Is 4 days in primary a really bad idea?

[BlueSatsuma]

As opposed to full time?

Have been 3 days for the last 5 years but my youngest starts school soon.

2 days at home feels indulgent and more money would be good. However I don’t t think I can face full time!

Have 2 chronic health conditions if that’s relevant?

[Littlefish]

4 days if fantastic! I love it. I've been doing it for a few years now. The only downside is that because it's not really a job-share - more like a one day cover, you have to be careful not to landed with all the planning, assessment, organisation and responsibility, but for 4/5 of the pay.

[4point2fleet]

Nobody is allowed to do 4 days at my school because it's so hard to cover the single day well.

[cathay123]

I do 4 days and it works for me. The teacher who covers me for one day is really good and tries to take her fair share of things. I'm worried that the cuts will mean her being replaced by a HLTA which wouldn't be so good.

[BlueSatsuma]

Thanks for the replies!

If you do 4 days how do you share the planning? What do you give the 1 day teacher responsibility for? Interested to know.

[Eatsleepworkrepeat95]

I do 4 days a week as well as extra responsibility as head of year and a curriculum year. To be honest I have all of the responsibility for my class and the 5th day someone just covers me. If you don’t want the whole responsibility for the class I would recommend staying at 3 days a week. It really depends on what you want. 4 days is basically 5 days responsibility for 4 days pay.

[Eatsleepworkrepeat95]

Curriculum lead not curriculum year, sorry quick after work drinks before the school pick up.

[thebookeatinggirl]

I did it for a while and really enjoyed it.

My jobshare also covered my PPA. On the full day she planned a mental maths and reasoning lesson based on an objective that I gave her, fitting in with whatever I was doing. In English she planned a stand-alone lesson on SPAG (with the context matching whatever theme/genre we were doing) with a handwriting focus as well. In the afternoon she did PE and RE, and Science in the PPA session.

I think it worked well mainly because she also covered other classes PPA on two other work days, so we over-lapped and had a quick planning meeting on one of the days after school, and could chat in lunchtimes catching up and passing info on, so there was room for flexibility and it all dove-tailed well.

I did, of course, end up working all day on my "day off", which is pants, but I did always have a completely free weekend, which was marvellous.

[MissClarke86]

I do 4 days in a year group I’ve been in a long time. My job share does 1.75 days to cover my PPA/management as well and does standalone lessons. It works for me!

[cathay123]

My job share does lessons that are more or less stand alone rather than having to pick up a lesson that I have started. I still have to do the majority of the work though (assessments, pupil progress, data, meeting parents, displays, in depth marking, trips etc). I don't mind too much because I'm a bit of a control freak so I like being in charge of the class.

[Detoxpup]

You will be doing a full time job for part time pay (well that is my experience) I did all meetings, open days, meeting parents, assemblies, displays, insets etc

The one day was covered but I either had to have a meeting with the staff or just go with the flow and then fit the rest of the teaching into 4 days.

I would do teaching work on my "day off"