To think job-sharing for teachers of kids 8 and under is selfish?

[blowingBubblesinABreeze]

My kid is in Year 2. There are 30 kids in her class. She has teachers who job-share (monday-wed morning, Wednesday afternoon to Friday).
We had a parents meeting and it was very clear to me that the teacher barely knew my child, and was just making up things to say. Other parents said the same.

Do I blame her? Yes and no. No because it is impossible to know 30 kids in a class if you are spending half the time with the kids in the class that a normal teacher does. A full-time teacher with 30 kids in the class already struggles to know all the kids in her class well. (understandably).

Yes because she has chosen to do the job share. (In the case of the teachers in my class, I know that they are both well-off). I know that this is not the case for most teachers. But again I would argue that many teachers that would choose to job share are not on the bread-line.

A teacher should know the kids in their class. That is part of their job. The kids are LITTLE, LITTLE people. They are in school for most of their waking hours. Alot of them really struggle to go into school at a young age. So to be left in the hands of a person who barely knows them is simply not fair on them.

We are prioritising the desires of teachers over the NEEDS of children. Which is where society seems to be headed as a whole. The desires of adults is our focus, neglecting the basic needs of our little people.

My youngest DC had teachers on a job share. It worked well. They communicated well, had good relationships with the children and had rested well when they came to their share of the week. Whilst instant recall of children might be a challenge, at parent's evening our teachers had a substantial body of data, their notes and examples of work to jog their memories. I agree that if the teacher came across as disinterested or not having a clue who my DC was I would be annoyed, but that is a different problem and not related to a job share.

DD, 6, had a job share in Year 1 which worked out really well. She's got another job share in Year 2 due to the full-time teacher she was meant to having quitting very last minute. Her teachers who were drafted in were actually meant to be a full-time cover teacher and special needs teacher (DD is at a big five form primary school) but now they have a part time class too.

A lot of parents kicked off when we were told as job shares are generally unpopular at our school and they don't give them to classes two years in a row for this reason but I don't mind them. I think two teachers can bring different strengths and more importantly, DD is happy with the set up.

I agree that you do get good and bad teachers so it's probably more that. I also think most job shares are taken up by women with young children, who tend to be very experienced teachers whose skills would otherwise be lost to the school...

The first post from the OP is showing a very entitled attitude. There could be many reasons why a teacher has chosen to work part time. Why shouldn’t there be job shares in school just like in other work places? It can be very beneficial to the children. Good communication between the job shares is the key to making it work well for all parties.

The way things are in education at the moment I think that those parents whose children have qualified teacher/s stood in front of the class should think themselves lucky. Many teachers have walked away from the profession and will continue to do so until major issues such as SEND provision, funding and work load are addressed.

You would have hated my DD's P4 set-up. Not only did they have job share teachers but it was a composite P3/4 class. The teachers were one who had been in the school for a number of years and a NQT.
The year was a complete disaster because the more experienced teacher was useless (she had taught the P4 cohort in the class in P3 too so we already knew her). After 2 years of this teacher, they went into P5 a year behind where they should have been in maths. That was nothing to do with it being a job share and everything to do with the teacher (the NQT didn't have the experience to know) and the situation would possibly have been even worse without a second teacher overseeing the class.

You know there's a teacher retention crisis, right? How can we try and keep the teachers we've got and encourage more qualified, dedicated, passionate people into the profession? I know, let's make it as inflexible as possible 🙄

Can you hear yourself? My kids have had job-share teachers it works fine . Teaching is a really intense job, especially in primary school. Many of my kids teachers' male and female have job-shared for a few years, especially when their own children are small. It means we get a lovely range of different teachers and teaching styles. It also means people can stay in the profession instead of getting burnt out and leaving. If you care that much and your child is so important that someone has to dedicate their lives to your child - then you should leave your job and home educate or hire a tutor. At a time we are talking about working from home and flexi working, you want teachers full time or nothing. You'll get nothing.

"The desires of adults is our focus, neglecting the basic needs of our little people."

I'm assuming you can do better. Time to take them out of school, quite your job and be the perfect parent and teacher. I mean, the basic needs of your little one comes before anything else in the world...

I've known job-share partnerships where they were quite different characters - most children had a preference, but not all the same. The benefit there is that everyone has a teacher they relate well with, rather than only half of the class.
You also sometimes get other benefits - eg one really loves teaching PE and the other is brilliant at teaching music, so they can play to their strengths.

Not knowing the kids by parents' evening isn't because they're part-time. As a secondary teacher, I taught kids 3 times a week and knew them well enough by Christmas (not as well as you would in primary, admittedly, but that's more because I was only doing my subject with them). A couple of times I took over a class mid-year and had a parents' evening after three weeks - I had to work hard for those, but I could put a face to every name and knew how they were doing with the subject. If you have a 2-day-a-week teacher who doesn't know them reasonably well by now, I think you need to be glad they don't have that teach 5 days a week.

Because teachers are entitled to one session a week for planning/preparation/assessment, every primary class will have a different teacher for at least one session a week (unless they're one of those schools that close on Friday afternoon). Classes with two teachers are sometimes better off, because the whole week is covered by those two teachers, who both teach them enough to get to know them. Sometimes they are even able to cover each others' sick leave.

I loved when mine had 2 teachers. The monday- wed teacher came into school on the Monday upbeat, ready to teach and then come a Thursday when most of us start lagging in the week another eager and upbeat teacher started their week.

I assume you are just being deliberately goady, but either your child sleeps for unnaturally long or your maths is terrible.

