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.

Surely you do what my employer (30,000+ UK employees) does and you have a dedicated email for notifying covid positive tests. One person is responsible for monitoring that out of hours each day and they contact whichever members of staff have to put measures in place. Everyone else ignores work emails. Standard auto response on other email addresses to say emails will not be read outside working hours.

@Daphnise

Why are people e- mailing teachers?

Helicopters....

That’s a big old assumption there! I have recently been corresponding with dds teachers (secondary). When dd was isolating before / after my recent surgery, I informed the school office. From that I presumed work would arrive. However, when none was posted for most subjects, I called the school and was told I needed to contact each member of staff directly. I did so and gave them the dates dd would return. The second week when none arrived from some teachers, I emailed them again.

NB I did make clear that there was no pressure from my end and I’d get dd to work on things from oak academy / science text books etc if they didn’t have time to send work through. The teachers were brilliant and sent specific work, links to oak academy or told me what they were covering that week.

I deal with all my admin after school hours as I work in a school, I embarrassingly got a reply from the office at 10pmi didn't want a reply it was just my 20 minutes to do my shit time 😳 I told her to stop working and deal with me on Monday. 🤣

I don't see the issue. When I finish work, I shut my laptop and don't re-open it till the morning/Monday or whatever. They can email me whenever they want but I won't see it.

@ivykaty44

The school could send out a message stating emails will only be read between 8:30 and 5:30 to allow teachers down time

But instead they try to control several hundred parents with different working patterns and access to email. Then they’ll wonder why it doesn’t work

Yes this absolutely. I do not understand how they think this approach could work or help.

Thirty years ago we had a shop, a fax machine, an answerphone and the post.

Maybe we should have had a rule that faxes/messages/letters could only be sent during working hours . 'Please ensure all letters are sent to arrive only on days the shop is open. Any letters arriving on Mondays will not be read as the shop is not open'

Why are people e- mailing teachers?

Er, what????

In the nicest possible way, I find teachers are used to controlling some 300-400 hundred children, they need to they have to.

They can't though control the parents in the same way, they need to use other more manipulating methods of cohesion so that the parents don't rebel and do exactly what the OP has done - which is to question there message.

manage parents in different ways so they don't realise they are being told what to do and they will have much better results

the end result should justify the means

We have a school messaging system and sent out a message at 8 on Sunday night to say that the school unfortunately had to be closed the following day as there had just been a water main leak in the road outside the school and there was no water- so no heating or toilets. We had a parent complain that we had interrupted his weekend and could we not send messages out except during working hours😅

I have do not disturb on my phone from 10pm -7am. If I choose to search my messages, respond to emails etc within that time, I can, but I dont get the notifications pinging.

@meditrina

I think the school has got it a bit wrong.

Parents should be able to send emails at any time (it's the equivalent if when you popped a letter in the post), but the school should be saying that their staff will only be able to respond during

And they should be telling their staff it is fine not to log on outside normal hours, or if they need to be online, they do not need to open new emails until the next working day.

Totally agree with this!

@spanieleyes - We had a parent complain that we had interrupted his weekend and could we not send messages out except during working hours😅

That's hilarious. Maybe it was a parent who had another child in the same school as the op.....

@MrsTerryPratchett

you can have fun panicking all night when the school don't respond when your child is missing...

If you're a teacher, please have a long, hard look at yourself for posting this. Seriously, that's repulsive.

A school should have proper out of hours emergency protocol if they need it. Not random teachers answering emails on personal devices.

This!!

Why on earth would you email an individual teacher about a missing child? That should be done though headteacher, and would have police involvement. Same with covid - there should be a protocol in place on how to inform the school if out of school hours.

We don't have our teachers direct email and never have in the 9 years I've had a child at the school. If I urgently needed to contact the school it would be done though the head teachers email.

Anyone who has word email has this issue. If you have work email on your phone then you have to be very disciplined not to deal with it out of hours. One of the reasons I don't have it on my phone.

Let’s look at the types of email a parent send a teacher:

1. Little Johnny won’t be in on Monday - This is admin. Teachers are not meant to be doing admin.

1. How is little Johnny getting on this year - Wait until parents evening like everyone else.

1. You told little Johnny off and made him cry. I’m not happy - Perhaps if you spend time talking to your child about his behaviour rather than emailing me, I wouldn’t have to tell him off?

1. Little Johnny hasn’t brought any homework home in over a week? - Have you checked his bag? His planner? Have you bought him a planner? Have you checked Classcharts/ ParentMail or any of the many other home communication programmes that have been set up?

1. Little Johnny is feeling sensitive because of a death in the family - Admin. That info needs to be passed to all staff and it’s not my job to do it.

1. Is like to request a meeting to talk about little Johnny and XYZ - Go through admin

1. Little Johnny is being bullied at break time - Senior management are the most appropriate ones to deal with this type of issue. Again all staff need to be made aware and going through the class teacher will only slow this process down due to their lack of time.

1. You need to send over some lovely work that little Johnny has done - please print it and send it in. If I get it by email the chances are I’m either going to print it at home at my expense or I have to go to the printer, queue, use time to do it in school. Now imagine if all parents did this...what a waste of my time. (This is also why I generally set work that can be done with a pen and paper)

1. Little Johnny didn’t know about the test - Well that’s what happens when you don’t send him to school every day. It’s tough. Hopefully he’ll do better next time. No need to email.

