Co-teaching

[Wholelottatime]

Hi, just looking for peoples opinions. Is co-teaching worse or better than starting over in a new school in yr1 ?

DS about to start yr1. They are going to have two teachers 2.5 days each a week, and a third for p.e.

This set up has been the set up in reception for the last 3 months already and it isn't working. There isn't enough consistency and behaviour across throughout the class seems to be getting worse. Any issues raised have been with the TA because the teachers aren't there often enough to know. I'm dreading another year with this set up.

From experience would it be better to keep DS with his friends but no consistent teacher or move schools to a permanent teacher with new friends ?

How on earth do you know what behaviour is like in class? Do you work there?

How do you know you won’t end up with a job share in a new school?

I love a job share. A fresh teacher for the second half of the week is ideal. Full time teachers are knackered by Thursday!

I know what the behaviour is like because of the issues I'm having to deal with!

I don't know that they wont have a job share situation if i moved them, and that is why I'm asking for advice. I know the grass isn't always greener.

I disagree that ALL full time teachers are knackered by Thursday. But that is your opinion. Just want to clarify that it isn't staff who work part time, they just do other roles the rest of the week.

I have never know a job share of 50/50 to work. From your experience does it work ?

What @ParaParaParaphrase said.

I was always delighted when any of my dc had a job-share partnership (which is a very different thing from co-teaching)

@NewName24 please can you explain the difference ?

Also if you would please can you tell me some positive to it ?

Thing is that you have no control over staff retention and all schools are struggling with recruitment. It may be the same in another school. Sometimes a job share is the best they can do if they cannot employ a full time class teacher.

We had this situation a couple of years ago (KS2). Went in with an open mind of a fresh teacher halfway through the week and all the positives this would bring, especially if they had been a solid job share for a while. Sadly it didn't work out, the issue is that the teachers didn't have consistency of approach, didn't do proper handovers and balls were dropped. Kids soon had a strong preference for one over the other affecting behaviour. SEN kids struggled with the change in teacher every week, my own included, and we saw some school refusal.

The following year they had a very experienced full time class teacher and she had to work really hard to bring the class in line and work with them in a much more structured way.

It's not always the case and I'm sure it works in other places, unfortunately it didn't for us.

@maybeCornish I think what you have said you have experienced is what has been the experience so far.

We had this in reception and it wasn’t great. Never felt like teachers knew my children (non - identical twins, kept getting them confused 6 months in) and dc never really bonded with either teacher. Very different teaching styles and it felt like they didn’t really coordinate well between themselves. Not saying it would never work, but I completely understand the downsides.

we have 2 teachers this year in y2 and it is much better, but it is 4 days one teacher, 1 day the other. They are super bonded to the main teacher and largely have that consistency, but also really enjoy the special programming on the one day with the other teacher as on that day they tend to run special topics / skills sessions.

not sure I would change schools because of it unless this is how it is going to be throughout. Understand the challenges and frustrations though!

If you have evidence of the situation and this is shared with other parents draft an email to the head outlining your concerns and ask for a meeting. What we experienced could have been avoided with good management and support as opposed to letting the job share run the show on their own when they unexperienced. Individually they were good teachers and would have been great as full time teachers leading a class, but they needed support to make themselves consistent when job sharing.

Thank you @Labraradabrador for your honest opinion. I think I was just angry when I found out earlier as it was only ever supposed to be a temporary arrangement for the last term and half. Now it's going to continue for the whole of next year.

A job share if 4 days and 1 I wouldn't have a problem with. I can see many more positive to that situation. Least they would have one main teacher. It's the 50/50, and even then sometimes they have someone else if that teacher has something more important to do.

Co teaching is when both teachers are in the class at the same time, sharing the lesson. A job share is where they do different days. In my experience it can work but I’m secondary, not primary. It can work quite well in secondary because we literally split the course in half or if it’s 80/20 then the teacher with one day might be responsible for SPaG and reading in ks3 English for example, whilst the other teacher does all the literature. It’s the norm for A-level but again the topics are clearly split. It happened in one of my children’s primary classes but it was ok because the second teacher only did one day and so was responsible for RE, PSHE, Geography and the other teacher did everything else.

Both my DDs had job shares in year 1. I went into the first with real enthusiasm, how great to have the best of both teachers.

DD1 started the year with 2 teachers and ended the year with 2 different teachers. It was abundantly clear that the first two didn't get on.

DD2, neither teacher really got to know and understand her. They didn't seem to like her very much. She didn't have that problem any other year, so I think the job share arrangement was at least partly responsible.