Primary School Teachers jobsharing

[KittyPerry77]

Out of the 14 classes in my kids' school (2 form entry), 4 classes will now have two class teachers jobsharing instead of one class teacher. I think this will be most unsettling for the children and just not workable at primary level. How can one teacher pick up the maths lesson that someone else has taught the day before? Most impractical I think. And if there is an issue that happened with one teacher you'd need to wait 'til they're working again next week.
Am I being unreasonable?
And if not what can I do? Obviously the head can't change these teachers working conditions now so what criticism can constructively be given to the head? Thankfully my kids are both having one class teacher each this year but I am worried about subsequent years.

[MargaretCavendish]

Surprised to hear people talk about this as if it were a new thing. I was taught by two teachers job-sharing in primary school, and that was heading on for thirty years ago. It worked fine for us then, and, as most pp have said, I don't see any inherent reason for it not to work just fine now.

[feathermucker]

What can you do, you ask?! About a situation that doesn't affect you in any way?!

Nothing.

[feathermucker]

It happens all the time in primary schools the length and breadth of the country.

It isn't impractical; they will communicate with each other and the children may well benefit from the change of faces through the week.

[tanfield90]

In my penultimate year at primary school our class was taught by a pair of job-sharing teachers. Mrs W did mornings, Mrs H did afternoons. I don't remember it being an issue (I was eight) and it was probably quite enterprising for 1979.

[JsOtherHalf]

Ds had 2 years of jobshare teachers for the first 2 years of primary school with no issues.
I really wouldn't worry about it.

[RhodaBull]

Yes, it does depend on the teachers involved. You could get two great teachers, or two awful ones. Hopefully the head is a good one who makes sure that teachers are paired who complement each other.

[zad716]

DS's (year 1) teachers are job share and we've not been impressed at all. It may be because they are both rubbish rather than because they job share. (Or it might be because we were spoilt last year because the NQT he had was absolutely fantastic)

[Isetan]

DD has had only two out of her five years in primary without job sharing teachers. In my experience it's worked really well and both DD and I have built really good relationship with both teachers. The job sharing teachers appeared less knackered at the end of the school year and I'm sure sharing the workload contributed to it.

This year, one of DD's regular teachers was temporarily seconded to teach a more difficult class and she was replaced with a newish teacher. Unfortunately, some of the kids ran rings around her and she had difficulties maintaining discipline. The atmosphere in the class degraded during this teacher's days but having one half of the original job sharing duo for the remaining days, limited the impact on DD. The newbie was replaced by a more experienced teacher soon after and because she was no stranger to many in the class (she had taught DD in previous years, as part of a job share duo), normal service was resumed within days partly because her reputation proceeded her.

Children are really quite adaptable and in my experience, as long as the teacher/s know their stuff, it will be fine.

[Onsera3]

IME it's not uncommon for teachers at primary to teach another's plans. Eg one teacher in the year group plans all the numeracy, another all the literacy and so on depending on how many form entry.

The plans are detailed enough that they can be monitored by management and that they could be taught by anyone covering the class.

Sometimes any teacher will be sick, go on course, have PPA time or go in maternity. This is just life.

Job sharing is sometimes the only way to maintain balance if you go back to teaching when you have a family. The needs of the pupils need to be balanced with the needs of the teacher.

They could benefit from diverse teaching styles and having a teacher who is much fresher at the end of the week instead of a teacher who's exhausted from a week juggling their own children as well as a class.

[BoyFromTheBigBadCity]

I had teachers with a job share in year 4. It worked perfectly fine.

[BitOutOfPractice]

I know that when my sister was a job sharer for many years she used to spend hours every week handing over to her partner, discussing lessons, individual children etc etc etc. That hours extra of teachers' time your kids are benefitting from. Not to mention the pooled resources, access to twice as much experience and expertise etc etc etc

[cannotlogin]

yes, you are clearly that parent....

[KittyPerry77]

Thanks for the replies. It's good to be able to ask other mums about this without asking those at the school who (clearly from this thread) would then have me down as The Loopy One. Much obliged.

[LunaLoveg00d]

My kids have had job share teachers and it's worked perfectly - one teacher monday - wednesday, the other thursday and friday. The two teachers work well as a team. It is not beyond the wit of a teacher to leave notes saying "green group need to finish page 6 of the maths book" or even maybe email and text??? Lessons are planned well in advance and not organised the day before.

Personally I think it's worked VERY well, having two teachers with complementary skills and abilities. And yes, as others have said the teachers can cover each other for sickness or training days which is much less disruptive.

[CaptainCrunch]

Not rtft so sorry if I am repeating what anyone else has said, only going on your OP.

I work in a primary school and there is a high proportion of job share posts in my school atm, usually because of mat leave and teachers returning on a pt basis.

