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.

@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.

Then write the email in the morning/night before and leave it on a send schedule?

"From Gmail in your browser
Locate the drop-down arrow near the send button.
Click the arrow and then click Schedule send.
A menu will appear that lets you choose the date and time you would like the email to be sent.
Select the time and click Schedule send."

MrsTerryPratchett

I notice that you didn't respond to the post aimed at you.

If anyone is the client (or whatever) it is those that I work with, the pupils.

If a parent sends an email that is polite and sensible, I am happy to respond, in my own time as per my schools policy.

If a parent sends an arsy, threatening or nasty email I will forward it on to my line manager and they can deal with it and they will deal with any subsequent emails from that point onwards.

I will always help the pupils to the best of my abilities, and that means that out of hours auto bounce emails do not work because we are not a business.

@FrippEnos

MrsTerryPratchett

I notice that you didn't respond to the post aimed at you.

If anyone is the client (or whatever) it is those that I work with, the pupils.

If a parent sends an email that is polite and sensible, I am happy to respond, in my own time as per my schools policy.

If a parent sends an arsy, threatening or nasty email I will forward it on to my line manager and they can deal with it and they will deal with any subsequent emails from that point onwards.

I will always help the pupils to the best of my abilities, and that means that out of hours auto bounce emails do not work because we are not a business.

I thought I had answered that.

Which specific part did I not address?

that you seem to think that the "clients" are the parents

I think it's fine to say teachers will only respond during working hours, but surely parents can email anytime banning that seems ott

@pastandpresent

MrsTerryPratchett, I think that's very silly comment. Just because other profession gets them too, it doesn't make it ok for teachers to receive them. Why need to compare? Everyone deserves respect.

Sending emails outside of someone's working hours is not disrespectful.

Treating teachers like idiots who can't control themselves not to check email 24/7 is disrespectful.

I'm management in NHS. I recieved 79 emails from when I logged off at 6pm last night to when I logged on this morning. Some of them were urgent incidents that happened through the night but were picked up by the on call team on the ground.

It is ridiculous to suggest that you cannot send emails whenever you like. If the head expects teachers to respond to urgent emails out of hours then an 'on call rota' needs to be developed with the on call person having access to email inbox and respond accordingly. Otherwise everything can wait until the morning.

Parent requirements:
"From Gmail in your browser
Locate the drop-down arrow near the send button.
Click the arrow and then click Schedule send.
A menu will appear that lets you choose the date and time you would like the email to be sent.
Select the time and click Schedule send."
Hope it goes when it should.

Teacher requirement:
Don't open emails in the evenings if doing so causes you stress.

Teachers not opening emails in the evenings definitely seems like the more logical and reasonable option.

We all know that when emails hit our accounts, we tend to look at them.

Given that every other profession manages their own boundaries on this issue, I really don’t understand why teachers can’t.

Good lord is this still going?

I like the way a poster who says they have people emailing from around the world so are getting stuff all the time, is called a troll

Why would a probably female poster on Mumsnet not have a job like that? I can't think of any other reason for calling troll.

I made the same point upthread a bit but it seems to have slipped past the troll radar

@IdkickJilliansass

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

I'm off work today

If some teachers want to be treated like fragile little children who can't be trusted to manage their own inbox, then so be it. Personally I'm quite happy to behave in an adult, professional fashion and make those decisions for myself.

NiceGerbil

Didn't say that she couldn't have a job like that. Just that it wasn't comparable.

Selective reading or understanding?

I just don't have the notifications on my work email account on my phone. So it is there, as a second inbox within my Gmail but I don't enter it unless I want to. I'm also not notified of any emails coming in. How hard is that?!

ZoeTurtle, I never implied sending emails outside of someone's working hours is disrespectful.

Though I don't think it's very common for school to put that kind of restriction on contacting teachers normally, so I suspect there maybe a significant reason for it.
Also my response was about comparing teachers to other profession, I thought it was silly to compare who gets worse etc.

@IndecentFeminist

I just don't have the notifications on my work email account on my phone. So it is there, as a second inbox within my Gmail but I don't enter it unless I want to. I'm also not notified of any emails coming in. How hard is that?!

You'd have thought that this would be the obvious solution

Well her inbox is likely worse and she manages it.

Totally relevant to the thread.

@FrippEnos

that you seem to think that the "clients" are the parents

I believe I addressed that, as have others.

In SW you treat the client and carer as clients. HCPs have said they treat the young patient and adult parent as the client. And so on.

You’ll have to save it all up for your next day off 😉😂

Otherwise I cannot fathom the constant assertions that it's uniquely difficult or stressful
Ah I thought you were posting in good faith until I read this.

You'd have thought that this would be the obvious solution

Well quite. Until I read this thread I didn’t know there were grown adults unable to take such basic steps to manage their lives. But I consider myself corrected.

It isn't uniquely difficult or stressful though @mistressiggi, unless you are quite delicate or in a particularly unsupportive school. In which case it still wouldn't be, as plenty of other professions are similar.

Also worth noting I don't have to have my work email on my phone at all. I simply do because I am a lazy arse who prefers doing emails etc on it rather than firing up a laptop.

Just schedule your emails to send at 8am the following morning.

@Mistressiggi

Otherwise I cannot fathom the constant assertions that it's uniquely difficult or stressful Ah I thought you were posting in good faith until I read this.

But I genuinely don't.

I have friends who are street nurses with the homeless community, cleaners, retail staff, social workers, housing staff, care workers.... all dealing with difficult, dangerous situations. All coping with inboxes and boundaries.

Every time there's a thread about teaching, people do the, "do you have to deal,with...?" nonsense. YES! Yes I do. So many of us do. Difficult, dangerous, abusive behaviour working with people, all through the pandemic. Many many people do.

I think maybe teachers didn't sign up for it, maybe that's the difference. I knew I was working in the trenches. Teaching was always hard work but not risky work I suppose. And maybe teachers expected respect and politeness in a way that the rest of us didn't. And yes we should all be treated well. But hope for the best, plan for the worst, right?