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.

My dd's school said a couple of years ago that they would turn off the server at 6pm each evening meaning that you could send an email but would not receive a reply until the working day started again- genius idea which I've been trying to get my workplace to adopt

You can write and send it whenever you want, any reasonable school would tell it's staff to respond if and when you can, within working hours.

I haven't read the whole thread but the school have probably worded this incorrectly. Some parents have probably emailed late at night and expected a reply.
At my school, the headteacher has said we can't respond to emails or homework after 5:00, which seems to be working. What has annoyed me this week is that I've had to leave my class to phone parents in the day (under instruction from SLT). My poor class are left waiting. Half the calls aren't even urgent but SLT are just panicking about minor issues. Why that can't wait until the end of the day or after school for a phone call is beyond me.

@DueNumberTwo

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.

Fair enough. manage your own work time but it seems to me that too many parents want to manage the time of teachers as well.

@keeprocking then they need to send a communication regarding that and what the process is for emergencies. Not told to not send emails outside of certain hours because that's ridiculous

I'll be switching off my work emails from my phone now after reading this ridiculous thread

That's called managing my time.
I can spend it with my own family then rather than trying to figure out other people's problems / inadequacies / poor life choices etc

Its often the parents that email that really shouldn't have access to the Internet, let alone email.

“HODs get extra time for administration”

I think I must be missing a couple of frees then!

Haven't read the whole thread, but surely parents shouldn't be emailing the teachers directly anyway? At my school, communication is via the office who forward it on ( during their working hours).

If the problem is that staff are complaining that they don't want to receive emails in the evenings, they need to be told not to open them in the evenings.

If the problem is that the parents expect a response in the evenings, they need to be told that staff won't respond during the evenings.

Parents should send emails at a time convenient to them and staff should open them at a time convenient to them. It's not rocket science.

@TheExecutionOfAllThings

They are still functioning adults who are capable of putting on an out of office and closing their email account for the evening - or are you saying they're not?

I am sure that the anxious and vulnerable Pupils that I have that are emailing me about exams/homework/classwork would love the classic auto bounce out of office email.

It is going to help them so much

Scheduling email doesn't work for me. I don't want to spend ages trouble shooting why it doesn't work on each o f the ... 4-5? different devices I use to send email.

At my kids (overseas) school they did this to stop people getting a bit drunk and mailing aggressive mails late at night.

They noted more rude emails were being sent at 10.30pish.

Apparently it cut the rate of aggressive mails right down.

Same number of contacts were made, just all a lot more polite.

Some DO expect responses at ridiculous hours though.

I once got dragged through the mud because I didn’t respond to an email sent at 3.15am and hadn’t investigated and resolved a situation by 8am the following morning. I was seen as unreasonable. Teachers don’t need to sleep you know!

MrsTerryPratchett
I knew someone would pick on that.

'Clients' is shorthand. I have tenants or residents, nurses have patients, parking attendants have members of the public. 'Clients' is shorthand.

If you are the client (or whatever) then
You are fully responsible for your child's behaviour in class.
You are fully responsible for your child not doing the homework.
You are fully responsible for your child not revising.
You are fully responsible for the child not working in class etc.

Are you going to accept this or are you going to say that your child is responsible for their own behaviour etc?

This week I've been working with people from South Korea to West Coast USA. People email when is convenient to them. I pick up when it is convenient to me. That's pretty standard in my world. I'd be a bit baffled if my child's teacher wasn't either bright enough to figure that out or had insufficient boundaries to cope with receiving emails out of hours. (Fortunately my child's teachers have been remarkably sensible to date. )

eurochick
This week I've been working with people from South Korea to West Coast USA

Because that is comparable to a school.

FFS

I think we have trolls/goady fuckers.

@FrippEnos

MrsTerryPratchett I knew someone would pick on that.

'Clients' is shorthand. I have tenants or residents, nurses have patients, parking attendants have members of the public. 'Clients' is shorthand.

If you are the client (or whatever) then
You are fully responsible for your child's behaviour in class.
You are fully responsible for your child not doing the homework.
You are fully responsible for your child not revising.
You are fully responsible for the child not working in class etc.

Are you going to accept this or are you going to say that your child is responsible for their own behaviour etc?

