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

This is so far from normal expectations, thats ridiculous!!

I get the feeling that perhaps this isn’t the school environment you need, and if this was me I’d be looking at alternative schools to move, this isn’t right.

I’m a secondary school teacher myself and our school expectations are 8:30-4:30 if a parent emails we email within 24-48 hours.
We’re not an academy, but our policies are set out to help with workload, manage time and how and when we should be answering emails to parents, if we ever receive one.

Although we have an App (Teams mainly) I set mine to only be alert during normal working hours - it then goes into focus time after 5:30, I still get little numbers pop up and it’s up to me if I choose to look at my phone for work bits. I get the odd late night message, but reply within the working hours.

I hope you can talk to someone, maybe union, your headteacher?! Anyone.
This isn’t right and needs changing

My children’s schools have what you describe, class Dojo is a godsend but I don’t expect rapid replies. If it was something urgent I’d phone the school.

My older child has a different app as she’s in high school and I hardly message at all, but judging by how entitled some parents behave on parents evening I can well believe you’re being bombarded by some of them. I think the expectation that you reply to all messages within 24 hours no matter how ridiculous they are is well, ridiculous. My partner works in a uni and has I think 3 working days to reply to his students’ emails.

@Elendel that sounds horrendous. I worked in an academy many years ago and vowed never again. I am now SLT in an LA school and we would never impose something like that on our teachers. It is totally unreasonable. We have very good terms and conditions in our school. Whenever someone leaves and heads off to an academy I wonder if they know what they’re letting themselves in for.

My eldest was in primary school when her school introduced Class Dojo and made out it was amazing and would really support communication etc. I was concerned it would be a HUGE additional burden for teachers. I was literally ridiculed for this on MN. Anyway, each year they've reduced what class dojo can be used for as yet another parent totally oversteps reasonable boundaries and now it's just an announcement service that can just as easily be an email. Apps are just more work for teachers because parents (and students) have ridiculous expectations and poor boundaries

Yes completely unreasonable. We don’t even have communication app with my child’s nursery/ primary children.
especially taking with p* if they’re challenging detentions 😳

This may be of absolutely no help, but I would state in a response that you will only check the app between certain hours on certain days and if it is a safeguarding issue to contact the appropriate DSL. Honestly, you shouldn't have to deal with this. I would do to the trustees of the academy (school governors) and make a complaint about this as it won't change otherwise.

I stood up and got forced out.
The strange thing is that I don't regret it.
I have a much better work/life balance.
And I don't have t worry about this type of BS.

Fear of being managed out shouldn't be a reason for not standing up for yourself and your colleagues.

This is why we have unions.

I am a single parent and cannot afford to just be managed out without another job to go to.

Then as others have said you need to find another job.

@Elendel I hope you are feeling better today.

@WowOK A little, thank you, though still not well enough to be back at work. I have received more messages from parents since last night despite the fact that I am ill (and the children know as they had cover).

They will have to wait.

Yes, I am looking for a new job, but I have a 3-day notice period, which works either way until my probation is over. I cannot afford to kick up a fuss until I have the protetcion of a half-term's notice.

I ckecked the DfE Teachers’ Pay and Conditions document. Par 52.5 includes PPA.
However, this document is written for LA maintained schools - no mention of it applying to academies.
Government eroding teachers’ pay and conditions through their Academy system. ☹️

Message is - don't work in an Academy if you expect to maintain your terms and conditions.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1110990/2022_STPCD.pdf

my own pet hate is receiving school messages over weekends and evenings when we are having family time.

OP, do speak to Edapt asap. I've found them very useful the times I've needed them. They employ proper trained legal people. You need to be very clear on your legal rights here if it gets sticky.

Good luck.

This is fucking bullshit! Refuse, refuse, refuse!

I'm a secondary teacher in a multi - academy trust. This is insane! Speak to your union. And/or start looking for another job! Good luck

Does anybody else think 'how on earth did this get passed?!!' Insane. 👀

The academy pride themselves on running like a business. With that, customer service is paramount, as the head puts it.

