AIBU to think parents should stop emailing school about everything?

[Teachingiscrazy]

I know the government are attempting to try and stop the rudeness from parents which I totally agree with but also, I really think parents need to stop involving school in everything.
This week , my friend was chatting over dinner saying her year 8 son wanted to try art club but he was worried he would be the only boy and he was nervous about finding the room. At dinner my friend said she had emailed the teacher so the teacher could find him, have a chat and reassure. This is for a lunchtime art club!
Surely just talk it through with your child yourself and give him some coping skills ! That poor teacher now has another job, an email to reply to, a child's emotional resilience to manage , all for a club they are running in their lunchtime . I've had parents email me to ask me to talk to their child as they won't brush their teeth at night, could I go and meet their child at the end of the corridor as they find the corridor overwhelming (presumably I leave the other 25 kids in the room) I've had parental emails over the smallest of things that parents could do. GGRR rant over
Ps before we do MN bingo. No ND in these examples

I feel for teachers. Some of these examples are crazy.

My child is in nursery which is attached to the school. I do also see parents points about a lot of info from school constantly. While being online is useful. It also makes putting up announcements or contact much easier. Maybe the days of paper letters were better as people were limited to just the really important things.

I only contact my son’s nursery to let them know if he’s going to be late. Never would have thought to ask them to parent 😂
My mum was a teacher and she complained about some parents thinking teachers were to parent their child (“once you get to school they’ll sort you out”)
Once a parent showed up with her child still in pyjamas. She handed my mum the girl’s clothes and said she couldn’t get her dressed.

Very strange you can email the teacher... office here only and with good reason. Can't believe how ott these messages are. Parent sounds dehinged

Yes it’s very challenging at the moment. The AI they’ve all started using makes all the emails so threatening and legalistic as well, just very unpleasant.

It’s also much harder to provide appropriate guidance and boundaries now without causing lots of complaints. I try to keep expectations high, but the line between reasonable adjustments for different things and low expectations has become extremely blurred.

What nonsense @waterrat.Expecting parents to parent and realise that teachers are there to teach is not a race to the bottom. Children who need encouragement and are shy should absolutely be acknowledged and catered for in a classroom, but expecting a 13yo to be escorted to a lunchtime club is ridiculous.

Every teacher I know cares about children as individuals. But they aren’t our children and we shouldn’t be expected to treat them as such.

@waterratyou might find it depressing but until the government funds state education to allow teachers the time to look after little Johnny all day and provide continuous care and attention when they are trying to teach a class of 30 other kids then parents need to step up and parent.

No, now this is disingenuous. Not one person on here has suggested that students with SEND should not receive support

Our parents whatsapp really help with cutting out small queries. 2nd time parents help explain school processes, answer questions and we just decide collectively if it is uniform or pe kit if the instructions clash. That way they are all the same. We also organise volunteers for book changing, walking to swimming, school trips and all those other random requests.

I know autism is used in every post it seems but has the OP mentioned autism?

My ds asked me this morning what we did before the school app, did the teacher have to print everyone photos every day and send them home. I was like 'nope our parents had no clue what we were doing all day' and every one was better for it!

I really try not to contact school unless it's very important, there's only one central email address but if I do have something sensitive to share then I hate that any of the office staff will read it before it gets passed to the teacher.

It doesn't stop as they get older either! Just this week:

Parent of 16 year old student. Emailed to say child was running late - after class had started and I was already teaching. Then emailed 4 more times saying "Hi, have you seen my email" "Hi, I sent an email..."

Parent of 17 year old with no known asd: ds doesnt cope well with silence so will need to talk to friends in the test

Parent of 17 year old: we're going back to home country for 5 weeks. Please print all the work he will need. We may also be going away across GCSE exam dates. Please re-arrange his exams

Don't be ridiculous. We spend all day every day catering to kids' needs and wellbeing. A deluge of parental emails actually eats into the time we are trying to spend doing that. In order to have time to (among many other things) adapt lessons and resources to our students with SEND, it would be better if we weren't responding to daft or entitled requests and demands from helicopter parents.

