To think a hard boundary should be drawn with teachers?

[ForCandidSheep]

I’ve seen a growing expectation for teachers to be constantly available, responding to emails outside of school hours, dealing with parents’ demands and even engaging with students on social media in some cases.

Surely they should be a clear boundary? Teachers are professionals, not 24/7 customer service reps. Parents shouldn’t expect instant responses and personal contact outside of school should be a firm no.

AIBU to think that more people need to respect teachers’ time and stop blurring the lines?

I totally agree.

What might be useful is if AI can assist.
So emails that are for information only - ie about medical appointments, sickness, whatever, if AI could collate them into a post of bullet points for the teacher, or a paragraph, and then highlight those that need a response. It wouldn't be hard to do. Something like like this.

Dear Janice

You've received 12 parent emails as of 8:20 this morning. Timmy has tonsillitis, Jonny has a hospital appointment and Jenny is coming in but has a sore throat so please keep an eye on her.

Sarah and Molly have had a big fall out so expect drama there, and Marcus forgot to order his lunch again - he'll have a jacket potato please.

You've also had 4 emails that need a more in depth look. I've starred these for you:

• Zara's mum with an update for her echp review
• peters dad wants to book an appointment to discuss spelling
• Tina has moved foster home again
• Matthew's dad has made a complaint re the new school uniform and you'll need draft a response.

Kind regards

Your AI assistant

Seriously, AI could do the legwork, and the summary takes 3 minutes to read, with the important emails prioritised.

I managed this to meet individual parents needs.

The shift working, mum who was very anxious and emailed me at 10.00pm because M&S had ‘sold out of slim fit trousers in an age 4-5’, I did respond to straightaway. I felt that by responding, I could support her initially as a parent of a new starter, develop our relationship so that she trusted me and then carefully wean her off the expectation communication by lengthening the time it took me to respond. It worked, after a couple of weeks she didn't need the same level of contact.

This was the same mum that asked if I could write up a journal each day, for her child, to let her know what he had eaten, who he had played with, toileting times and his learning, something, as others have said, she was used to from the private nursery ( with much smaller adult/child ratios). I said ‘yes I could…but what did she want me to take out of her child’s day…(and that of other children)…phonics?, maths?, PE…whilst I write up thirty journals, one for each child…she got my point!

In the main, I didn't check my work emails after 19.00.

This is somewhat my area of expertise. It's logistically impossible. It would be extremely expensive, hugely risky from a data protection perspective, and AI simply isn't good enough to do it.

This is somewhat my area of expertise. It's logistically impossible. It would be extremely expensive, hugely risky from a data protection perspective, and AI simply isn't good enough to do it.

I have experience with two systems, I collect my youngest child from Primary every day, they are let out of a specific door by their teacher, and there's an opportunity for two way conversation. It's lovely, I really like the teacher and she's super helpful. The school put parents and teachers in front of each other before and after school and as a result I think communication is very friendly and easy.

Secondary for my elder two is a general email address that I think in four years I have used four times for two children. Once I have had a response. I'm lucky that my children haven't had any serious issues and I feel for parents who need that conversation because it's really not easy to have. When we do get to speak to teachers they are lovely and helpful, but it's much too hard to do.

It depends. My son’s school, while very good in general, has a slight problem with communication, so something might be mentioned on the newsletter (a date for an event, an activity the children have to choose which needs parent approval etc) and then there is no more information about it in any way. So then I have called or emailed. I need info to be able to make sure my child is ready.
There’s also no parents evening any more so that will force some parents to get in touch if they have things they want to discuss.
I suppose if the admin were better it would cut down on the need to have contact with teachers.