Hello Wentyl,

This week, education reporter and mother-of-two Mary Papadakis fought back against those dreaded online webinars that increasingly plague many school parents. 

“Well, that’s 49 minutes of my life I won’t get back,” she wrote, following a midweek 7pm online presentation that could – and should – have been an email. A short one. Read Mary's lament here and sympathise ... it's funny and relatable.

As someone who has 87,000 unread emails in her inbox – many of them unread urgent missives from my son’s school – I feel the pain. With teachers so stressed and time-poor, it’s hard to justify the endless emails, WhatsApp messages and online webinars sent by schools to plague parents. 

As Mary, a former teacher, points out, it’s important to keep parents informed, but do they really need an hour-long Zoom call for an excursion that’s four months away?