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AIBU?

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Original poster

School asking parents to only email teachers during working hours

773 replies

cautiouscovidity · 09/10/2020 10:43

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.

OP posts:
Xenia · 09/10/2020 20:19

That is a ridiculous. I get emails day and night and I just then choose when to read them. i don't get into some kind of depressive upset state just because someone chose to email me at 6pm or even 3am. I just don't look at the email until I have time.

Also lots of people cannot email in working hours - don't head teachers know that? My son drives a van all day and cannot be emailing. My doctor sibling similarly never mind my children's teacher father.

Mistressiggi · 09/10/2020 20:20

Many teachers work at the weekend though, and will need access to files in their emails to do this. I want to do the work I've chosen to do at the weekend, that doesn't mean I've chosen to think about emails from all-comers. Emails from parents are a tiny part of my own job (greater during lockdown obviously) but they clearly present a significant problem in the OP's school and it's good to see management trying to respond to that.

MrsTerryPratchett · 09/10/2020 20:22

Eminently sensible @SE13Mummy

user1487194234 · 09/10/2020 20:22

Only getting emails during working hours
Am sure that would be lovely
But totally unrealistic in the real world

ER4321 · 09/10/2020 20:24

I'm a teacher and actually 100% agree with you. The email from the head should read please only expect our staff to reply during working hours.

Like you say they can open and reply when they want. It doesnt really matter when you sent it.

TheKeatingFive · 09/10/2020 20:25

Many teachers work at the weekend though, and will need access to files in their emails to do this.

Just don’t open the mails you don’t want to deal with. Again, not hard.

Plenty of other people need to work over the weekend too and they manage.

ShanghaiDiva · 09/10/2020 20:27

I email teachers when convenient to me and expect them to reply when convenient for them.

DBML · 09/10/2020 20:28

Well, I think it’s a bit daft. I’m a teacher and I don’t care what time people email me because I’ll only write back when I feel like it anyway. And maybe I won’t. 🤷‍♀️
But if that is the policy the school wishes to put in place, then it’s tough luck. Either send the email anyway or set a delayed send. No big deal.

TheKeatingFive · 09/10/2020 20:34

I email teachers when convenient to me and expect them to reply when convenient for them.

Which is the whole point of email

Mistressiggi · 09/10/2020 20:34

Many posters have said don't look at your emails if you don't want a parent's email bothering you. I reply that we actually need to open our emails to do other work. So I'm then told well don't open the emails from parents.
The point surely being you know it's there and it hangs over you (seldom do parents email about something good, I wouldn't expect them to, it will be a problem). That's our problem, someone will be along in a minute to say. I guess teachers are as a group exempt from concern about their mental well-being. It's not that hard for the majority of parents to not email in the evenings/weekends. Those with no choice could choose to email via the office FAO the teacher.
But why do something to make their life easier?
As with everything in life, it will only be a small number of emails from a small number of parents which have led to this request from the HT.

TheKeatingFive · 09/10/2020 20:38

The point surely being you know it's there and it hangs over you (seldom do parents email about something good, I wouldn't expect them to, it will be a problem). That's our problem, someone will be along in a minute to say. I guess teachers are as a group exempt from concern about their mental well-being

That’s true of everyone else as well. Emails sent out of office hours are rarely to tell you what a great person you are. All other professions understand they have to manage this for themselves.

I find it utterly bizarre that you expect others to manage your work life balance and mental wellbeing for you.

blueberrypie0112 · 09/10/2020 20:40

When I was in school, we didn’t have emails or internet and none of the parents had their kid’s teachers’ phone number, they had to call during their office hours, even if the parents had to work.

When did all this change?

MrsTerryPratchett · 09/10/2020 20:43

@blueberrypie0112

When I was in school, we didn’t have emails or internet and none of the parents had their kid’s teachers’ phone number, they had to call during their office hours, even if the parents had to work.

When did all this change?

At one point we all wrote on wax tablets. When did that change?

Email exists and it's very convenient. Why not use it?

