How contactable are your DCs Teachers?

[eyesoncctv]

Not a bashing, just out of interest.

3x DCs, Reception and YR2.

At drop off all Children go through the main gate manned by Headteacher, then go to their classrooms independently.
At School pick up they come out the same way.
Only ever spoken to their Teachers at Parents evening, you can email them via then School reception email which can take 3-5 days to reach them (according to automated reply).

You can request a phonecall from your DCs Teacher by leaving a message on an answer machine. Again, estimated 3-5 days for a response.

Are your Schools the same?

We’re in West Sussex, UK.

Infant age children - can speak to teachers at most drop offs and pick ups.

Juniors - can sometimes speak at pick up but discouraged

This is normal. Although at most schools teachers release child to parent (or other adult) at end of the day.

Can speak to teacher at drop off or pick up and it's exactly the same where I teach.

Similar. Even at parents meeting I felt I couldn’t share half of my concerns as it was two teachers and they both talked for pretty much 10mins (the duration of the consultation). If you don’t feel like you have something important to say you usually don’t contact them, but it’s a shame as parents don’t want to hear only the test results but more about the actual day to day.

For my primary age children, could catch teacher at end of day, or have a direct email address. When I’ve used it they’ve offered a face to face appt the next day or had a phone call.

Reception/KS1 - see the teacher at drop off/pick up, but they're often pretty busy.

KS2 - see them at pick up only. Y5/6 are allowed to walk home alone with parental permission so I guess you might not see the teacher at all in that case - for me DS1 is only y3 so we're not that far along yet.

We have the teachers' school email addresses too, though I've only used it a couple of times.

At infants and juniors if I was there for pick up I could generally have a quick chat with the teacher.

Now at secondary it’s all via email (except parents evening). First go via the general school email address then make sure I sane any that I get a first reply from!

Gosh, loads from the sounds of how others do it. Primary, we them over at drop off to the teacher or TA and you can have a chat then if you need to, it’s a staggered start over 15 mins. Same at pick up. You can email them direct and they reply within a couple of hours. The Head is on the gate morning and afternoon and she chats to anyone who needs or wants to. Parents evening obviously too but there’s almost no need as the staff are all very visible and accessible. It’s a small school.

Occasionally the teacher will say something at pick-up, maybe 3-5 kids per day get a comment. Any parent can catch her for 5 min then. When I've needed to send an email, it's been responded to within 2 days. When I've sent a note a couple of times (didn't sleep well / nervous about X), she spoke to DS to sort it but not to me, which is what was needed. She is a particularly good teacher, but from what I see that's fairly typical for the school.

If they come out with stickers it's all good. Medical wristband not so good, but that's usually had an email or a call.

Primary - no contact at drop off and very strongly discouraged at pick up.

Secondary - actively encourage contact, make sure that you've got email addresses for form teacher, Head of Year, all heads of faculty and other teachers actively share their emails. Ethos is they'd rather know when a problem is tiny than waiting until it gets big.

At my DD’s old school it was like yours. No parents allowed on the school grounds - if you just wanted a really quick word with the teacher you could arrange a meeting with the teacher in a couple of weeks time. If you wanted to let the teacher know about something you had to email the office and they’d pass the message on/get back to you at some point before your child reached year 6. There was very much a “parents are an inconvenience who should fuck off and leave us alone” attitude from the school tbh. They didn’t even bother responding to emails offering help when they’d asked for volunteers for something.

At her current school we don’t see the teachers in the morning as the children go from the playground to their classroom on their own. But the teacher brings them out at the end of the day so if you want to you can have a quick word. There is also an email address for each year group that I guess all teachers in the year have access to and can respond.

Head and at least one deputy are usually around morning and afternoon too. Mostly shepherding smaller siblings off three adventure play equipment and talking with older kids.

Drop off is through main gate, always 2 members of SLT on duty and available to chat. Pick up from classroom doors and can chat to teachers then, or they're very quick to reply to emails or phone calls.

Primary, could easily get the teacher at the beginning and the end of the day. Head teacher manning the gate most days so could grab them too if needed.

One primary has an app to send messages directly to teachers. It's meant to be for an urgent response but school advises it could take a day for a reply. Haven't found that though, daughters teacher usually replies within the hour.

High school. Good luck getting a response within 48 hours.

Very much like that. Parents aren't allowed in the playground. Bit of a culture shock from nursery.

If i need to get a message to the teacher I drop an email. The last one got a thumbs 👍 response.
The one before action happened (book that had been in kids bag for weeks was removed) but no acknowledgement of the email.

Very very occasionally I've asked them to call me back which they've done that day. Usually after school. In the last 12 months I've asked schools to call me twice both times they've called back that day.

My sons' teachers are very contactable, by email but also we see them at drop-off every morning in person. Private junior school though.

Thanks for the responses. Apparently our School was very different pre lockdown, then they introduced the current system and never went back. My DC mentioned something about their Teacher earlier and it occurred to me I hadn’t seen them (even to say Hi) for Weeks!

Drop off at external door manned by a TA from any of the classes so not usually my child's class. At pick up collect from teacher where you can ask a swift Q if needed but if you are longer than a few mins after everyone has gone you are getting told the gate is getting locked by the caretaker. As teacher I actually like this as it protect the teachers. Office are really responsive, any issues the head often rings back within 24 hours or you get a response saying passed to class Teacher. Eldest has SEN so we use get a quick comment or thumbs up or whatever. Any lengthy issues you can book an appointment and they will see you pretty soon. It's enough.

I don't see any difference from pre lockdown to now.

At ours we discourage parental contact in the morning as it impacts on the start of lessons when a 'quick chat' turns into 15/20 minutes meaning the class miss the start of their lessons. At the end of the day it is encouraged as there is more time to chat about things.

We have an app where we can contact the class teacher; they also use it to send out reminders and photos of whatever the kids have been doing.

Can also chat at pick up time, or make an appointment via the school office if we need a longer discussion.

The Principal is very visible and approachable at any time too.

It’s a small school and all the teachers and the Principal know the children well; the general “vibe” is that they want to work with parents and have good school-home relationships (which in my experience they certainly do).

Drop off and pick up, they have a journal that comes to and from school and you can use that for any communication about homework or there is an online portal too.

You can talk to ours at drop off/pick up - the problem we have is that we use the wraparound so that doesn't work for us but the school hasn't really put in an alternative

My kids were mostly at breakfast and after-school club so I never really saw their teachers - but I don't think you could talk to them before/after school anyway as they were managing getting the kids in and out. However I have always had their email addresses in primary school so could just get in touch if I had anything to say - and they always replied that/next day.

In secondary school I've only ever been in touch with my daughter's guidance lead as she has SEN and we needed a planning meeting and a few adjustments. She's always replied that/next day and sorts things out really quickly. I've never been in touch with any of my daughter's actual teachers so just rely on her to let me know how things are going.

Reception DD. Relatively large 3-form entry primary school. Drop off & pick up is to the teacher on the door, however chat very much discouraged, so much so that I sometimes wonder if they run a strike policy, and if you try and make convo too many times, you have to stand at the back and not make eye contact for the rest of the year.

You can email the school office requesting time to speak to the teachers (which is between 3:30-3:45pm, so relatively useless if you use wrap around) or you can pass a note across to the teacher if it’s an information-only type approach, which always feels quite a clandestine way of letting them know my child has nits. No journal, no app or online portal, no teachers or SLT hanging round, and no direct email addresses. It’s basically “don’t call us, we’ll call you”.