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.

You are so entitled OP 😂 😂 😂 You don’t know these women’s personal circumstances and just because your little darling is so precious to you, guess what, they’re not that bothered about him/her 🤷‍♀️

If a teacher doesn’t know your child after teaching them for 2.5 days/week for a term then there is a real problem wirh that teacher, not the part time working arrangements per se.
I wonder if you didn’t like what they said and prefer to think tbey don’t know your child rather than accept the feedback?

I am a TA with adults in a college - we don't have classes of 30, usually more like 18-20. I have 4 classes and I see each once a week. That's 70-80 students a week. I would say there is still maybe 4 or 5 students I get mixed up. If I can learn 65+ people's names seeing them once a week between Sept and Now, your child's teacher can learn 30 kids names seeing them 3 times a week. Your problem is not the job share it's the teacher being lazy, or refusing to address her memory problems.

Id probably agree with you for maybe kids 5 and under tbh but I think 8 is old enough to have two teachers. If you don’t think the teacher knows your child; I’d probably raise that with them and ask ahead of parents evening to have the teacher who feels they know your child the best. Or request to have both teachers present.
I think that’s the unprofessional bit to be honest- they aren’t managing it very well. They can job share but that shouldn’t be detrimental to the actual function of the role as teachers.

Absolutely this. Our school is brilliant, the headteacher and staff do such a great job. They stand outside every morning, saying hello, greeting all the children and parents.

I truly think my children are doing so well because of the attitude and support of the staff. Some job share and are part time too, but equally important to them are the children's wellbeing and this is reflected in them through their own happiness. I'm guessing those burnt out teachers either have no work life balance 😕

We had a job share in Y3 and they were excellent. I got the impression each one came in fresh and full of energy for their days. The reports and parents evening showed they knew more about my daughters individual personality that the other teachers we’d had so far and she came on leaps and bounds.

It’s nothing to do with job sharing. In secondary I teach 17 classes, so around 500 children, and five parents’ evenings. I know the children and how they are getting on in lessons. I can also reassure you that the needs of teachers are never put above the needs of children. In fact, we are like robots now; we’re expected to be in work under any circumstances and working 12+ hours per day, prioritising our pupils over our own families. I think you’re imagining this.

Parents are the primary educators of our DC, not the class teacher. If your DC educational needs are being neglected OP then that is primarily your fault OP.

Totally unreasonable. You have a teacher issue, not a job-share one. Having worked job-shares myself, I have always known my pupils just as well as if I were full time. It's more work but it can be done. Children in a job-share class get to benefit from the expertise and interests of two teachers rather than one..often a win imo!

I think that says more about the school and individual teachers than anything else.

DD is in year 2 and last year in year 1 they had two teachers who job shared. They've been doing it together for years and they're like a well oiled machine.

They are both in school Wednesday afternoons for crossover, planning etc. They both knew and understood all the kids by the first parents evening before October half term.

If anything we benefitted from having 2 teachers after some friendship issues/bullying in the summer term. One of the teachers was able to take a small group out of class and work with them on friendship stuff while the other teacher taught the rest of the group.

So lovely to see the daily weekly Bash a Teacher thread tradition is still strong OP.

One of my kids had a year where two teachers jobshared. I was dreading it. But it turned out to be my child's best year. The majority of the teachers my kid had up until then were half hearted to put it mildly. Presumably most of them continued teaching because they'd never have survived in a private company. They put so little effort and enthusiasm into their roles.
The job sharing teachers were both amazing. They went in most days and actually taught the kids and they taught them well. They both had their strengths and weaknesses and taught the kids accordingly. When one teacher failed to teach the class a particular concept, the other teacher explained it well.

I was so impressed I actually think it should be compulsary for all teachers to jobshare.

My child has two teachers who job share. He is nine and I love it. They are incredibly good at what they do. Bring different ideas into the learning and are not jaded and miserable. They are well rested, happy and positive. Honestly I think it’s a great thing.

Are you seriously suggesting that teachers aren't allowed to have their own children? Talk about entitled.

"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"

This sounds very much like you are envious they can live well and work part time rather than concern for you child. 2.5 days a week is plenty of time to know the class. I worked in a pre-school, there were well over 30 children registered and I'd only see some of them once a week but I knew them very well.