Mistressiggi · 09/10/2020 20:46

Keating parents don't need to email us at all. They can email the office. Emails from parents are not part of our core job. I get more than enough emails about work.
Maybe it's different in primary, but in secondary we have official ways to communicate and I'm glad that in my school email addresses are not made public. I teach a very large amount of pupils. If all concerns about a pupil go through guidance teachers it gives them a better overview of what is going on with that student. I don't need to manage parental emails personally as I only get ones if I have chosen to give out my address. However I am supportive of a school trying to be supportive of staff at a very difficult time. It's a shame more people couldn't be too.

BelleSausage · 09/10/2020 20:52

The issue is teaching is increasingly a customer service role (in the view of some parents). More and more parents expect to have their enquiry answered immediately, no matter what time they send the e-mail.

I had a parent e-mail at 6am to demand a telephone meeting at 7.30 (I have to drop DD off so don’t get in until 8 so didn’t see it). When I didn’t reply (because I wasn’t in school and hadn’t seen my e-mail) she sent through a load of abusive messages then Turned off her phone because she was busy.

I tried several times to get in touch before school but then had to go teach a lesson. She turned up at school ranting and raving about me and demanding I was pulled out of my lesson.

What was the issue you ask: her child didn’t like the homework they had been set.

NiceGerbil · 09/10/2020 20:52

Mistress the point is that your school is managing this well.

Other schools should be managing this properly rather than giving a blanket message to all parents that they should not email between X hours. Which can be ignored and will cause difficulties for parents in certain types of jobs. It's also overhead for the parents who may have who only knows what going on. To get however many hundred families to remember xyz which is inefficient and yet another thing, rather than not giving out individual emails (which the more I think about it is a bad thing for multiple reasons), managing expectations, sorting it through settings in the email host etc just seems like a really odd approach.

Legoandloldolls · 09/10/2020 20:56

We are not allowed to approach the teachers to talk to them and two teachers and TA looking after the class shared email all ignored me. So not all teachers check and loose sleep over what parents think.

Heyha · 09/10/2020 20:57

I wouldn't appreciate SLT putting that out there on my behalf. You email when you get chance, I read it when I get chance (and then probably re-read and respond later still!). I send emails to colleagues in the evening but open them "good morning" so as to show I don't expect them to read or reply that evening.

The head should say more like 'please email us if you need to but don't expect a reply outside of these times'

BelleSausage · 09/10/2020 20:59

The amount of abuse I get via e-mail from parents is one of the most stressful parts of my job. Answering vexatious parental e-mails eats hours and hours of my time. Which I could be spending prepping lessons or marking.

One parent wanted me to call her at the end of every day to outline what her son had done in the lesson. Another accused me of bullying and tried to get a formal investigation because I’d given her son two behaviour points over the course of a term.

My least favourite was the set of parents who tried to get me removed from A-level teaching because their son failed his AS level (he never did any work) and had been removed from my class for swearing at me (all my fault apparently). We had to have three separate meetings with them- accounting for hours and hours because they would not believe that their son didn’t do any work.

LadyWithLapdog · 09/10/2020 21:03

BelleSausage - that sounds really stressful. Wow :(

NiceGerbil · 09/10/2020 21:05

Belle which is why is better to have it all routed through the office.

She can abuse you via email just as easily within working hours as outside of them.

MissMarplesGlove · 09/10/2020 21:05

I tried several times to get in touch before school but then had to go teach a lesson. She turned up at school ranting and raving about me and demanding I was pulled out of my lesson.

What was the issue you ask: her child didn’t like the homework they had been set.

I don't know how you put up with that sort of awful behaviour @BelleSausage Kudos to you and other teachers who have to put up with these awful people. I feel sorry for their children.

Although reading about such parents starts to help me understand why some of my undergrads are clueless & entitled.

Daphnise · 09/10/2020 21:06

Why are people e- mailing teachers?

Helicopters....

TheKeatingFive · 09/10/2020 21:09

parents don't need to email us at all. They can email the office. Emails from parents are not part of our core job. I get more than enough emails about work

So don’t respond 🤷‍♀️

If it’s not your job it’s not your job.

Sirzy · 09/10/2020 21:10

@Daphnise

Why are people e- mailing teachers?

Helicopters....

Well in my case it could be a whole host of things -
  • issue with homework
  • queries about something Ds has said but I need clarity on
  • passing on information from HCPs involved in DS care
  • asking for information for HCPs involved in his care.
  • letting her know about appointments

And so on and so on! Much easier to be able to communicate by email than having to try to schedule calls!

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