AIBU? Working during annual holiday

[Oaktree1952]

Im a teacher and I’ve been contacted by three parents by email and “caught just to say” in town. I get teachers get really long holidays. I get the expectation that we plan and prepare the classroom during holidays. But should I be replying to parents or not. Do other £40k jobs respond to clients or other members of staff during their annual leave?

What on earth is that important that parents are emailing a teacher during the summer holidays. Fair enough a principal or the office for something major but why a teacher?

Don't check your work email then you won't know.

The holidays aren’t annual leave. And yes, plenty of jobs do expect you to be available during AL

This. Assuming you’re not the safeguarding lead who might well have to check/respond to emails throughout the holidays. I’m a teacher and I had a WhatsApp from another teacher regarding the loss of something on a trip which arrived home after school finished so I made a couple of calls, located said item, organised for it to be returned. Normally, tho, I don’t even look at emails until a couple of days before we go back.

Generally not the ones in the pay range OP is talking about. Sure, there is a cultural expedition in some roles but most people are not contractually obliged to work during their annual leave.

That's not correct. Teachers can be directed for 1265 hours over 195 (term time plus INSET) days. So they can't be required to to anything specific on any other day.

Yes, there's a clause saying additional hours outside these must ensure lessons are planned and mock exams are marked and a million other things are done, so often things are done during school closure in an attempt not to be working late every weeknight, but this can't be stipulated.

No policy can set deadlines out of directed time, so parent emails should be dealt with during term time.

Are teachers taught martyrdom at university as part of their training? It doesn’t need to be a big deal. It is not a parents responsibility to know your working days or when you are or are not contactable, especially when teachers regularly say they have to work during holidays.

Unless you’re contracted to work during the holidays, put an out-of-office on saying you won’t be returning until after the holidays. Something along the lines of:

“Thank you for your email. I’m currently on holiday and will return after the school holidays on <add date>. Emails sent outside term time will be automatically deleted and should be resent during term time.

If your query is urgent or relates to a safeguarding matter requiring action during the holidays, please contact <insert contact email >.”

No, I do not check emails or teams whilst on annual leave. Neither does DH. If there is something absolutely urgent, DH will get called but it's rare. And he earns much much more than £40k.

Put your OOO and pick up when you return and being paid to work.

I'm a parent and wouldn't expect a reply.

I also would not look at works emails during my annual leave and phone and laptop are both switched off.

You're fortunate to be in a job where that's possible - my last senior role paying that kind of amount, it simply wasn't possible to do the job effectively without sometimes doing significant extra hours outside of those contracted.

Some weeks I wouldn't have to, some weeks demanded 100 hours or pulling all-nighters and everything in-between. It wasn't about being "stupid" it was simply the way the industry worked and one person couldn't change that - even if as an organisation we said "that's not the way we are going to work", we'd have bankrupted ourselves within the year because it's how the industry operates - we were asked to bid for new work to tight timetables and you had to just be ready to put in the time to develop a proposal when the opportunities came up. If you didn't new business would dry up.

Ultimately I couldn't work like that and moved to a different industry (on a lower salary) that is much more 9-5.

From the parent’s perspective it’s not ideal that teachers don’t reply to emails for 6 weeks. I’m not sure there are any other jobs where people are off for so long and not expected to reply to emails and the person needing a response shouldn’t expect one within that period. Then school starts up and you have hundreds of emails and those emails from parents right are the start of the holiday likely get forgotten about or are no longer a priority.

No parents at our school can email teachers directly even in term time.

I’d just go by what your contract says

What are you emailing about?

Are you suggesting parents shouldn’t ever need to email teachers about any concerns about the education and wellbeing of their child? Because that’s what you seem to be implying by asking that question. I mean, come on…

Of course I'm not.
I am absolutely saying that unless it's something that needs immediate attention they should not be doing so during school holidays.

People are cheeky bastards. It wouldn’t occur to me to email teachers in the summer holidays.

Just have your OOO on and reply on the first day of term in September.

Unless it's a safeguarding issue or similar, what action are you expecting a teacher to take in 6 weeks when they're not going to have any direct involvement with the child?

Other £40k jobs absolutely not but the expectation has always been that teachers work 24/7 in all circumstances. So while you're within your rights not to work on annual leave, you may well get criticised for it by colleagues and bosses.

I left teaching because if I wanted to work that much, which I don't, I could do it as a banker in London and earn millions.

Our school is if anythng too far the other way - messages can only be sent to one central email address and that gets a bounceback to say that messages won't be read until the first day of term - when I've been a class rep I've had issues where parents have had very reasonable clarification questions (e.g. about changes to uniform requirements) and no way to get answers until it's too late to be useful.

That's unusual these days.

It's very normal in Scotland.

It has absolutely never been the case in any school I've worked in over 40 years that teachers should be available 24/7 in any circumstances.

Wer're allowed to have a life outwith teaching.

People do life admin when it is convenient for them. That can be during the summer. It might be at 2am. That doesn’t mean they expect responses outside of business hours.

Exactly.

Especially when other agencies work year round, meaning that sometimes information is needed etc.

“Do other £40k jobs respond to comments or other members of staff during their annual leave”

yes HTH