The SHIT we get at work

you'd be stunned.
the abuse. The rudeness.

ENDLESS

Maybe also the schools can stop sending parents multiple emails a day on things that are not related to the actual education part of school. I’m only thinking here that if we are getting sometimes over 10 emails a week then it’s suggesting that they want to be in constant communication. Which quite frankly we do not

Yeah I think this is a very good point. All the automated emails off school apps etc

I agree. Which is why I worked with my daughter to start talking to her teachers herself. I now ask her permission before I step in which is incredibly frustrating, but it is necessary because she has to learn to advocate for herself.

there are times when she is extremely reticent and a situation has been serious. At those times we talk through how she is going to deal with a situation. We come up with a deadline. If she has not dealt with it by the deadline, only then do I step in without her permission. Threat isn’t the right word. If you can’t handle this yourself I will have to intervene, but I will give you time to try.

Her school also makes sure she attends her education plan meetings.

At 13, she was not ready for that real independence yet. She really started stepping up around 15 and took over at 16.

I mean, it's completely normal that a 13 year old doesn't want to be the only boy in art club (he might not be, obvs, but he might!) My 14 year old dd refused to go to a particular club at school because she's the only girl. Eventually, with support, she managed to get involved. BUT none of the support involved teachers - she went there, put her head round the door, decided she couldn't face it and didn't go. I nagged encouraged her to go. She continued to refuse. Eventually I persuaded her to persuade a friend to go with her. That did the trick. This the job of the parents and kids. Not the teachers. Teachers are for 'my kid is being bullied' or 'my kid can't do long multiplication'. I think parents and children actually don't really know what they should ask teachers for and what they should manage themselves. Before you email a teacher about something you should always remind yourself that the teacher probably has 200 students.

No school is sending out 10 emails each day.

Not having a teacher’s email doesn’t help. Our parents message on the school app. It does go via the office, but they don’t deal with anything, they just forward it on. It takes up so much time that could be much better spent.

Bizarre! My eldest is only year 1 so little still but I have only ever spoken to teachers at parents evening.
The only time I ever emailed into the school ( we only have a generic email) was to say that my son's dad and I had separated and whilst it has been a gradual process we actually moved into our new house over the weekend so he may be unsettled in school.
I didn't want them to do anything just simply an explanation if he was not his usual self or acted up or anything.
Always amazed how many parents line up to speak to the teacher each morning / afternoon. I can't think what they say to them.

We can message teachers directly on our school dojo (primary). I do feel a little guilty on reading this thread as I sent an unnecessary message this weekend 😂My daughter had been so enthused with the Space topic in reception class she had picked out a Space jigsaw puzzle, completed it and wanted to show it to her teacher. So we sent a photo with a thank you for her teaching, saying how inspired she had been by what they'd been learning this week. I felt bad when the teacher read it and replied on Saturday (I assumed she wouldn't check it until her working hours) but she did come back saying it had made her day so I hope it was ok. I would much rather discuss anything serious in person with the teacher. The only other time I've used the dojo messages was to let them know we'd found and were treating for headlice. Some of the examples here are quite eye opening!

Maybe teachers could teach more if they didn't have to answer endless parent emails about how their child is more important than anyone else's

This is exactly it. Today I didn’t finish creating a much needed revision resource for year 11 because I was dealing with a parental issue (that wasn’t even necessary) after school. It was a massive waste of time when I could have been doing something that would help those nearing their GCSE.

Some of the things I have been emailed about are just daft. From this week alone:

Can little Johnny please not have to eat any of the vegetables with lunch. He just wants to eat the pudding.

Please can Susan be allowed to wear non-school uniform shoes as she says wearing school shoes is not as cool.

Please could you keep Richard in at lunchtime as he was rude to his brother this morning.

I know that the uniform code says no labels but we spent a lot on Nike gear and our son wants to wear it. Please make an exception.

Really I am meant to deal with this?

Fgs. Utter muppets.

We get a surprising number which are essentially showcasing what they’ve done for their child, rather than raising an issue or request that requires a response. Very much a ‘look at this wonderful thing we did with our child’ type emails,