Emails can be a very efficient and effective way of exchanging information between staff in schools.

However, of increasing concern to members is the abuse of emails where they are being used to hold teachers to account, have requirements that they should be read and answered in a specific time and where they are being sent during the evenings on weekdays, at weekends and during holiday periods either with the expectation of a response during those times or to put pressure on teachers.

Members should neither respond to nor send emails outside that time.

Many schools may also use social media apps, for example WhatsApp, to communicate with staff and to hold discussions.

The Union has many concerns over this practice:

• there is an even greater expectation that staff engage outside working hours than there may be with emails;

• most apps are non-UK/EU-based and have terms and conditions that are not compliant with GDPR;

• most teachers use their own devices to hold these apps and this could find confidential information being held on personal phones which in itself may also be a data protection breach;

• such group chat apps can be subject to malicious use where screenshots of comments can be taken and released to the wider digital world, thus potentially bringing the employer’s name into disrepute, which is an act of gross misconduct;

• the use of such apps may contravene the Education Workforce Council’s Code of Professional Conduct and Practice (EWC Code).

Your feedback

If you require a response from us, please DO NOT use this form. Please use our Contact Us page instead.

In our continued efforts to improve the website, we evaluate all the feedback you leave here because your insight is invaluable to us, but all your comments are processed anonymously and we are unable to respond to them directly.