Are teacher messaging apps reasonable?

[Elendel]

I am a teacher in a secondary school.

I started in a new place a few months back. In this place, parents have an app on which they, and students, can message us 24/7 and we are expected to reply as soon as possible, but latest within 24h. The app filters out swearing, but other than that it can be a free-for-all.

I do not have time to respond within a typical school day as I am either teaching, in a meeting or on duty, and with briefings as well, responding to parents either falls within the 15min lunch I get (unpaid) or outside of those hours. Time is fully directed between 8.15 and 4.30 each day and PPA is the absolute minimum school can get away with.

Messages arrive any time between midnight (some students messaging at 1am!) and midnight again, but parents most often message after work (understandably) and will expect us to have responded by mid-day. Some are messages about reasons why homework isn't done, some are asking me about what happened in other subjects, yet others are to challenge detentions given.

Is this level of communication acceptable? It just feels like I'm never off work, because I spend a considerable amount of time responding to the messages of the 1200 students and their parents on top of doing my actual day job to keep up with communication demands.

YABU - get on with it, it's your job

YANBU - that's ridiculous

In England schools have gradually been removed from local authorities and instead put into groups of academies. They are still state schools and government funded. But at arm's length and if they are run by nutters, there's little as an employee (or parent) that you can do.

They vary. This app thing would not be entertained in my multi academy trust!

An academy just receives funding directly from the government, not via a local authority. Academies have more freedom to make their own decisions on things like finances, teachers' pay and the curriculum than normal state schools. We don't have to follow the curriculum, but most schools do to pass their Ofsted inspections. We are state schools.

I am definitely loking elsewhere. Unfortunately, my role is a little bit more rare than most.

Does your school have a comprehensive website @Elendel? In your situation, I would delete the app from any personal devices and try to find a way of setting up an auto reply. I would put a lot of effort into making it detailed. If it's not possible to autoreply, I'd prepare a stock response that is pasted to every message received. It would read something like this...

I like this a lot @SE13Mummy

I hope OP can implement something like this without being hauled over the coals by SLT.

I don’t think you are broken. The system is broken. It is disgusting what is expected of teachers these days.

I think the school needs to scrap that app, and if the parents need to contact the school they should phone the office. That’s what they do in my son’s school, and I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

OP, I don't get how stupid the parents are. Didn't they go to schools themselves? Just ridiculous. Hope you are feeling better too x

Is it an academy chain closely related with carpets? (Just wondering if where I worked 10 years ago has gotten even worse…)

The thing that mystifies me is why parents want so much contact with teachers. I find one of the very best things about my older two children being at secondary school is barely having any contact with the school or the teachers (compared to primary).

I'm happy to leave my DC to it, and just have a quick chat with teachers at parents' evening. I'd only get in touch with the school outside that if it was an emergency, or something had gone very badly wrong. I don't have time to micromanage my DC and am happy and confident to leave their education to trained professionals.