Parent life / From reply-all to the group chat
A School WhatsApp Policy: "Thank You" Messages Are Not Required
Parents at one English primary school wrote their own etiquette for the class group chat. Every rule on it has a story behind it, and most parents could supply one.
In 2012 the parenting writer Megan Hook described getting twenty-six thank-you emails after one message from a teacher. Everyone had replied to everyone. A parent eventually asked people to reply only to the teacher. The discussion of that request also went to everyone.
I was one of the twenty-six, spiritually. I have replied-all "Thanks so much!" to a message about lice.
Parents at St. Dunstan's Catholic Primary School in Surrey have solved this, in writing. Their class WhatsApp etiquette, "Written by Parents for Parents," is a short document of pure hard-won wisdom. Keep to messages relevant to the whole group. No memes; set up your own group. Never use the group to air grievances. If someone asks a question and you don't know the answer, wait for someone who does, instead of posting "don't know." Post your message in one chunk, not a sentence at a time. And, quietly, near the end: "'thank you' messages are not required."
"'thank you' messages are not required." I read that sentence and felt something lift that I had been carrying since 2012.
The document closes with the most generous line in any school policy I have ever read: "Parents can of course leave the group at any time!"
On a 2026 Mumsnet thread about school WhatsApp groups, parents supplied the case studies. One described a PTA that informally announced children who didn't bring in a raffle prize would have to wear uniform on non-uniform day, and a mother who, in protest, sent her own children in full uniform and announced it to the group, which, for once, went silent. Another described a father who used the group as his personal assistant, asking for term dates instead of checking the school website, and parents who reply with screenshots they had to look up themselves. One parent admitted to taking private bets on which of two regulars would ask for the term dates first.
And one defended the much-mocked screenshot: she likes them in the chat because, she said, it's easier to find there when she inevitably loses the email.
That is me. I am the screenshot person. I have never once found the email. I have found the screenshot every time, because someone else took it, and I thanked them, in the group, with an exclamation mark, against the rules.
Our class group has 31 members. Last week the teacher sent a reminder about green clothes for St. Patrick's Day. Within an hour there were nineteen thank-yous, four "which day?", and one parent asking, very politely, that we all stop. I replied "Agreed!" I have not been forgiven.
Sources
The public records, school pages and published accounts this story draws on. Where the story imagines a scene or a line of dialogue, that is the column’s telling, not a quotation.
- Megan Hook, Parents Get An ‘F’ in Email Etiquette, Mom.com mom.com
- Public Mumsnet discussion: School WhatsApp groups never disappoint mumsnet.com
- St. Dunstan’s Catholic Primary School: WhatsApp Etiquette, written by parents for parents stdunstans.surrey.sch.uk