You said They are in school for most of their waking hours. Really?

Assuming a child that age sleeps for say 11 hours every night, that’s 13 hours each day they are awake. They are at school 5 days each week for maximum 7 hours a day. So every week they have 91 waking hours (7 x 13) of which max 35 (5 x 7) are spent at school.

And that's before taking school holidays into account.

If you’re going to be deliberately goady, at least get your "facts" right…

YABU

I can tell you have no grasp of education.

I am a primary school teacher . I work part time in the same set up you describe. I think the children receive a BETTER education as I have enthusiasm and energy for all my working days - I don’t flag at the end of the week like my full time colleagues do!

The children also benefit from the expertise of two teachers. Two teachers to plan lessons. Two teachers to give options on things. We also choose our strongest subjects to deliver and plan.

Both of my daughters (year R and year 1) are taught by part time teachers in job shares. And honestly….I am delighted!!

I job-shared as a primary teacher for nearly 30 years - very effectively, I might add.
I'm afraid I don't give a flying fuck if you think it's selfish or not.
Don't rise to the goadiness of this thread, people.

I don't think part-time teachers have the monopoly on being rubbish teachers. Also no reason why a job share can't work - I have seen this work very well on many occasions. Possibly sounds like a school issue and staff training or recruitment rather than an individual teacher issue in this case or possibly an expectation from your perspective.

Your insinuation that the teachers don't need the job due to being well off is terrible - you have no idea of their circumstances.

If we only allow people prepared to work full time as teachers then there would be an even bigger disaster in our education system than we currently have.

I would actually gauge your child's experience in school on how they feel and respond to going there and coming home and how they talk about it.

Agree with you OP. My friend works in a primary school that only has 2 full time teachers - head and assistant head (both male). Every other teacher is a female job sharing. It’s really quite ridiculous only 1 class in the whole school has a full time teacher. She works 2 days a week and complains about the kids behaviour. It’s like having a supply teacher every day, no consistency so of course they will behave differently. I also don’t undersntad how they can teach well when every teacher will have a different style. - Say they do something on fractions one day, and the class understand. The next teacher that comes in may do it completely differently and the kids don’t have a clue. It shouldn’t be allowed in my opinion. I’m not sure what the answer is as I do believe in part time working but there has to be a limit.

If you see children every week for two days a week for a school year you will know them well. If the teacher didn't know what to say it wasn't because she works part-time, it's because she's useless.

We had job-share teachers for one DC in year 2, no problems at all with them not knowing all the children. At nursery there are more staff and your child might not be there full time. When your child goes to secondary each teacher may only see them for a few hours a week, but still expected to know their work and progress. If the teacher doesn't know your DC well that's a failure with them, not the procedure of job-sharing.

I love this 👍🏻 spot on!

Why shouldn’t teachers work part time/job share!

Why is your issue with the teachers and not the government who think 30 in a class is acceptable? If schools weren’t so underfunded and teachers weren’t needing to do so much additional work outside of school hours then maybe people wouldn’t beed to job share!

Yabvu. If a teacher doesn’t know the kids in her class fairly well it’s not because she’s part time/job share it’s because she’s not a very good or invested teacher! I bet plenty job share teachers are amazing and would resent anyone saying they didn’t know the kids they teach. I don’t agree that it’s not possible to know the kids well because of being part time. When I was younger I worked in after school care which was three to six every day so fifteen hours a week. Probably slightly less than a job share teacher would do (at least, one that does 2.5 days a week) and I would say I knew the kids really well.
If anything, people in any job share job often feel they have to work even harder than full
time people.
Those people have as much right to a work life balance as anyone else.
Im also not sure that what a teacher says at parents night, during a five minute appointment slot, is necessarily a fair or full reflection of how well they know your child.

Buckle up, in secondary school they have a dozen or more teachers with different styles and timetables.

Interestingly people on MN often cite as their reason for going private at this age the fact that the child will have multiple different teachers instead of just one.

I would much rather have two happy and well rested teachers, who can each provide different strengths, experience, skills and perspectives.

Even with one full time teacher, they're still getting to know some of the children at this point.

Yabu

in reception my daughter had 2 teachers (and 2 TAs). It was absolutely wonderful as they both brought something different to the class, they knew the kids easily by this point in the year and the kids all adored them both. I still think of those two teachers fondly 10 years later. It worked for their families and they were happy, not stressed and over stretched, they were absolutely fantastic teachers and worked so well as a team.

Two very separare issues. Of course teachers should be able to job share. Also, they should know your child well after a full term. I worked 2 days per week as a newly qualified teacher and when I sent the reports to the head teacher to check and sign off on she commented at how well I knew the children (like she was surprised) If you want to blame anyone, blame the government for giving teachers so many jobs that they can never just sit and enjoy the children. 2.5 days a week for a full term is definitely long enough to know them, what makes you think they didn’t? Children can often be very different at school to home.

The children will be fine. They will manage. On the days those teachers are scheduled in, they are probably full of energy. The teachers working full time are exhausted.

Many a disrupted year I had during my education years and it made no difference. It all evens out.

I don't understand why a teacher wouldn't know their class if they only saw them 2.5 days a week. My children's primary gave each of their teachers a non teaching half day so they had a teaching assistant for half a day a week. I witnessed their interactions with the children, they definitely knew them all by Christmas.

One of mine benefited massively from job share in y5 (so over 8). He had an amazing teacher who really got him and gave him a love of French. There was also minimal disruption when she had to start her mat leave early as other teacher agreed to go full time till year end.