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.

Teachers actually use email to communicate with each other so they need to check them during non-contact hours.

In my school, we have a problem with what I call ‘Wine Emails’. Where the parent sends a late night email complaining about something. Sadly, receiving one of those on a Friday night can totally ruin your weekend.

If a teacher can get so stressed by getting an email out of hours - unable to self time manage, ignore, or read the subject line - in case it is a missing child! - then is it any wonder they find teaching so stressful and are leaving in droves!
holdingpattern

So, if I’m accessing my emails on Sunday in order to plan lessons and there are a further 4 emails from a parent who started baying for my blood at 6ish on Friday as I logged off...

Even without reading them, I know they are problematic and are going to take a huge amount of time to sort out.

Mainly, parents just put their child’s name in the subject heading. The contents could be anything from “X doesn’t know how to do the homework” to “You’re a bitch who is picking on my daughter and I’m going to the press”

How is any of that stress my fault?

I'm a teacher

Why the hell should I have to read a moany text from Quentin's mum at 8.30pm on a Friday because she's upset that he learnt about BLM and thinks he's been subjected to racism as a rich white boy? Or read a pissed email at 4.30am from a disgruntled parent who doesn't have the balls to say something to me sober? I have to keep an eye on my emails outside of work but only because of safeguarding issues that may arise, that doesn't include parents kicking off because their 18yo can't bring his boot bag into school and not lose it

@SmileEachDay

If a teacher can get so stressed by getting an email out of hours - unable to self time manage, ignore, or read the subject line - in case it is a missing child! - then is it any wonder they find teaching so stressful and are leaving in droves! holdingpattern

So, if I’m accessing my emails on Sunday in order to plan lessons and there are a further 4 emails from a parent who started baying for my blood at 6ish on Friday as I logged off...

Even without reading them, I know they are problematic and are going to take a huge amount of time to sort out.

Mainly, parents just put their child’s name in the subject heading. The contents could be anything from “X doesn’t know how to do the homework” to “You’re a bitch who is picking on my daughter and I’m going to the press”

How is any of that stress my fault?

Yes exactly it's all very well saying "ignore it" but I can't enjoy my weekend knowing I've got either a parent who needs my attention or someone is kicking off about something

As many previous posters have said if some teachers get so stressed about receiving emails out of hours, when they can easily choose to ignore them until a time of their choosing

I mean, it’s been explained repeatedly why this might not be possible but ok 🤷🏻‍♀️

then there is no hope for the generation they are teaching/nurturing/advising

Yes. I can definitely see the link between a teacher feeling upset/stressed/overwhelmed by an abusive email and the total failure of the next generation. Definitely 🤣

@SmileEachDay

As many previous posters have said if some teachers get so stressed about receiving emails out of hours, when they can easily choose to ignore them until a time of their choosing

I mean, it’s been explained repeatedly why this might not be possible but ok 🤷🏻‍♀️

then there is no hope for the generation they are teaching/nurturing/advising

Yes. I can definitely see the link between a teacher feeling upset/stressed/overwhelmed by an abusive email and the total failure of the next generation. Definitely 🤣

Exactly. I can see it too. What a stupendous level of thinking.

pastandpresent
That's nice they did that, however I think it's the sort of thing that sets an unhelpful precedent.

Some schools I've worked at have had lots of staff replying late at night and through the weekends. It caused a lot of tensions between staff as instead of parents taking the view you take, they get arsey and accuse other staff of being unreasonable for not being on call 24/7. It also formed part of a horrible school culture where some staff would always reply to emails at antisocial hours, want to be in first and last out. SLT accepted and promoted this culture.

In contrast, my current school nobody sends emails regularly out of a reasonable working day, even though we all know that most people will be working outside a standard working day. Parents tend to send emails when they like and most of them are totally reasonable in their expectations. SLT drive this culture.

One school had a high turnover of staff. The other didn't.

I have no idea what’s been said over 27 pages but I agree with the OP!

You should be grateful they let you email at all! Our last school would only let you speak in person, and that had to be organised by semaphore at the school gate, and normally
could only take place between 9 & 3, so if you actually had a job you basically never could speak to the teacher.

I still don’t get it. I also get stress-inducing emails sent to me at all hours. So I don’t check my email at all hours. It’s not a problem because if there is something desperately important that needs to be communicated to me, people don’t use email to communicate it therefore it’s not that difficult to ignore the stressful ones until work time.

The teachers in this thread are saying that they have to check email because of safeguarding issues.

Why, why, why would critical time-sensitive information on safeguarding be sent by email? Why?

This is pathetic. I know very few jobs who's emails stop at the end of the working day, and who don't get abusive emails, at times that cause stress. You need to learn where to draw you work life balance. My job is to place children who are looked after by the county/city into children's homes, normally in horrid circumstances. Do you think I don't get emails out of hours that don't require immediate action or are emotionally stressful? 🙄

@GlummyMcGlummerson

I'm a teacher

Why the hell should I have to read a moany text from Quentin's mum at 8.30pm on a Friday because she's upset that he learnt about BLM and thinks he's been subjected to racism as a rich white boy? Or read a pissed email at 4.30am from a disgruntled parent who doesn't have the balls to say something to me sober? I have to keep an eye on my emails outside of work but only because of safeguarding issues that may arise, that doesn't include parents kicking off because their 18yo can't bring his boot bag into school and not lose it

Well you don't have to read the email at that time. That's the joy of email; you log in and read it at a time to suit you. Surely for urgent matters such as safeguarding, there must be a more robust system than emailing teachers' regular emails out of hours? What if the teacher didn't login all weekend because they had guests / went away / had a poorly child / just wanted the weekend off (all of which are perfectly ok reasons to not be working on a day off)? Surely schools should have a different and more reliable system for urgent contact?