You need to set reasonable expectations about what you will and wont do. You need to set firm boundaries. If parents constantly message with stuff they can find out elsewhere you need to just tell them eg "all this is in the newsletter". If they are giving you excuses why homework isn't in tell them to write them in the books when they do hand the homework in. Don't look at your phone out of hours.

No no no.

Parents are not customers (except in the private sector).

They are service users I suppose.

Do you get to message your doctor all hours of the day and night about trivial shite? Or your bus driver come to that?

If this is in the UK and a state school then absolutely no way is this acceptable?! Why is your union allowing this?! Omg I have worked in state secondaries for 13 years and I've never been expected to directly communicate with parents at all other than by written reports or parents night! The pupils sometimes send messages on Google classroom but there's no expectation at all I answer them unless I'm in work. This is beyond ridiculous and anyone saying it's normal doesn't work in a school.

YANBU, not at all... other than having an app like this on your personal devices if that's the case.

I'm a teacher, so is DP and we have school-aged DC of our own. I do not have my school email or other apps on my phone and only have them on the device provided by school. The school messaging app is set up so the school can send messages out but parents cannot reply. They tend to call the school office with moans etc. rather than email, even though they can access our email addresses easily. The school website explains we are teaching between 9am and 3.30pm and asks for parents to be aware of this when emailing, saying we'll respond within a few days.

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...

Thank you for contacting me. I'm teaching until 4.30pm today so may not have a chance to read your message until after that. If you are the parent of a child in 7E, please read through the Q&A I've put together to help you work out who your query should be directed to.

Q. My child is going to be off school/needs to leave early for an appointment.
A. Please contact the school office about this.

Q. My child has lost an item or left something somewhere.
A. If your child knows where they last year the item, they will need to go and check that place themselves, making sure they speak to the adult who teaches in that space. The lost property is stored in XX, please get your child to look in there every lunch time for the next week or so in case it turns up

Q My child hasn't done their homework
A. Please ask your child to speak to the teacher who set the work

Q My child has been given an unfair consequence.
A Please ask your child to speak to the person who gave them the consequence

Q. Why is my child marked absent for a lesson they were definitely at?
A. Please ask your child to speak to the teacher whose lesson it was.

Q My child's goldfish died last night and they're feeling sad so I'd like all the teachers to be aware
A. Sorry to hear this. Please email the main office and ask them to let your child's teachers know.

Q What does my child have to wear for yoga lessons?
A. Please go to the uniform and PE kit page of the school website. Further questions about PE kit should be sent to the head of Physical Manoeuvres. General uniform queries should go to the main office.

If you are the parent of a student I teach geography to and you are messaging about the subject, please look on the department's curriculum page of the school website to find out what your child is learning about, the exam syllabus and handy revision resources.

Most of the queries I receive are requests for information that can be found on the website so please do spend some time exploring it. Mrs X, Mr Y and Ms Z are in the school office during teaching hours and will be able to help you with most things so do give them a call. Please be assured that I do read the messages I receive but I am usually only able to respond to messages about my own geography classes or 7E form time. If I haven't replied to you within 2 teaching days it is because your query is not specific to me and needs to be dealt with by someone else. Do ask the school office if you need help working out the best person to send your query to.

Best wishes,
@Elendel

If I ever contact my own DCs' teachers I try to remember to schedule the email to go at 8am rather than on the evening I've written it. I also try to make it clear if I'm just passing on information and do not need a response e.g. I wasn't sure who needed the info or it's something my DC can be given a response to in the next lesson.

Find a new school to work in - this is ridiculous.

Did you see my post above.

The school is an Academy. Teachers Pay and Conditions, government agreed, but does not include academies.

Erosion!

I'm in Scotland we do not have academies - is it the equivalent of a private school then? I thought she had said it was a state school. Unless she gets paid a huge premium for this nonsense I'd be looking for somewhere else.