10. Little Johnny is stressed that you are moving so quickly through the coursework/ he doesn’t understand etc - The coursework is timed and stressful. It’s meant to be. That’s why some kids don’t fare as well as others and you end up with kids all getting a different grade. Not every child can get an A*. I can’t slow down because then no one will finish the CW (I’ve got 10 hours). It’s basically an examined piece of work, so no I can’t sit with him and do it at lunchtime. No I can’t send it home. No point emailing, little Johnny can tell me this himself anyway.

11. I don’t want little Johnny sitting by Harry - If and when I see a problem in my classroom, I move the children accordingly. I don’t need a parent to tell me how to do my job.

So as you can see, there are actually very few reasons for a parent to contact a teacher and yet some teachers get many emails from parents that add to the end of their working day and take away from their work/life balance.

Personally I have no problem not responding and ignoring emails I think are pointless. If the parents really want to get hold of me, they will eventually go through the correct channels...but then I’m older, more cynical and less enthusiastic about my job. I’m closer to leaving my profession and don’t see myself teaching in a year or two.
I can see why a newer, younger teacher may feel the need to reply as quickly as possible and every reply needs to be carefully worded, vetted and can take a long time to construct.

Incidentally I wouldn’t ever email a dentist, doctor, physio etc (I might email their reception, but not them directly).

Oh and as I missed it-

12. My child didn’t get home? Are they still in school? - phone the fucking police!

13. Did my child make it to school today? - Admin, they should be contacting you anyway to find out where your child is. Simple safeguarding.

Why are people e- mailing teachers?

People aren't constantly emailing teachers (or at least they shouldn't be) but emailing is the standard method now of communicating with a teacher. So if there's an issue to discuss (e.g. a year 7 struggling to settle in, or a child considering dropping a subject for GCSE or a problem with bullying) when you would have previously organised a meeting you'd now send an email at least initially.

I have two kids in primary and most years won't send a single email to their class teachers but (especially at present when you can't pop into the class room in the morning to ask a quick question) if there was something I needed to flag or ask them about I'd just pop over an email.

@DBML Some of those are silly emails but some of them are the school's failure to communicate to parents who they should discuss issues with. A parent who is worried about their child because of a death in the family is more likely to contact a teacher whose face they're familiar with than send off to an anonymous admin person. Your point about this sounded rather callous. Likewise if my child was being bullied I'd have emailed their form teacher not admin.

It's unreasonable to expect parents to know in great detail the inner workings and beurocracy of a large organisation like a school unless it's been explained to them. It's also not particularly unreasonable for a parent to contact their child's teacher for advice if their child is struggling with coursework. When I was teaching I would have wanted to know if a child was struggling to keep up and I'd have given advice about what they could do to improve their chances rather than saying 'coursework is tough too bad'.

@Giespeace

If anyone were in any doubt about the towering demands placed upon your average teacher, this thread would sort them out. I can see how contacting a head teacher about Covid cases might be useful - VIA TELEPHONE, as they are paid the big bucks and have responsibilities for the whole school. But are we really at a stage where poor Miss Smith, fresh from teacher training and at the bottom of the pay scale, is expected to have her phone glued to her hand at all hours of the day and night just in case an URGENT email comes through about Covid? If so, we have far bigger problems than parents emailing at 7pm.

Absolutely this!!

If either of my kids tested positive for covid I wouldn't be contacting their teachers - not that I can anyway as don't have their details. It's not their teachers job to deal with that. That belongs much further up the management of the school than the teacher.

I agree this is ridiculous
One way around -
Write email whenever you want - then you could set the time you want it to send. Automatically sends.

However I have small amount of sympathy. I’ve had days/nights where I made mistake of looking at mails for personal reasons and saw work related emails and started either to deal with them or just got a bit stressed by what I saw as issues cropping up etc.
However that was my failure to ignore. But when under tremendous stress you don’t always do the right sensible obvious thing.

@DBMLSome of those are silly emails but some of them are the school's failure to communicate to parents who they should discuss issues with. A parent who is worried about their child because of a death in the family is more likely to contact a teacher whose face they're familiar with than send off to an anonymous admin person. Your point about this sounded rather callous. Likewise if my child was being bullied I'd have emailed their form teacher not admin.

My DM died when my DD was 4 and in reception. I wrote (an old school letter which she could have read at any time of day or night ) to her class teacher to explain it had caused DD to regress in various ways, and that she was affected by it. I thought it would be useful for the teacher to know, and if DD was upset but unable to say why they would have some idea.

Thankfully I have a relationship with DS school and a lot of the health care professionals in his care where we can email back and forward to solve things. Much easier all around than playing telephone ping pong trying to sort things.

Email shouldn't be used for anything that is urgent enough to need an immediate response, as you have no idea when it will be received by the recipient and then read.

Turn it around, would anyone be happy if the school emailed to say your child was injured? No, you would expect a call (rightly so).

Many teachers will have given their email to pupils during lockdown to help with their schoolwork.

DS’s secondary school has always given teacher’s email addresses out, but only one teacher did at his Primary school. As with many workplaces there is usually a standard format for the email address eg first name initial and then surname, so once you know one you can usually work out someone else’s

@Fizbosshoes Exactly. I wouldn't email in or right a letter if my child was told off for doing something stupid but I think a death in the family is totally reasonable for a teacher to be informed about.

Wish we had chance to email teachers when my DCs were at primary school - it seemed the main job of the headteacher was to ensure parents were kept completely in the dark about their children's education - and it wasn't even that long ago. Reports were vague and sent out on Friday afternoon almost on last day of term, couldn't get to see teacher if there was a concern, told DC1 was doing well at parents evening (again vague language). It was the attitude of school knows best - looks like they are using covid and email timings to get back to that.
DC's now at secondary school - what a difference - can email when convenient to parents - they respond when problem sorted