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.

Gosh, teachers had come in for it this week on here:

Working flexibly
Causing the flu?!
Telling a parent when their child has misbehaved

DH and I are both full time teachers and DS had two teachers doing a job share on Year 1. I can fully guarantee that the job share teachers, with better mental health, good work life balance and no doubt doing all of her/ his planning, preparation, marking etc on their days "off" were much better than DH and I.

At the school DS goes to, the Headteacher and many of the other staff that have never been in class with him, greet him by name, know he loves football and seem to genuinely know his character.

If your child has just come from a nursery (as most P1s/Reception kids do), they will have had multiple nursery teachers who all work on different days. We have 14 staff in our nursery and I guarantee they all know the children. I don't see the difference really and the way it is written make me think you sound like one of those 'little tilly can do no wrong and is the brightest/sportiest/most creative child in class'... sorry if seeing them in a class of 30 is bursting your bubble on that front.

We had a very difficult time at our village school with DS1, who has complex SEN and his needs couldn’t be met. In Y2 we had a job share. One teacher made DS’s and my lives extremely difficult and repeatedly told me I was lying and paranoid about his condition. The other teacher was WONDERFUL. We left the school after Y2 because things had fallen apart so badly, but the second teacher made a year of his time there so much easier than it could have been.

Shortly after we left, the teacher who accused me of lying and paranoia about DS’s SEN was made senco.

For some reason I can’t edit my post above. I would have deleted the bit about the less good teacher being made senco - that did happen but is irrelevant to this thread. For us, the job share was a positive thing because the second teacher was just fabulous and helped DS to enjoy learning.

Ffs

My own experience is that it worked very well for my ds when he was in Y1. Two lovely teachers, each of them knew him very well. I think they did 3/2. Both there on parents evening, communicated with us and with each other very effectively.

Totally different story for dd this year - Y4. She has one teacher for 4 days, all fine. On Thursdays she has a teacher for an hour first thing and then another teacher for the rest of the day. This 4/1 pattern does not work at all for my dd, who is autistic. The Thursday teachers barely know her, were not there on parents evening and don't seem to communicate with one another. She struggles to adjust to their different rules, different teaching styles, the inconsistency is a massive drawback for children like her. The Thursday teacher is also very shouty. She's just reached burnout because she's been working her socks off to meet all these different demands and she's exhausted with it. Seeing a child burnt out is heart breaking.

Having teachers who know her, and know her well, is absolutely crucial to her having her needs met and not reaching burnout. If schools, and teachers, want to allow job shares (of which I fully approve) then they need to balance the needs of the 'business' (the school, children, parents) with the needs of the employees - as is the case with absolutely every employer who is pro-flexible working. Unfortunately it tends to be children like my daughter who suffer the most - and then schools and the government wonder why so many children are avoiding school.

YBVVVU. Why should a teacher of small pupils not be allowed job share? The teacher's financial situation is irrelevant.

Yes I agree, not selfish but not in the best interests of the children. My son really, really struggled when he had two teachers in YR3. They had different boundaries and he just couldn't get to grips with that. He is slightly ND and this situation put him back in confidence that took a couple of years to rebuild. He is YR11 now btw so some time ago!

Some parents seem to forget that being a teacher is a job and teachers have the same employment rights as anyone else. They also have their own families or other interests and are entitled to put them first. They are not slaves to parents whims.

@Nodancingshoes,so how does your son cope with two parents with potentially different boundaries? Or grandparents/family members? And he may have struggled with it but he may also have learned valuable lessons about interacting with different personalities.
That’s life and the world is not going to adapt around him as you would ideally like.

My DC have had several job share teachers over the years and I think it's great...different teaching styles suit different kids so by having two teachers the kids are more likely to have someone who 'gets them' for at least part of the week.

Plus even if they only had one class teacher they would have likely had a different teacher at some point covering PPA...in my kids school it's the PE teacher and there also used to be a separate French teacher until she retired.

It's law to properly consider flexible working arrangements, it's not mandatory to agree to them if you have genuine business reasons to turn them down. Job shares work very well in some professions, not so much in others. Teachers absolutely should have the right to request flexible working. Schools absolutely have the right to refuse on strong business grounds. To my mind, if an arrangement isn't working, then the onus is on the school's management to make it work so that it meets both the children's and the staff's needs - or to turn it down because it cannot be made to work. Just like you would in any other job.

