Can you e-mail your dc's teacher?

[BarnMummy]

Just a quick poll really: our school has been considering whether or not parents should be able their child's class teacher (primary) directly. At the moment you can e-mail the office / headteacher, but you can't go direct to the class teachers. Obviously there are pros and cons to both systems and I just wondered what happens in other schools?

Thanks

We can email our class teacher and teaching assistant, it is brilliant. Saves phoning the office if someone different is picking DS up, and allows the teacher to let us know directly if there is a problem, or there is a school trip coming up etc.

I can. Some weeks ago there was a homework that could be submitted by email, the teacher has since then emailed me back a couple of times (and given my email to other teachers, the one who teachs DD2 maths and one who doesn't teach DD2 at all but who is organising some parents including me to come in and talk to Y6 kids about careers, who have then also emailed me).

I can also email the head direct but that's cos she is my friend and I have her personal email! I wouldn't dream of emailing her about school stuff though. Difficult enough to keep work and life separate.

yes, and it makes life very easy.

yes and it's great!
we can e-mail any of the staff at the school in fact, the teacher, the head, the office, the SENCO

it's really very useful and it stops people constantly collaring the teacher before/after school for bits and pieces

We can email the school/ head teacher and its very convenient to be able to for short messages especially if you use the re box so they can sort priority mail. ITs a very small school even so they get 75 - 100 messages a day the head was saying the other day.

My DH is a secondary teacher so has several hundred children he teaches and he started giving out his email address to parents. Some got a little carried away and sent too many emails wanting this and that done for their little cherub. It was too easy for some parents just to send off a (regular) email with a load of requests and expect them to be fulfilled because they'd written it down. He now asks them to phone or pop in to discuss things if they have specific concerns and this has significantly cut down the number of extra requests because they need to make a between lesson or pre/ post school appointment and it involves a little effort on their part too.

I could do, because I know the head teacher's email address and could easily work out what the class teachers' would be, based on their name and initial.

But it's not encouraged and I think they'd be swamped.

I do email one other teacher, because part of my job involves helping to deliver assemblies at the school, and she is responsible for collective worship. But I didn't use her email address for queries associated with my children, even when DD1 was in her class.

I wouldn't mind the parents of children in my class being able to email me, as long as it didn't come with the assumption that it meant I was easily able to find the time to instantly access and respond to those emails. I have enough trouble remembering to check my inbox at work for official stuff at the moment as it is.
I can think of many occasions though that if the parent had been able to email me and ask a simple question to clarify something, that it would have been really useful.

One child - no - have to go through the officious office and scary school secretary... yikes.

Other child - yes - and it is easier sometimes to get a quick reply / clarification / let the teacher know something. Only used it once last year, and once so far this term.

Not in either school (1 x infant, 1 x primary at the moment) although dd's wonderful reception teacher did do this last year - and sent us all a weekly email with an update on what they'd done that week & the plans for the week to come. It was wonderful! Of course it's open to abuse, but I think can be a really positive channel if well managed and clear guidelines put in place.

no you can only email the school which is just as well as I never ever look at my works email

Having received a stream of abusive e-mails from a parent (an ex-governor who had my e-mail address as I am a governor too) I would rather not!

I can email the teachers and the school office, and there's also an absence@ one for notifying school about sickness etc.

Teachers' email is handy for homework such as powerpoint presnettaions, or if the printer has run out of ink(!). Also for messages, as it's not easy to catch them in the playground after school.

School also uses ParentMail via text and email for global messages and newsletters.

In theory I would be happy for parents to have my email. It could make many aspects of school run more smoothly. But I am concerned with the assumption that because they have sent it I will have read it.
I wonder how bartonian's teacher manages to read the email that a child is being collected by someone else when they are teaching? At least if they've phone the office and spoken to staff the message comes to me either by a memo slip or in person from the office staff. If I get time, I check my work email after school each day, but some weeks are so full I don't check it for two or three days at a time.
We've had an email message to the office "please make sure X brings their PE kit home this afternoon as I want to wash it tonight" - fine in theory, but when the email arrived mid afternoon and the office staff are not checking emails as they are doing one of the many other jobs, the email was opened and passed to me after school. Needless to say X didn't take his PE kit home and mum was not happy. Teacher emails could be even harder to check throughout the day and situations like that would be more common.
I think if we started it there should be the proviso that we aim to read and action/respond in 24 hours, but cannot guarantee to read the message the same day it was sent.

Thanks all for this - it's really interesting.

I can see that there need to be guidelines and a clear understanding of what e-mail can and cannot be used for - I wonder how easy such guidelines would be to enforce though.

I don't honestly have time to visit the loo during school hours so wonder how on earth do teachers have time to listen to VM and read emails? serious question

I can't think of anything worse than being at the back and call of 30 parents 24 hours a day! I would much rather they sent me a note, phoned the office or spoke to me at the gate. It would be far quicker, too.

beck

As a parent I think it could be very useful. Dd has 7 teachers and ds 2, so it would be a good way of communicating. But if I were one of the teachers, I wouldn't be so keen. I think it could be too easy to send pointless messages that would take up too much time to read.

Senior school yes, totally officially. DD hands in HW that way sometimes.
Primary no only the office officially, although I have DD2s home email due to sorting it SATs support for DD1 and the heads because it was left on a cc list.

Can only email / phone the office. Bottom of almost every communication from school though does invite you to drop in after school to see HT or class teacher if anything to discuss. HT or deputy in playground every morning too so that seems open door enough to me.

I have only one parent who tends to email me, the rest go through the office even though they have my email.

I make a point of replying to her in person on the playground though, as I'm reluctant to get into a lengthy email conversation with her (which I probably would).