Parent complains about 22 emails in a single day, triggered by school behaviour app, about sanctions for her children

Constant emails from school about her children's behaviour have proved upsetting for this parent. Image (featuring actor): iStock/Getty Images

A parent has complained of being contacted 22 times in a single day about her children’s behaviour at school - by an app that is being promoted as helping staff and families understand what is going on the classroom “all day, every day”.

The mother of two children at a local authority maintained secondary school said she had been raising concerns with the makers of TES Class Charts for many months, after growing frustrated with its “live stream” aspect and other implications of the software.

She said she was being contacted throughout the working week and at weekends about her children’s behaviour; that this was having a negative impact on family life; and that the real-time aspect of teachers making what she described as “derogatory comments” about behaviour was damaging the home-school relationship.

The detail

TES Class Charts is an app which bills itself as “transforming everyday interactions into real-time data”. Its website says it will help schools to “get a holistic overview of performance, wellbeing and outcomes to help your staff and parents build a true picture of what’s happening with your students – all day, every day – with our classroom management software”.