How dare they not give up everything for someone else's child! Don't they know how important you are?

I couldn’t vote because I think-

YABU re the job sharing
YANBU that the teachers should get to know the children

It might be harder in a job share to get to know them all, but it’s very much possible. I think this is more of a case of the job share not being done well, rather than job sharing itself being inappropriate. My dd had job shared teachers in yr 3 and it was fine.

In all jobs, job sharing needs to be done in the right way, and requires a bit of effort from the people in the job to make it work. Teaching isn’t the only job that’s important, or too important to do badly.

My kids are in private school and I’m surprised that teachers even job share in this role. My kids have their teacher for the year. Thinking about it further, those teachers or staff who do have these half day or flexible roles are the non teachers at the school.

My son is in year 1 and he loves both his teachers (Monday - Wednesday one teacher, Thursday and Friday a different teacher). Yes, it was odd, when I went to parents evening and I was asked if I was mother. I tend to work on that teacher work days. So I hardly saw her.

As long as my son is learning, is safe and happy. I have no problem.

Teachers are human too. I much prefer a teacher who got work life balance sorted. That is a good role model. 👏 This doesn't mean teacher working full-time are not good role models. It is great seeing schools being accommodating and one of the teacher got it in her working contract what suited her. She must have negatioated well. At least that is what I'm assuming.

I can now use it as an explample of when people go to work, they can negotiate with their employers. Teachers are not slaves and they do a very important job.

Well, he lives with us all the time so has learnt to adapt! He is 16 years old now and can cope much better now with things like this - at 6 that wasn't the case. This was just my experience - if I had to choose, I wouldn't choose the class with 2 teachers. I don't think the teachers are 'selfish' at all - I just think it doesn't particularly work well

I have not read all of the thread but this sounds like a teacher issue rather than a job share issue. I worked split between two classes and knew those children thoroughly! Yes there will be incidents that happened on the day I was not there but I knew everything about their personality, academic ability or struggles etc.

I absolutely do not blame any teaching parent opting to become pt after having their own children. Ft teaching really isn't compatible with being a present mum or wife/dad or husband. Even then, your days "off" are filled with unpaid work.
I left the teaching profession (primary) after 20 years in last year and it is the best decision I made on every single level - not least for my own family.
You soon learn as a teacher than so many parents genuinely believe you should prioritise their children before your own. Nope - not happening any more!

All the job share teacher my infant age children have had know my kids. This isn’t a job share issue. Work should be flexible, FOR EVERYONE. I’d prefer my kids having a happy teacher who stays in the job for longer than a miserable one who leaves with burnout.

My DC had a similar job share in Y3. It worked really well. They had an overlap half day and shared insights with each other

at the mid term parents evening they were both present and clearly knew our child.

so it is possible to make it work.

Wow why should any teacher not have their own children. Just because their teachers doesn't mean they have to concentrate fully on yours, I get you want your children to have a good education but that's bang out of order, their human too. The job situation in this country now is the worst its been. Teachers need helping its a hard and stressful job like many.

You are being very unreasonable. It entirely depends on the teachers involved. My children had excellent job sharing teachers in Y2 and a pretty poor experience with job share teachers in Y5 so nothing to do with age. One pair ran things like clockwork the other hardly knew the children but that's life - you'll get good and bad teachers everywhere. Teaching is a female dominated profession and many are part time and I can't see that changing any time soon. Wait till they get to secondary where I teach. Getting qualified teachers is a nightmare and in my school we have had exam classes with a 3 way split!

I remember when my kids had a job share teacher they got the best of 2 teachers who put more effort in than their part-time hours paid for.

YABVU- it's either this or no teacher at all. Myself and many of my colleagues would've quickly resigned from teaching following maternity leave if we'd not been allowed to go part time. I'm a secondary English teacher and extremely hard to replace as there's a national shortage and whenever we advertise we get no applicants. Good luck with putting the 'needs' of little people first if they end up with no teacher at all!