My son had two teachers in Year one and it was a disasterous year for him. However, I'm not sure that it was the fact that they job shared that was the problem - it was that they used to just teach girls and recently the school merged and they didn't like (or understand) teaching boys at this age, despite their years of teaching experience. They didn't know him at all - I think partly because they didn't listen to him or take the time to get to know him properly and believed that he would be like x when actually he was completely different - so the child they described to me in my first parents' evening that year wasn't my child. For instance, they told me he liked factual books not fiction - we were reading fiction at home very happily - and sent the most dreadful books home for him to read - about, for instance, computers (10 years old, even he at 5 could tell that they weren't up to date) or types of houses ('a bungalow has one storey or floor'). It was the most dreadful year that had severe implications on his (and indirectly our) mental health and long-term learning capabilities.

Yabu. My child had a job share last year, the teacher was very knowledgeable at parents eve. He liked both his teachers. His new one this year is his full time teacher and I feel she doesn't really know him that well. I think it depends on the teacher and other dynamics, it is also early in the year. I feel a teacher is entitled to a work life balance the same as every other parent. We are losing teachers at an alarming rate it's a bloody hard job. I work in a school, we had a kid smash up the class today. These are normal occurances in many schools, sadly. These are the kind of issues teachers have to deal with and it does ruin your kids learning experience and it's absolutely not the teachers fault!

My son goes to nursery three days a week (so only slightly more than one of these teachers). All the staff know him, including those whose rooms he’s never been in.

This is a specific school/teacher problem.

Personally, I think part-time teachers will possibly become more and more the 'norm'. Teaching is become ever-more stressful as time goes by with less resources, impossible targets, WAAAY too much work undertaken outside of normal working hours and frankly, shit pay for some of the awful behaviour and abuse teachers have to put up with from nasty little bastards with zero respect or manners.

I'm not a teacher, but I've worked in schools and if any profession deserves a major overhaul of conditions to make it more flexible and allow more people to benefit from working part-time, it's education.

I get what you’re trying to say (I think). My DS has ASD and don’t have a single year in primary with one consistent teacher for the whole year. He struggled a lot with the change in teaching style, the changes in behavioural expectations, etc from a Monday to a Wednesday. All bar one of his teachers was excellent though and I think the school was better for having them part time than not at all. Teachers have home lives too and as much as we’d like to have a teacher there 5 days a week in an ideal world, it’s not always feasible in reality.

This is very common. I think it’s to do with the fact 85% of primary teachers are female and often they have children. They split the job either to spend more time with their children or if they’re older, grandchildren perhaps or they enter semi retirement.

DS has had this two years running now. In year 1 it was split between a semi retired teacher who has been there for about 30 years and a younger mum who then went on mat leave around Feb/March. This year it’s split again between the semi retired teacher and the deputy head who is going on maternity leave in March so being replaced by the teacher who went on leave earlier this year…

It is an upheaval but these things happen. I don’t remember it when I was at school but I also know the vast majority of my teachers were middle aged and people had children younger so their kids were older.

This is a tough one for me as someone who really wants to support mothers to have a good work/life balance but whose own children have not always benefited from job shares in primary school. Sometimes it's worked okay, other times it's been awful. It really does depend on the commitment of the teachers involved and the quality of their relationship with each other and the pupils in terms of communication/ sharing information/ consistency in approach to learning/behaviour etc.

From the poll most people seem to be fine with job shares but I wonder whether the issues with a shared role are much more apparent for parents whose kids have a disability/ struggled to settle/ experienced bullying or just really didn't love school anyway. My children fitted into these categories and being taught by two teachers when they were struggling with the basics just made managing their issues ten times harder.

I used to teach 4 lessons a day. Each class had 30 kids. Each class had one lesson a week. Y7 and 8. 600 kids… I hadn’t got a clue who they were!

Secondary teaching is totally different to primary though. As a primary teacher you have the same 30 kids every day so of course you know them.

I know of parent/teacher meetings when the teachers have to have a photo on their tablets of each kid so they can pretend to know who they are talking about :)