Can’t contact teacher directly, is this normal?

[ggmom87]

We’ve just moved, and our children are starting at a new primary school. I just learned that there is no way to contact class teachers directly, we’re not given their email address. All communications to teachers must go through the office and be forwarded onward. The office has a fairly bad reputation for not responding to emails / taking weeks to respond etc. I’ve already experienced this firsthand. So this whole arrangement makes me feel quite cut off from their teachers. Is this normal? At their old school we could email teachers with questions and concerns.

Yes true! We have an open door policy at our private school. At drop and pick up the teacher is always available to give any feedback you want.

At our school we have the teachers email address and they are always in the playground after school at pick up time.

The only thing they ask is that parents don't ask to speak to them in the morning as it isn't practical. There is a member of staff at each entrance with a notepad and they pass on anything urgent.

I wouldn't be happy with such limited options to contact the teacher.

5 Primary schools
Never had a class teachers email address. Similar system... either ask at drop off/puck up or write in planner asking for a phone call. If serious they arranged a face to face meeting after school or during PPA time (my eldest has SEN so this was common in her first few years). Then during Covid an app appeared.

Only through the office for us as well. I find it a bit odd how many parents expect teachers to be so readily accessible these days.

Slightly off topic but we've had parents kicking off about the school not updating Twitter with enough information about what children have been up to, and all sorts. I wonder when this need to know what children are up to every waking moment started because it certainly wasn't a thing about 15 years ago.

I'm in Scotland and we have access to all our teachers emails.
If you have teams you can search for the teacher and email address is there.

Normal

Same here with updating social media. I guess there is now a generation of parents who've never not had social media as adults, and are used to constant updates on everything. It's a cultural shift.

I'm shocked that it's normal. I have my kids teachers emails (they share them before term starts). I have also have some TA email addresses and the odd member of staffs mobile number.

I'm glad I couldn't be contacted by parents at all hours of day and night when I was teaching.

We didn't have dragons in the office either. They just did their job so we could get on with teaching.

I'm in Scotland (where the lcoal children went back almost 2 weeks ago) and never had this in over 16 years of DCs being in school. Not once. If I ever had a problem (which was common with the autistic DCs) I just picked up the phone, or went into the office, and someone would phone me back or speak to me in person straight away if possible. Later we got an app where I was able to leave messages for the teacher, but never email addresses.

We contact via the office because the office staff are at their desks most of the day so can see the emails and act on urgent ones and answer ones that don’t need the actual teacher.
teachers are with the class from 8:50 to 3:30 not reading emails.

This is brilliant, honestly I'd be pleased my child was going to a school where the wellbeing of staff was considered. Much more likely to get better teaching out of people who aren't being frazzled by ridiculous emails constantly and don't have any semblance of work life balance.

If every parent in a class emails the teacher, when exactly in their working day is a teacher supposed to find time to respond to 30 emails?

As has been said, people do abuse it and are very demanding about wanting instant replies when staff are teaching or out of reasonable hours.

Some teachers do not have work/life boundaries as well, so it leads to situations where Miss A is seen as wonderful because she replies to emails instantly at 10.30pm on a Saturday night, but Mr B is ignorant because he 'waited' until 4.00pm on Monday. However, behind the scenes, Miss A is setting an unreasonable standard for the team and putting herself at risk of burnout.

As a secondary teacher, I don't get that many now but when I had a pastoral role there were loads at all times, sometimes quite angry ones. I refused to read or respond to emails outside work hours as it was affecting my home life.

@JanePrentiss - you sound like you shouldn’t be teaching. Jaded, burnt out, pissed off with the children and parents already! No wonder parents feel they need to contact you/the school if that’s your attitude. Children aren’t stupid and can sense your disdain for them. Parents too, come to that. Too many teachers believe they’re untouchable, that they’re always right and parents are always wrong. Not true! But on here, just like with the NHS, the profession can do no wrong.
It is perfectly normal to be able to contact your child’s teacher via email, OP. Good schools, with a good ethos, encourage an active home/school partnership. If this is their attitude from the get-go, I’d be questioning if this were the right school for my family.
And before anyone starts, I’m a teacher too (but a nice one, and I do reply to emails!).

There are some unfair comments about schools in England. My school is one where the parents can message all staff in a variety of ways, electronically via email or the app we get class photos and updates regarding daily learning, by telephone and at pick up and drop off. Replies are, in the main same day and that includes the headteacher, who will call/contact you even outside of school hours and during the holidays.

In state schools, teachers don't tend to have work mobiles so it's normal not to have a phone number for them.

We have this system. It means if I sent a message with something about my child it would get to the person who actually needed to know, which may not be the class teacher. It’s the office staff that need to know about early collections as they’re the ones who will fetch the child. If there’s a reason a child has a particular need for one day, the teachers they’re with might need to know, but if the main class teacher has PPA time or a meeting or just doesn’t work that day because they job share then telling them could be just an unnecessary waste of their time.
If you’ve lost a library book or your child has changed medication or there’s an issue with lunchtimes, or whatever, these are questions for other people to deal with, not the teacher. The office will know who the right person is.

Our schools has class email addresses to contact the teachers on. Though I rarely use them I know that there’s a handful of parents who probably email in regularly about ridiculous stuff. Our school actually encourages an email rather than talking at pick up drop off (unless it’s a very short comment).

I would not be happy to go through the school office, only because the woman that works in there is so over run she struggles to reply. However I’d be happy to do that if I knew I would get a reply in a few days where needed.

I think some parents have no ability to judge what is a concern that needs a quick reply and what can wait a few days or be briefly mentioned at drop off.

@Seafretfreda a good home-school partnership doesn't have to involve teachers being contactable 24/7 though. I think emails sent via the office are fine, they get to the right people within working hours and teachers respond when they have capacity to do so, which shouldn't be when they're teaching children.

Within 72 hours, so 3 days??
Not unusual. That's a Monday reply to a Friday afternoon email. It's a target that can be met. Although it might make more sense to phrase it as "1 working day".

Seriously rude!
See the comment above listing annoying parent emails and x12 classes and that is the tip of what office staff have to wade through.

Goodness, in our bog standard UK primary we have Class Dojo and get linked to our class teachers, the class TAs, the admin staff, the head, deputy head, and the Wraparound staff. We can message any of them.

I hear it is normal, but at both our primary and secondary school emailing the teacher is fine. 🤷