Why, why, why would critical time-sensitive information on safeguarding be sent by email? Why?

Because Jimmy’s gran remembers meeting you at parents eve.

Because Becky likes English and thinks you might listen.

Because Maria is completely controlled by her abusive husband but he won’t care about her emailing the form tutor.

Because...

Genuine question:

Is it generally possible to set filters/directions so that all emails from, say @ go into one inbox and all others go elsewhere?

If so, then if teachers knew how to do that, they could have all 'school' emails in one place and parent/others elsewhere so they wouldn't need to 'see' them unless they looked?

I can see the school's point. Many parents do email out of hours but also expect a response relatively quickly. E.g. an email on Friday evening might lead to a parent expecting a response by Monday lunchtime. If a teacher is teaching all day on Monday then they may not check their email until the end of the day. Usually by that point the parent has phoned the office twice asking when can they expect a response or in some cases asking to speak to the head! This is not uncommon. The other issue is that emails sent on Friday night could easily be buried by others leading to something being missed by Monday evening.

@cautiouscovidity it's all well and good saying "don't read the email" but when it's from a serial complainer about their PFB and the subject is "complaint" it's hard to ignore. And more parents than I care to say fully expect an immediate response. Their darling must be the centre of everybody else's world.

Re safeguarding - for anything urgent, such as DV or a child who's gone missing, we usually get a phone call from the safeguarding lead. But some things are "good to know" issues that are good to know before registration on Monday. Such as the outcome of a referral ive made. It's rare but it does happen and time is of the essence in a lot of cases.

YABU. No, I think it’s fair enough.

I’ve long thought it extraordinary that parents are able to email teachers direct- they’re paid nowhere near enough to have to take emails like that! Correspondence should go through the school office.

If I was a teacher I wouldn’t look at emails from parents outside of 9-5.30pm.

@runningonemptyfulloflove

This is pathetic. I know very few jobs who's emails stop at the end of the working day, and who don't get abusive emails, at times that cause stress. You need to learn where to draw you work life balance. My job is to place children who are looked after by the county/city into children's homes, normally in horrid circumstances. Do you think I don't get emails out of hours that don't require immediate action or are emotionally stressful? 🙄

Why would anyone think you don't get stressful emails? What a random thing to say

An example from this term I've had already - the father of a pupil in my form was incarcerated on a Friday afternoon. We knew it was gonna happen, he'd been found guilty and the sentencing was happening on that date. My safeguarding lead popped an email to say "Charlie M update - 8 years, Charlie feeling very down, keep an eye on him on Monday and let me know if he's absent".

So I knew to watch out for Charlie and any comments other pupils may make, had a reassuring chat and in turn informed his subject teachers to be aware and have some patience with him if he's not very chipper

I have worked in schools where parents do email direct regularly and at all hours and one where this wasn't encouraged and I know which one I prefer. I actually prefer emails to go via the school office. The school admin team pass on emails to the appropriate person in school hours and sometimes can respond themselves to issues that do not need to go via the teacher. It saves time for the main role of teaching and also ensures that parents are responded to. The admin team send it on where necessary and reply to the parent to say they have done so. Parents can email direct but it isn't particularly encouraged unless there is a specific issue that requires this level of contact.

Well this has been an eye opening thread, I had no idea some schools have this issue with emails, there seems to be some very different work place cultural expectations with regards to email. Working in a public sector context where people do send abusive and aggressive emails most of my colleagues have adapted to manage that - for example if someone is off and needs something from their email they might contact a colleague to get it sent to their personal email to avoid the issue of going into the work email and getting involved in stuff that is there. It has never occurred to me to send urgent information in an email I would always see that as too risky - what if the recipient is sick/off/had some other emergency - email simply isn't the way to communicate urgent safeguarding or welfare stuff I would always ring that through. I wonder if there is a lack of support from some school management to give a clear expectation - you don't need to respond to emails immediately and you are trusted to ignore inappropriate emails etc. As for putting work email on personal devices - if thats the only way to manage, then perhaps take the notifications off and you can choose what you pick up once out of work.

Email communication from schools has really increased hugely, with my older children this wasn't a thing but having a 15 year old now I get on average 30 emails a week from the school - letters, updates, reward points, sanction points, homework - had I realized it was going to be hit like this I would of set up a separate email account for it which I could control - I guess there are many benefits to email and downsides but we all have to find ways to manage it. I'm with a really old email provider just had a good look around and there is no facility for delayed sending to do this I would have to change email accounts or leave it in the drafts where it would no doubt stay .

BuddyRun
‘For example, if a teacher gets 20 emails every evening, they have to read all of them to find the one urgent one that says Bobby has tested covid positive. They need to act on that out of hours to inform their close contacts not to come into school the next morning. If the parents only emailed during working hours except the one urgent email, then the teacher would read the one urgent email.‘

Schools should have an emergency procedure in place if parents urgently need to get in touch out of hours. They shouldn’t be emailing teachers on the off chance the recipient will check their email out of hours. What if the teacher was ill or in a car crash or something? They will have a protocol in place, or at least they should.

@middleeasternpromise set up a new email and just ask the school office to change it their end.

30 emails a week is ridiculous. I struggle to read the 1 "weekly round up" email from my kids' school 😂

You might not think emails should be used for safeguarding matters but they are, even the police use them to notify schools of domestic violence incidents where school children are present. That's one of the reasons why we can't ignore emails out of hours.

Schools should have an emergency procedure in place if parents urgently need to get in touch out of hours

Schools do.

The 2000+ parents and carers attached to our children don’t always follow procedure!!