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.

I've read the op. I've still not seen any whinging from teachers

Presumably the message came from the principal or management team in the school. They are generally teachers.

That parent is obviously barmy but the policy of not emailing outside of office hours is still daft. How will it help an NQT to revieve 5 irate emails within office hours rather than outside of them?

It would help the NQT because they’d be able to get immediate support with whatever the parent was talking about, rather than worrying about it all weekend.

It just makes the school look ridiculous to the majority of parents who wouldn't behave like that
As I said, in most cases I agree. Sometimes there are schools with a group of parents who behave unreasonably- currently there are in the school where my sister is head - they utilise Facebook to be absolutely outrageous about various things.

In a minority of cases, there may well be an argument for not allowing parents access to teacher emails outside of work - that said, if that was needed and I was head I’d just remove all individual teacher emails from the public domain and direct everything through an info address 🤷🏻‍♀️

No harder than other jobs and work fewer hours than you with longer holidays. But you weren’t trying to suggest that teachers have nothing to complain about, oh no.

@SmileEachDay

I agree it would be upsetting for an NQT but could they not forward on a negative email or simply resolve not to read emails over the weekend if they might need support which isn't available then?

I absolutely don't think anyone should have to put up with abusive emails any time of the day or night but if the school is going to use email as a form of communication they do need to accept that it's not the same as a phone call and just because it's there doesn't mean it has to be read.

@OchonAgusOchonO

I've read the op. I've still not seen any whinging from teachers

Presumably the message came from the principal or management team in the school. They are generally teachers.

Yes they would be teachers. Still didn't see any whinging.

@OchonAgusOchonO

My paid holiday entitlement is 5.6 weeks 🤔
I thought that was standard rather than ‘great’.

Or are you referring to the 7.4 weeks which are not factored into my salary and therefore unpaid?

You clearly know very little about teaching as a profession or the pay and conditions of a teacher. I’m not sure you’re qualified to be commenting on how ‘great’ it is.

HandfulofDust

I’m just explaining that we have no idea of the context and background of the decision taken by the OP’s school.

They may have a very good reason; they may not.

None of us know.

@SmileEachDay

I don't doubt they had reasons. Some parents can be absolutely unreasonable and email gives them a perfect medium to do it unfortunately. I just think that from the perspective of a professional organisation it's not the best way of dealing with it.

I see no reason to mention teachers' holiday entitlement or working hours in this context unless it was to imply that they are so good as to warrant "whingeing" as being unreasonable.

"That said there is a small minority on MN who extrapolate that to meaning that teaching is the hardest profession on earth and no complaint or concern about an individual teacher or school policy could possibly be valid."
I see this point made quite frequently on here, and it ignores the fact that very few teachers say theirs is the hardest profession on earth. What they might do is defend the notion that it's all long holidays and going home at 3.30, and that gets misinterpreted, as so ably demonstrated by OchonAgusOchonO, as complaining.

@CallmeAngelina I never claimed it's all long holidays and leaving at 3:30. It's a very difficult, stressful job which the poor retention figures is testament to. I was just making (a somewhat tangential point) that sometimes when people have a specific concern about a teacher the reaction is 'well teaching is very difficult'. While I agree that teaching is difficult and we need to improve conditions that doesn't mean every concern about specific teaching decisions is invalid.

But nor do (most) teachers say that no complaint or concern about an individual teacher or school policy could possibly be valid. They might attempt to put the other side of things, and explain possible reasons behind a seemingly strange course of action. I don't see much defending the indefensible really (although I do think this was a daft request on this school's part).

I’ve had it before when I’ve had an email from a parent complaining (not actually about an error made by me but still) forwarded to me at 6:30pm on a Friday, which I think is shit. I’m an NQT and it’s pretty stressful dealing with getting lots of emails asking stuff etc. I get that I can just not check but it’s hard not to worry that there’s something on the account that I need to know about 🤦‍♀️ which is my problem and not anyone else’s. Ultimately it’s just a risk of a lot of jobs I think. It’s not pleasant for anyone to get emailed outside of work hours and hopefully I’ll learn to not be as bothered about checking.

@CallmeAngelina

I absolutely agree with you and it's useful for someone within teaching to explain why XYZ might have happened. It was just a dynamic I noticed from a small minority on MN. It was more toward the beginning of lock down when any minor issue was reacted to with just posting thousands of flowers (and I get some complaints from parents are absolutely ridiculous and they should give their head a wobble). I also think some are reasonable or at least deserving of an explanation.