What a load of rubbish.

How on earth do you come to the conclusion that accepting parents of students have a status similar to that of people termed clients or service users by other professions means that parents must accept full responsibility for all behaviours exhibited by their child in the classroom environment?

You teach children. I would expect you to have some basic understanding of the Children Act and the meaning of parental responsibility, not to be bristling at the suggestion that parents of the children you teach are as much your 'clients' as the children themselves.

It is just indicative of pisspoor management by the school, and the sort of thing that gets schools a bad name.

All that is required is an auto-reply that is sent out of hours saying something like:

"Thank you for contacting ......... my standard working hours are ...... to ...... this email address is not monitored outside of those hours but I will endeavour to respond within one working day. If the matter is urgent please telephone ......... for safeguarding issues please email safeguarding@schooletc and to report a positive covid test please email covid@schooletc"

Staff should be encouraged not to keep their emails on outside working hours for their wellbeing.

If a teacher needs to be contacted senior leadership should be able to contact them via their phone. The central emails can be monitored on a rota basis by appropriate staff (not generally classroom teachers).

If people are abusive then that should be tackled directly.

unmarkedbythat

I would expect you to know that I don't expect parents to take full responsibility for the actions of their children.

but then you will see what you want to see.

It's the expectation that teachers should somehow have to be protected from reading things, by all the parents having to go out of their way. While everyone else just manages this.

Yep

Everyone else manages. I get emails at all different times and texts on my work phone too.

It is my responsibility to protect my 'down time'. I am not allowed my email address to be attached to my personal mobile due to security and confidentiality, but if I am working late and receive an email it can wait until the morning. I would tend to close my email so I don't get notifications anyway.

The school need to address parent's expectation around when teachers can reply etc, but the rest is down to personal responsibility. Like it is in every other job out there that uses email as a form of communication.

Of course the parents of the children are not "as much our clients as the children themselves"! If a child comes to me with a problem I do my best to solve it, if I can't I support them with it and pass on to the right person. Am I supposed to solve the problems of parents? Help them achieve their full potential? Keep an eye on when they look tired or look like they haven't had enough to eat? If you are talking about a parent passing on a problem in relation to their child then of course we look to solve that, but that is still the child as "client" not the parent.
I know some will never be satisfied until schools are run identically to businesses but we are not businesses and we do not have customers. And if you wish we were then you misunderstand what that would actually mean for your children.

Mistressiggi

I know some will never be satisfied until schools are run identically to businesses but we are not businesses and we do not have customers. And if you wish we were then you misunderstand what that would actually mean for your children.

I would be happy for schools to come fully under the remit of businesses.

No more being threaten by pupils or parents.
No more physical violence on the premises as the perpetrator will be removed and not allowed back in.
No more harassment by pupils or parents.
Having to clock in and out.
Being paid for hours we work.
The ability to refuse the raw product due to not being up to standard.

It would almost be a utopia.

I don’t think it’s ridiculous nor precious request

Some parents will likely be demanding replies/action at all times. This stops that

We all know that when emails hit our accounts, we tend to look at them. This cold possibly stress out some teachers, particularly emails from THOSE type of parents

As previous ouster said, why not simply send it with the delayed send if you cannot be bothered to respect the simple request to to send emails during set regular hours . It’s not rocket science. You can be amenable to this very easily.

Barking mad. Maybe they need to turn notifications off. You message when you want they reply when they want. There should be no expectation of a reply outside working hours.

@FrippEnos

unmarkedbythat

I would expect you to know that I don't expect parents to take full responsibility for the actions of their children.

but then you will see what you want to see.

I used to work with people with LDs. They, and their parents/carers, were my clients. I felt 'answerable' to them as well as my managers. And no, their carers weren't responsible for their actions when they were with me.

I know teachers feel frustrated. But so do workers in other essential services, who have been at work the entire time. In difficult circumstances, with abusive people, who aren't removed. I really do think that some teachers don't understand how other jobs work. Otherwise I cannot fathom the constant assertions that it's uniquely difficult or stressful.

I have also actually worked in a few schools as a visiting speaker and other roles. And with young offenders and young homeless people. You know, working with those kids that are 'challenging' that we all don't understand.