Like everything else, it depends on the teachers. It can work very well if they communicate well and support each others' decisions and work practices, it can be an absolute disaster if egos get in the way and they refuse to listen to each other.

Depending on the class, it can be very unsettling for some individuals. Some pupils find having 2 teachers with differing styles very difficult to cope with. I've been in classes where pupils have openly told the current teacher "I don't like you, I prefer Mrs X". Also I have heard pupils say "Mrs X says you did this wrong".

My personal view is that job shares, on the whole, are not a great idea but can't really be avoided these days and are common working practice.

I stress this is a personal view. Others may have had much more positive experience of them.

[Tatiebee]

My 7 year old DS has had 7 teachers in his three years so far at primary school. As he has ASD I do feel that so may changes to staffing have impacted on his mental health although he doesn't appear to have suffered academically. I'd rather there was more consistency but I understand that teaching when you have a young family must be very difficult and don't blame teachers for requesting more flexible working patterns. I don't think you are being unreasonable but unfortunately I'm my experience we can't do much about it.

[inlovewithhubby]

If someone came on here and said 'all part time work should be eradicated', they would get a bashing.

That is exactly what the op has done, except limited that eradication to the field of teaching. Shame on her.

I'm not a teacher, I just believe that women shouldn't have to choose between work and their children.

[MissBattleaxe]

Well I think you're having a bit of bashing OP. My DS had job share teachers last year and it was a disaster. I agree with it in principal, but this just didn't work out.

You're entitled to be concerned, and people are entitled to assuage those concerns, but there have been some quite fierce replies that I feel were unwarranted.

[inlovewithhubby]

Not rtft but of course you are being very unreasonable, not least because you don't actually have a live complaint. You are complaining essentially about part time workers generically, which is bizarre coming from a female and is potentially discriminatory ( job shares are primarily undertaken by women, who want to work part time due to still being, for the most part, the primary childcarer in their families). In this day and age of equality I am astonished that all women do not embrace this concept as an aid to women returning to the workforce after having children. Step outside your own blinkered existence for one minute and think how this is a good thing for the 50 per cent of the population that possess a uterus.

My daughter's school has 75 per cent of its teaching staff as job shares, including the head teachers. You get two heads and two skill sets for the price of one. You get, as other people have said, a fresh teacher halfway though the week. You get two personalities which can help in appealing to kids' differing personalities and assisting them to engage with learning. You also get two women who are able to both work and spend time with family. WTF would anyone think that was anything other than bloody amazing?

[MrsMammaM]

I think this is a great idea - wish they had this in my DD's school. Always think the teachers are pretty much knackered by the end of the week and perhaps would very much appreciate being able to share the load.

[SatsukiKusakabe]

Haha gabsalot I didn't quite mean that - at my sons school this year one of the teachers was signed off with stress and other ill health for a number of weeks - I was thinking of that scenario in that a job share would have allowed some continuity for the children for at least part of the week, instead of everyone over stretched and the children not knowing what to expect. The second teacher would be doing their days regardless and it would be very unlikely to have both incapacitated at the same time.

[hidingwithwine]

I taught job share for years - soon as I had my own dcs I wanted to, yunno, spend time with them and not other people's offspring 5 days a week. Or maybe we should go back to when I was wee and teachers had to leave their job when they left to have babies?

[SavoyCabbage]

I am doing supply teaching at the moment and almost every school I go in to they ask me if I want a job. And not because I am brilliant because I am fairly sure I am not, having returned to the UK after almost a decade. But because there is such a shortage of teachers.

More than a dozen times, i have has a phonecall between nine and ten O'clock begging me to go to a school as they have nobody. Yesterday I said 'I can go to work if I can leave at 3.15 (at a school that doesn't finish till 3.30) and they still sent me in.

I have been to schools where the TA has told me the dc have had ten teachers in a year so the children all just call you 'teacher' all day long because they are so used to having a parade of teachers. Perfectly good middle class schools.

The government is trying to get parents who left teaching to bring up their dc to return to teaching. One of the consequences of this is that many of those people will have young dc of their own who they would never see if they had to work the hours of a full time teacher.

What you could do is train to be a teacher yourself and take on a full time position at your children's school.

[Samcro]

yabu
my dd had job sharing teachers for 2 years. it was great.
one she didn't gel with and the other she did. so it meant that she wasn't stuck with the first one all week.
all the kids managed and were happy and this was a sn school.

[Wait4nothing]

YABVU
You clearly have no idea about the teaching profession and yet plan to give criticism to the head teacher on matter that does affect you or your children.
Having recently had a dd I plan to go back part time as a job share - otherwise when would I spend time with her? (I'm in school everyday 7.30-5.30 then some marking at home and work approx 5 hours on a Sunday. I'm hoping I can manage a 3 day teaching week into 5 days of the week to save my weekends.