The flower issue back in April was a kind of silent protest at the appalling slating teachers were getting, particularly here on MN, as if schools being closed was somehow their fault. Similarly, the amount or type of work being set was not up to individual teachers, but their SLT.

It was a particularly dark time on MN for school staff, and many of the posters responsible for it are still here, albeit some of them under identifiable name-changes.

I confess I’ve not read all 25 pages. Read the first few and then skimmed.

I am flabbergasted to find that schools might be using email for urgent communication such as safeguarding issues or positive Covid tests.

That’s not how the rest of the world works. You might expect an email giving you further information on an urgent issue, but the email itself shouldn’t be the primary means of alerting someone to an urgent issue. That’s just nuts!

as some of them have access to their emails on their personal phones

Apart from anything else I would want reassurances that the teachers accessing school emails on their personal phones are fully compliant with GDPR and that nobody who shouldn't has access to the emails. Either now, if somebody borrows the phone (or it gets lost!) or in the future if the teacher upgrades and passes on their phone.

@CallmeAngelina

If you're implying it was me slating school staff it absolutely wasn't! I do change usernames every few months but I am very supportive of teachers and always have been. I was always very vocal about the fact that this isn't the fault of school staff.

I do remember a particular thread though (and I don't know if this was typical) where an ICU nurse was concerned because her kids weren't being given the chance to do the same work at key worker school the kids were being sent home (which is obvious a completely valid concern) and she got some really awful comments from teachers or at least people claiming to be teachers. There was a complete lack of insight into the fact that other people's jobs were also stressful. One person said 'well as a nurse you expect to get sick I don't as a teacher' and others agreeing. I don't suggest though this is typical of the attitude among teachers and I did specifically say it was a minority.

There were also concerns from parents of children with extreme SEN who were struggling with the change and the threads got flooded with flowers (I doubt just from teachers) which was incredibly unhelpful and lacking in empathy.

@confusedbear, what about accessing school emails on a personal computer? Would the same issues arise?
Because many, many teachers do not have school laptops allocated to them, and are expected to work from home (including live-teaching) on their own machines. To all intents and purposes, I've been told on here (by non-teachers) that to object (or "whinge") about this is churlish and I should suck it up.

"If you're implying it was me slating school staff it absolutely wasn't!"

No, I wan't meaning you! Sorry if it came across that way. But this sort of thread attracts some of our old adversaries.

Apart from anything else I would want reassurances that the teachers accessing school emails on their personal phones are fully compliant with GDPR and that nobody who shouldn't has access to the emails

I access mine on my phone. In terms of GDPR - the usual phone security (passcode/fingerprint/facial recognition) is one layer, plus logging in to my actual school cloud based account which requires a password every time and periodically a 2 factor authentication via a dongle (almost invariably when I don’t have it on me 🤣).

I that’s the case for my current MAT and the previous one I worked for.

Ochon. These have been very difficult times - for everyone. No one has had an easy ride. However, I've been a secondary school teacher for 37 years, and this has been the most challenging term I have had. Ever. Many teenagers have done literally nothing for six months and are all but feral. Others are anxious, overworking or dealing with stuff at home. Our school SLT decided to switch off the emails from 6pm to 7am to try to stem the tide of parental emails. Some fine, pleasant, genuine enquiries. Some a bit rude and some very, very offensive. We are still getting those in the first two categories - ok, but significantly fewer in the last category. Maybe, Ochon you should reconsider using the term "snowflake" which you have repeated on this thread. It genuinely doesn't help.

I am flabbergasted to find that schools might be using email for urgent communication such as safeguarding issues or positive Covid tests

I’m not sure schools would. We can’t stop parents doing that though. 🤷🏻‍♀️

No, I wan't meaning you! Sorry if it came across that way. But this sort of thread attracts some of our old adversaries.

No you didn't imply it in your comment I was just being defensive because I have seen the kind of comments you're talking about and wouldn't want to be associated with them!

Out of interest do schools have a policy of dealing with unreasonable parent communication. I would assume there was a range of unnecessary emails from petty time wasting to really abusive but is there any actual stratgey from management to protect staff and deal with it?

Out of interest do schools have a policy of dealing with unreasonable parent communication. I would assume there was a range of unnecessary emails from petty time wasting to really abusive but is there any actual stratgey from management to protect staff and deal with it?

Yes, but I imagine it varies from school to school.
Every school I’ve worked in has had a strong policy - up to and including banning parents from the school site. There are often a handful of parents who are dealt with only by a named member of SLT.