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

I'm surprised we've got any teachers left in schools at all, if this is how they are expected to carry out their role.

Indeed. This is one of the many reasons why we don't have enough teachers.

Ours uses Class Dojo.
I only ever message when I have to, which is rarely.

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.

They should have target grades though, which should be enlightening about their ability.

My eldest daughter is disabled and her school use Dojo as well. I only ever message when She needs extra help doing things, so just to update the teachers.

Sorry if someone else has already suggested this but could you maybe draft an automatic reply that you can copy and paste and send to any parent who messages you, within 24 hours, just to abide by the 24h rule. Then respond properly at a later date. You could even draft it so that it says something like 'thanks for your message, your concerns have been noted. If you would like to discuss this further then please email me at XXXX with details so I can look into it more fully' and chances are that 9/10 parents wouldn't bother to follow up with another email.

I'm actually amazed that this is happening also. Another way of wearing out teachers!

This is a private school isn’t it?

You have 24 hours to respond so just set aside half an hour at a specific time each day to go through them and ignore until that time.

Wow! No it’s not reasonable. I’d get union involved too. Half an hour at the end of the day is fine but after that I’d be signing off and logging back in the following morning.

People who are telling the OP to make a stand, or to push back, are perhaps unaware that even though the school may not be able to mandate over this particular issue, many SLTs will try to manage out staff who raise their heads above the parapet on issues like this. It is easy for them to target people using unrelated 'misdemeanours' , because there's always some undotted i or uncrossed t that you can get teachers for, as it's virtually impossible for teachers to do absolutely everything they are supposed to do. Bonus if you manage out an expensive experienced teacher.

Crap like this is why I left teaching, although it wasn't as bad as what you're putting up with.

In this situation, I would separate the technology from the SLT expectations. The app in itself wouldn't bother me (I had Teams voluntarily installed on my phone, and our email address was available to parents and pupils), but the turnaround time you're expected to stick to is highly unreasonable.

I would do what others have suggested: triage the messages and respond within an appropriate timeframe for the level of urgency. Don't waste your time looking up information they should be able to get for themselves, e.g. if a parent contacts you as form tutor to explain why Alice hasn't done her Geography homework, you reply 'you will need to contact Alice's Geography teacher about this' without looking up who her Geography teacher is, pasting contact details etc. If someone messages asking whether they need to wear winter or summer uniform, you reply 'the uniform switch over dates are listed on the school website' etc. If you take your time to reply to messages like this, the repeat offenders might eventually realise that there are easier ways to get what they want - they'll probably just start posting everything to the parents' WhatsApp group but that's not your problem.

Also, look for another job and in the meantime see what advice you can get from the union, even if the school don't recognise them they will be able to offer some suggestions. Teaching is a tough job anywhere, but it doesn't have to be as bad as this school!

DS’s academy (which is never usually on the sensible end of anything) only allows parents to communicate by either writing notes in the child’s planner or by phoning the school reception.

That seems like more than enough to communicate ‘he’s injured his hand and can’t do PE for 4 weeks’. Or to try to make homework excuses (which I don’t - but the planner would be the place to explain how the dog really did eat the homework 😆).

Kids can ask their teachers in class. Letting them pester their teachers via messages at all hours just sets up unreasonable expectations for life.

Screw that.

Suspect having Y7 makes it worse as they're still used to primary school levels of contact.

Can you have some kind of automated response that says things like:
For details of curriculum see x link to website
For extracurricular please see x link etc

Do parents have a school whatsapp group? We have one where you can ask all the stupid questions of each other rather than contacting school.

But basically this seems like a system that will create complaints rather than reduce them. SLT are nuts having it in the first place.

No, it is not acceptable. Are you in a union?
If so, I would ask their advice on this. It is not within directed hours and you have no obligation to answer work e-mails or messages outside of those directed hours.

See if you can find a copy of NEUs ASOSA (action short of strike action) booklet which outlines exactly what your duties are.

You are legally entitled to more than 15 minutes lunch. It is unpaid as you point out and us no5 within directed hours which means are not under any obligation to do work or indeed be on site.

If you are not in a union, please consider joining one along with your colleagues. Stand up for your employment rights

As a parent, I have ever come across a scenario where I need to talk to a teacher during home hours, anything can be handled during school hours (meetings or at the class door) or via email. Expecting you to be on call 24 hours a day is insane.

These type of apps are common in primary schools. Class Dojo is popular. You can set a timed message on it so if a parent messages you , a message pops up saying something about being aware that this is your teacher's quiet hours so they may not respond for a few hours. Didn't stop the messages coming though or alerting me that I'd had one. Also there seemed no option or teacher quiet hours being the entire weekend just evening hours. Bloody awful. Constant messages from parents to the point where I actually felt like I was PA to one parent. You are not being unreasonable.

Replies should be within working hours - on the one hand these apps are helpful for parents ( the digital upgrade of writing the teacher a note) but just as with a note you would respond during reasonable work time
So a message from a parent at 10 in the morning could be answered at 4
( assuming no meetings etc) or before school

There should be a policy for how this app is used - eg we do not respond after x and we do not respond during teaching time
A 24 hour window should be reasonable
However there should also be a policy for the unreasonable parent that messages frequently ( nuisance)

Do not respond evenings or weekends as it sets up a precedent

Absolutely isn't standard in local authority schools. I work for a local authority in the north-east where there are very few academies. All of our schools have agreed they will not go down the route of teacher /parent/student social media/messaging. It's a huge work burden, exposes teachers to unguarded situations and gives parents/students the impression that they can say what they like at any time- it's entirely inappropriate. Schools need formal channels of communication that protect staff from this kind of messaging.

No you won’t, because you also get the grade. And if little Nicky is working as hard as he can and still getting a D he should still be praised.

You need to impose some boundaries. Either have the app on your lap top and don't open that once you are home or if you have it on your phone use your phone settings to stop it working after say 6pm. If your employer suggests you do anything otherwise then look for a new job.

Every single post I read about schools in England makes me laugh my head off and be absolutely thankful I work in Scotland. Seriously. Jack it, move up here, its definitely definitely much much better. Academies have destroyed your education system. Teaching for profit, deleting subjects, refusing SEN pupils, ignoring terms and conditions. Fuck that. Scum. Absolutely awful people.

I am not in a union, I switched to Edapt not too long ago and am locked in for at least a year.

As for boundaries, that's all well and good, but it's equally as stressful to come into work to reply to a large number of messages at 7.30am where preparations for the day have to get done as well as briefings to be attended.

The real issue is that there just isn't enough time in the working day not to respond to these messages outside of hours (stock messages often don't work with the specific nature of things, e.g. when parents want a blow-by-blow account of why their child received a detention or where exactly they were).

Funny thing is, I am off ill today and I am still getting messages from parents (which I have left unopened, but knowing they're there even though their child knows I was not at work today is stressful).

YANBU. In the US here it is pretty standard, unfortunately, and one of the myriad of reasons why I stopped teaching in the public school system. Now teach virtually for myself and am much, much happier. Can you message all your parents with your own set of rules....i.e....I will only be answering messages between the hours of 6-8 pm. So you set their expectations?

Tell the SMT that this is not something you are able to do as it requires you to work outside of your contracted hours and impacts your family life. Also notify the union. This is mad.