Any experiences on job share teachers in Year1 ?

[Northumberlandlass]

That's it really. DS is going into Yr1 in Sept and we have been told yesterday that he will have two teachers (one currently still on maternity leave). A few parents had concerns yesterday and there were mutterings in the yard.

I'm not sure if there are any issues with this, but would be very grateful to hear about your experiences....

Thanks

mx

[Hassled]

Two of my DCs had jobshares in Yr1. It worked very well - the teachers seemed to communicate well with each other, so handovers were good mid-week (Teacher 2 would know that Teacher 1 had had to have words with Little Jimmy on Monday, for example). And there was none of the "teacher clearly exhausted by Friday" stuff - no flagging, and they were always fresh and enthusiastic. They complemented each other well too - one much more mumsy and cuddly, one a bit firmer.
It can definately work very well.

[Nappyzoneisabeetrootrunner]

We have this at my dd school in year 1 but not her class - the parents were a bit concerned at the beginning of the year but reports back are its worked well.

[sarararararah]

I jobshare. In Reception, not Year 1 but it works out brilliantly for us. The key is communication. We communicate by every means possible - phone, text, email, instant messaging and in person! Only thing we don't do is semaphore!

We had an ofsted inspection last week and the feedback in the parent questionnaire was that they felt they got more than 50% from both of us, which was lovely. I think it can be a really positive thing, but then I am clearly very biased! Hope it works out the same for you.

[Northumberlandlass]

Thanks v much for the feed back. I have had positive comments re the teachers involved from other parents....

Anymore comments ?

x

[weblette]

We've experienced this twice.

Ds2's Reception year has been fantastic - two excellent teachers who work brilliantly as a team. Communication between them is superb, their different personalities complement each others teaching well.

Ds1 had a job share for Yr1 which wasn't quite as successful. For the first term he had two very good, experienced teachers then one of them went on maternity leave. Her replacement was nowhere up to speed and deferred to the other teacher on every issue. It was a real pain having to wait for the other teacher to come in to find things out.

All things given I'd say job shares are great as long as there's proper communication between the teachers.

[Littlefish]

Like Sarararararah, I job share (but in Yr 2). My jobshare partner and I communicate really effectively, and both work much more than our alloted days (over the year).

I think that communication and a shared ethos is key to any successful job-share partnership. I think it can really benefit the children as it avoids the "exhausted-teacher" feeling at the end of the week, and means that you get two teachers with different strengths.

However, I've also worked in a disastrous job-share partnership which was awful and meant that I left after a term and a half. My partner had been in the yeargroup for 30 years, had partly retired and had very set ideas about how the class should be run. I was put in the class with her to raise standards, modernise etc. It was a complete disaster. She constantly undermined me with the children, parents and the headteacher (even though I was deputy head!)

[melissa75]

I too job share, as I had to go down to part time due to my pregnancy...so I do three days a week and my job sharer does the other two. We do a split 1/2 class. It works very well for us. We have a contractual obligation to obviously stay in very regular contact and to pass on any messages of pertinance. We have a parent notebook where if there is any specific parent concerns, we write it in there so each other is aware in the first instance...this has alleviated a lot of parent concerns, as there was a lot of worry when this first was the case a few months ago that what happened on monday say would not be told to teacher b who taught on thursday, or friday to monday...
We also complement each other, as we are both very organised and have much the same teaching style so it has worked out well.

The Head should be sitting down with the two teachers in question and going over the responsibilities and logistics of the job share, so you need not worry!

[flaime]

It happened at our school and was useless - one didn't know what the other was doing properly and there was clear competition between them.

Luckily one of them went off on maternity leave which made things much better , however now she's back and going to teach my DS in a job share in year 3. Agggh! Oh well, only a year.....

[throckenholt]

our yr1/yr2 class has a job share - one is 2 days per week, the other 3. It works brilliantly well because they have different strengths.

They communicate a lot and pool their experience with the children. I think we are very lucky to have them both.