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

DC3 is in year 8. At our secondary the individual teachers are emailed directly for specific queries, but absence reported via app. I am amazed at the times some of the teachers respond to emails. I tend to email either before school, or during my working hours, but get replies at 10pm. When do these teachers get down time?

In my school (academy) we have a rebellious group that fights against ridiculous apps like this!

Clearly messages need to be answered but the 24 hour time rule is crazy. I would tell the senior team that it is not feasible, you will check the messages once a day and respond to urgent ones.

I have a y7 tutor group and the parents seem more needy than the kids. I just give them a polite but firm message saying "as per school rules a forgotten PE kit is a detention unfortunately" etc...

I actually get some lovely parent thank you messages too!

The reply window is ridiculous. Our schools both tell us not to expect answers speedily or out of hours.

I do think the problem is the school's expectations though, rather than parents emailing at 8pm. Emails should be able to be sent at the sender's convenience to be picked up at the recipient's, and recipients should be able to control the influx with do not disturb etc.

It wouldn't bother me that people message at random times but the volume and the timeframe to reply would be impractical.

My parents really cared about my education, and I don't think they ever contacted my secondary school. They got reports and went to parents' evening and that was it. Same with my friends. I wonder why parents' expectations have changed so much over the past couple of decades, and why teachers are having to pander to them.

I can see how people think that their important email should really be answered ‘within one working day’. But actually, when/how do you expect the teacher to do this? The teacher spends their whole day in a class with usually 30 children and cannot reply to emails because they are teaching!
Equally it’s no go getting a big queue of emails to answer to … when would that happen- weekends? Middle of the night?
In the past children went to school without their parents having to constantly communicate on an individual basis with parents and deal with their demands which seem to be growing and growing over the years.

I can see how people think that their important email should really be answered ‘within one working day’. But actually, when/how do you expect the teacher to do this?

Depends on the interpretation of "important"
doesn't it! The only time I've expected (and received) an answer within a couple of hours was when some boys threatened to beat up DD. Another mum complains regularly to me that the teacher never answers her - but she regularly sends messages about stuff I would class as trivial and tell DD to ask the next day in class.

No its not acceptable.

However, the fact that parents/students are having to email so much can also imply that default comms are a bit off.

Our school have massively headed off this sort of thing by making more info available to parents up front.

Behaviour policy is specific about what incurs a detention & when you give one you write why its been given. Head makes it clear at start of term, challenges to detentions won't be accepted.

All dates etc are on website

Homework is in an app parents have access to.

Something is going badly wrong if a parent is feeling the need to message several times in a single day.

My parents really cared about my education, and I don't think they ever contacted my secondary school. They got reports and went to parents' evening and that was it. Same with my friends. I wonder why parents' expectations have changed so much over the past couple of decades, and why teachers are having to pander to them.

Part of it is that what is communicated to parents these days is not the information parents want.

Parents want to know how their child is doing relative to peers and want to know their actual attainment. Teachers used to be quite blunt about this, they would tell you openly if your child was very behind or very ahead, and what grades were likely etc. These days the focus is on effort and progress. But in reality, if little nicky has progressed from a U to a D, that might be great progress but its still not a good grade!!

These days, if your child is hard working and well behaved, but very average academically, you',ll get glowing parents evenings and reports focussed on their progress and behaviour that leave you thinking they are top of the class, then will be left baffled when they don't achieve top grades.

Schools can be amazingly secretive and hold parents at arms length these days and parents get increasingly desperate for information.

@Carlessly

Are you sure that it is the teacher's private mobile phone number?
The school should not be doing this and if they are I dread to think of the pressure that they have put on the teachers to get them to agree to something like this.

@TheLightProgramme

The problem is that teachers are not allowed to say anything negative about the pupil's academic performance(or general behaviour).
Everything has to be prettied up until it becomes meaningless jargon.

Jeez - no. I’m a parent and wouldn’t expect that level of availability from a teacher. Our school puts a lot of work into managing the comms and questions directed at teachers so as not to overwhelm them. A 24/7 messaging app seems way over the top.

I often work 8am-10pm so I do message all times of day and night- however I don’t expense a response outside the other person’s working hours.

my children’s primary had this facility on class dojo, but the secondary relies on emails. I have to contact the school a lot as I have responsibility for several ukrainian students.

in terms of gdpr with it being on a personal phone- presumably you have to sign in to the app so don’t think this would be a concern.

