To think school shouldn't be emailing me spam that's not school related?

[Bake]

Help please!? My daughter started school in September and I'm becoming overwhelmed with the amount of communication I receive from the school - specifically the junk email, and wanted to know if this is normal/accepted everywhere?

Some days I'll receive 4 emails a day from school along with text messages and notes in the app. It feels like I have to read everything as I don't want to miss anything important. Often there will be several reminder emails and text messages to pay for something which I paid for on day 1. I can accept these and know one day I'll probably be grateful for the reminder.

The problem I have is the spam/junk mail they send about completely non-school related things. Today, the second email from the school this morning us advertising a local kids rugby club. I just feel like this information should be added to the fortnightly newsletter rather than being sent in a standalone email that I then have to open and waste time looking at. It also feels like they should also have an email planner so emails are spread throughout the week rather than on one day. There's an app called street tag which they've sent numerous emails and texts about encouraging everyone to sign up, again not related directly to school (and not something I want to participate in) so just feels like they are bombarding my with Spam I can't avoid.

Do all schools do this? Is anyone able to opt out of non school related communication or do I just have to accept that now they have my email address and phone number they can send whatever they want? I have worked in CRM in my career and feel like the school is breaking all the rules in regards to what they are using my contact info for. But not sure I want to be "that parent" who challenges it.

Pregnant with HG and feeling stretched to my limit with work and childcare commitments and I could just do without this!!

Our school bundles all the advertising emails into one on a Friday with a title that makes it easy to ignore if you want.

Ask the school to make your partner the primary email contact, then it’s not your problem?

He works too and is more likely to miss important things if it's left to him.

We raised this at a parent/governors evening with our primary as it really was getting ridiculous. Thankfully they have stopped telling us about all and sundry but also don’t seem to want to pass on the actually relevant information now either.

That's my worry - I don't want them to think I don't want to receive emails, I'm happy to receive important information about the school. Id just like to opt out of spam!

In 10 weeks since she started in September I've had 5 standalone emails about Street Tag, plus 2 text messages plus it's mentioned in fortnightly newsletter (which I'm OK with), I've also had standalone emails about at least 5 different out of school activity clubs. Every email has same subject so no way of knowing if its spam until I read it. 😫

They have to let you opt out of those, or they can have ICO explain the problem to them. The fines can be quite large.

''The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) cover the sending of marketing emails. This legislation says that organisations must only send marketing emails to individuals if you have agreed to receive them, except where there is a clearly defined customer relationship.
The ICO can only investigate complaints about marketing emails from identifiable UK senders.''
ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/online/spam-emails/

Talk to the school, and if they persist try contacting the chair of governors, perhaps pointing out the possibility of important messages being ignored. ICO should be a last resort hopefully not necessary.

Yeah, they really ought to have a weekly bulletin, and only send urgent school messages as stand alone.

Set up ypir emails so school ones divert into a specific folder then look at them once a day.

For Street Tag the school community works together to try and be top, so that kind of relates to the school. But YANBU not to want a whole host of emails about other things. I would definitely speak to the school and explain. A weekly marketing email sounds like a good idea, but parents should have to specifically sign up to it. They can't just use your email address in this way, I don't think.

I got invited to sign up for a fruit and veg delivery subscription service until I replied pointing out that I did not provide my data to them for this kind of nonsense and they were to opt me out immediately which to be fair they did.

Offering after school clubs isn’t spam, it’s something that they’re obliged to do. Ofsted like it. How are they supposed to know which parents might be interested in knowing about gardening club but couldn’t care less about rugby club? How are they supposed to know that you aren’t remotely interested in any after school clubs when there are other parents that appreciate them?

The street tag is obviously something they’re keen for as many parents as possible to sign up for, probably because they will put important stuff on there and your problem of not wanting to miss anything that matters would be solved.

I’m a school secretary. That sort of information goes in our weekly newsletter and at the end of it, certainly not sent to parents individually unless it’s a school club that needs sign ups. You need to speak up and let them know.

Talk to them. But it could very well be that they seem it easier to have individual emails than bundling them togehter, it depends how. their office is run.

Chaser - sorry, it would take too long to sort out who to chase, so a general reminder is often the norm.

We just set up one email address and just looked into them in the afternoon/evening. Texts/app messages were for emergencies anyway, like school closures because of a bursted water pipe etc.

Our school only send out emails on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they are mindful of overloading parents (for instance they group all their Christmas info into one big email rather than having separate ones for the play, the lunch, Christmas jumper day, the panto, Christingle etc). They take feedback from parents seriously if told it's too much and try to shift as much as possible to the weekly bulletin instead. Try feeding back that it's too much and see what they say.

Sorry if I was unclear, these aren't after school clubs. The Rugby Club takes place on Sunday's, is a private business that is about 4 miles away from the school, the school aren't organising it. It's an outside activity club. I agree after school activities are different and if there was the option to attend a class on school premises immediately after school that would be different.

When they opted you out, did you continue to receive school info? Just not junk?

Thanks for all the suggestions and sharing how your schools handle communication. I'll definitely raise it with them.

Schools should not be forwarding on emails from outside agencies. Tell them to stop!

Yes it seems wrong to me. If they want to include at the end of the fortnightly newsletter then I'd put up with it, but the way they are doing it feels like they are misusing my contact details.

We get a newsletter once a week on a Friday. If there is advertising it's attached to that email and mentioned in the newsletter if you want to read it's

They also do "dates for your diary" in a grid at the end with all upcoming parent dates clearly marking which year group/s it involves.

TBF they get it right. We complained about texts coming out whole school when not relevant / clear if it was relevant to your child. So now they do by year and also note which class it refers to on the text in case you have multiple kids.