Student to staff messaging

[tj2419]

We have had a request from our sixth form that they be able to email teachers.

 

I am interested to see how many schools allow students to email staff directly or what other methods you have put in place? Forums, shared mailboxes, etc

 

Thanks

[FN-GM]

We allow it for all year groups, but only on the school email system. They are just standard mailboxes, one assigned to each person.

[AJWhite1970]

Common practice here. All staff-student emails must be via school email only and all student use of all email distribution lists are moderated by me first but apart from that 100's of emails are exchanged a day.

[rogerdnixon]

Same here - everyone has a G Suite account and communicates freely (email/hangouts/classroom). Everyone is in the directory and can email anyone else.

[hardtailstar]

Every student and teacher has an email on our domain. All communications is done via email or in Show My Homework about homework.

[3s-gtech]

All through our school email here. Traceable and logged, which is important. We also use SfB, but students can't use it in out setup. Not sure how good you can make the message logs for that to be an option.

[kennysarmy]

Mdaemon running here with all staff and students having an email account.

[tj2419]

Thanks for all the replies. Do you have any sort of automated monitoring in place? Weekly reports etc?

[FN-GM]

Thanks for all the replies. Do you have any sort of automated monitoring in place? Weekly reports etc?

 

Nope, but to be honest I can't see how you can practically do that.

 

We just keep a copy of every message in the vault.

Edited January 12, 2018 by FN-GM

[kennysarmy]

Thanks for all the replies. Do you have any sort of automated monitoring in place? Weekly reports etc?

 

Monitoring for abuse of the email system?

 

Our students have a mailbox limit of 100 Mb so they need to careful what the send, the mail solution logs every email login and message sent and delivered...

[fiza]

Our students can send emails to staff but cannot send emails to any internal distribution lists

[Boredguy]

Students can e-mail our staff direct, but our mailing lists will only accept messages from accounts that are members of our all staff group to ensure students/third parties are unable to use it.

[Katy]

Students can e-mail our staff direct, but our mailing lists will only accept messages from accounts that are members of our all staff group to ensure students/third parties are unable to use it.

We do this too. I don't see a need to monitor it in any way as, if a student sends a dodgy email to a staff member, the staff member can see who it came from and deal with it themselves.

[mjk]

wow. Sometimes it's really intriguing how other schools work !

I've just been asking around here and apparently we've allowed (expected!) students from all ages to email teachers for the last 15 years ! so for me it seems really strange that a school doesn't allow it.

[tj2419]

It's something I'm an advocate of but our leadership are nervous about allowing 1:1 communication.

 

So far it appears we are the only school that doesn't. 😂

[Max_Power]

All staff and students communicate via their own school email account. Students are restricted to sending to 20 addresses at a time, and only prefects and head boy / girl are allowed to email the all student and all year group distribution lists.

[korifugi]

Students here cannot send to any disty list - but can email staff directly.

 

@tj2419 Why are your leadership nervous about it?

[tj2419]

Students here cannot send to any disty list - but can email staff directly.

 

@tj2419 Why are your leadership nervous about it?

 

I think in case there is ever any sort of allegation of inappropriate communication between staff and students. I have informed them that it will all be logged using a school system. But i think they want to avoid it in the first place and set up department email addresses that are then linked to the staff email addresses. Also they don't like the idea of students having staff email addresses.

[Katy]

It's something I'm an advocate of but our leadership are nervous about allowing 1:1 communication.

 

So far it appears we are the only school that doesn't. 😂

I don't understand it, surely there is already 1:1 communication in the form of the pupils are allowed to speak to the teachers or write them a note (I hope? Can't imagine a school where you're not allowed to speak to the teachers!) Although our leadership have a few daft ideas too so nothing new there then!

[korifugi]

I think in case there is ever any sort of allegation of inappropriate communication between staff and students. I have informed them that it will all be logged using a school system. But i think they want to avoid it in the first place and set up department email addresses that are then linked to the staff email addresses. Also they don't like the idea of students having staff email addresses.

 

I can kind of understand where they're coming from - but the entire thing is logged, and any concerns are VERY easy to chase up (as it being a school provided system).

 

It sounds terrible to say this, but it doesn't look like they're got much faith in staff integrity

[jmak]

We're an infant school, so not much messaging goes on! The VLE does allow it though and it does occasionally happen....

 

The secondary my kids attend publishes direct email addresses on their website, so whether there's an official system or not, students can email teachers.

[Ditto]

GSuite here so all staff and all pupils (bar Reception) have gmail accounts. Pupils can email staff. Primary restricted to internal only. Secondary can email outside. Pupils can't (should not be able to...) email to distribution groups. Everything is tracked and stored in Google vault. We have AUPs for staff and pupils and notify of retention policy. With GDPR coming up, we will be reviewing policies - in particular we need to get our heads around the balance of retention (thinking future safeguarding) with the requirement not to keep data longer than necessary.

 

SLT specifically want pupils to be able to email them - in exactly the same way they want them to be trusted contacts verbally or via the written word.

[FN-GM]

If it is all recorded, it will be more safe than the existing verbal communication that isn't recorded.

[PyROm]

We allow student to email everyone, but block access to distribution groups to just staff. We have created a second address list that is basically empty, which we assign to students, so that they cant see everyone's email address. By doing this they either they have to have been given the email address by the teacher, or guessed it if they are sending email to staff.

[tj2419]

Out of interest do you have staff emails in the contact group displayed as "Mr Jones" or "Ben Jones" for teachers?

 

Thanks