Op- I agree with pp about doing some stock replies

Thank you for the message. The information requested is available on the website. It is best to check there for the most up to date information.

Thank you for letting me know about the lost property. The expectation is the student will retrace their steps to try and retrieve it. The lost property is also located in xxx. I will keep an eye out for it in my classroom and return on the student’s next lesson if I find it.

Sorry this message is too late for your enquiry, in future if your message requires an urgent response I suggest contacting the office on xxx

etc and then copy and paste. I’d pass as much back to the students or the parents. They’ll soon get bored of messaging all the time.

I wonder why that culture of bluntness has changed. I am also surprised that it now seems to be a normal expectation to know what the homework is, for example - my parents had no clue what my homework assignments were or whether I'd handed them in or not, unless it got to the point they had to be informed as per the homework policy. A hands-off approach on homework means pupils learn to take responsibility for managing their own workload.

@Elendel - does the Academy have a local board or trustees? Do they carry out regular visits and staff feedback questionaires - they should.

The board are accountable for teacher workload too. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/925104/Governance_Handbook_FINAL.pdf

As I said above, workload is part of the OFSTED Framework and recent guidance.

That’s mad! My kids are at an incredibly responsive school - we have the teachers emails as well as a base number per dept to call on. But an app? Where anyone can fire something off as it occurs to them?? no way.

feed back that it’s not manageable - using email only would certainly slow things down for you, particularly in the middle of the night!

And as for any oupil messaging late at night or in the early hours - i’d flag that to the parents.

nope nope nope i just would totally ignore it

There is no bending on the time frame and my colleagues are mostly young and childfree, without the backbone or experience to say no, so I'd stick out like a sore thumb and we all know how that ends.

I had a parent message me to complain today because they couldn't speak to me on the phone (I was teaching all day!), reception wouldn't let them see me and they want a face to face meeting tomorrow, with me, and refused the offer to meet with the non-teaching head of year. Then another about yet another detention their child got for refusing to be quiet in lessons. And another asking me to find out why their child was marked absent for a specific lesson by a colleague.

Neither of those messages were necessary.
If reception doesn't let you see me there's a reason for that. You will have to still deal with the HOY.

The child needs to learn to shut up. A parental complaint about my decision goes nowhere.

I have no clue why your child was absent in a lesson I didn't teach them, but I forwarded this to the colleague in question.

But each required a reply and/or a message to the parent and a follow-up with a colleague as per our policy.

Just like the two students now complaining they didn't get the homework sheet from me because they lost theirs, I told them to meet me in a specific room at a specific time, they turned up 5min before that in the room I was teaching, didn't want to wait the 5min it took me to get done what was needed and have now sauntered off home complaining I refused to give them the work (which was in the room I asked them to wait at in 5mins' time and is also on the bloody app!) And yet I'm required to respond to that.

Yes, I am getting out. I know not all schools have this, but I do wonder how prevalent this is since Covid as this is now the second school where parents have full, 24h access and some just don't see reason.

Carlessly
Most teachers are busy teaching all day. They may have duties at break, before or after school. They may have meetings after school. It is unreasonable to expect replies within 24 hours. Teachers are also managing emails and requests from other teachers and SLT. The school office should be fielding these messages and ensuring that only important messages and requests get to the teachers. Our office does a brilliant job on this and it makes a huge difference. It is also possible to schedule emails to be sent in office hours.

You need to get out of that school ASAP. The leadership team are not doing their jobs.

OMG.
Madness.
(Retired teacher - thought it was bad when I finished. This is a whole new level).
I would say 'Union' ... but you say 'no power in academies'.
Oh dear.
Only advice then really is to get out and find a new post.
So sorry this is happening to you (and others).

Can you set an autoreply for out of hours that includes a very detailed: for x enquiries please email Admin@ , for y enquiries... and so on.

Its totally unreasonable. I'd only reply during PPA or working hours.

Not reasonable to have to respond in the evening or on weekends, but all of DD’s teachers respond to messages during school hours. This isn’t new in our school system. It’s been this way since she started and she is currently in year 9.

teachers also expect to be able to reach students and parents via the same system and they do
expect evening and weekend reading and action from us.