your email suggested it was unthinkable to email teachers directly in Ireland: I'm teaching in Ireland now and it is unthinkable here, and yes, I know here could mean your school but the implication was here meant Ireland.

It's normal in my dcs' school to contact the teacher directly in certain circumstances. A parent will either phone and ask to be called or emailed back or will email directly. It seems to work well but it tends not to be abused. I suspect many of the parents are not aware they can email.

We have to e mail the heads secretary and ask them to pass on any e mails we send. If the teacher then personally e mails us then it is ok to reply directly. It is a very rare occurrence, usually over a school trip, gear needed.

The charity I worked for we dealt with schools, who said they would get dozens of e mails a day from the education authority which seemed crazy to me. So I would write to them rather than getting lost in the avalanche of e mails.

I can't imagine my boss sending out a communication asking our work contacts not to email us out of hours 🤣
It's expected of us as adults to manage our time.