I'm beginning to think that job sharing for teachers doesn't work very well in primary school

[flashharriet]

I have 3 children and each of them have had years with job sharing teachers and years with just one class teacher. Having read many education threads on MN over the years, I know how hard it is for teachers with young children to juggle the needs of their own children with the needs of the children they teach and so a lot will opt for part time. But having just looked back at my children's time in primary school to date, I've realised that without exception, their "duffest" years have been those years when they've been taught by job sharers.

I'm now wondering whether part-timers would be better suited to secondary schools where pupils are used to moving around and having a number of different teachers anyway; certainly I had two different teachers each year for English, for example, and it didn't present any problems AFAI can remember. Communication is much harder with job-sharing teachers and IME consistency between job sharers seems to be an issue too.

I'd love it if we could have a good discussion about this and have therefore deliberately not posted in AIBU! But I'd be interested whether others have found this too (posting this thread was prompted by reading Greeny's current thread about trying to deal with two job-sharing teachers) or whether we've just been very unlucky.

Ds1 has a job share at the moment. And has previously had a teacher off long term so covered by a permanent supply.
TBH it has worked very well. I don't have any complaints at all.

Maybe it comes down to the individuals?

yes, I think it certainly does, turnip. As with all jobs, job share or not

I like policy wonks post..she explains so well what I was thinking. I have said I'm happy with the jobshare DD has had...many others have said the same. The teachers on here are becoming too defensive! It is interesting to debate the pros and cons of teacher job shares and doesn't mean teachers can't have children and return to work part time! (if they are good teachers )

I've also had good experiences of Job-Share teachers in primary school.
DS-yr5 has a semi-retired teacher (very warm, popular, engaging) who is JSing about 50-50 with a lady who has long-term illness & would be exhausted working F/T.

I think in juniors children being introduced to having teachers for different subjects is a good preparation for secondary school. A lot of schools have setting for numeracy and literacy, or bring in specialists for sport, music, art or languages.

Schools and teachers need to be a bit more imaginative how to get job shares/ flexible working to work. Maybe its someone that needs to be looked at an LEA level rather than a school level. Teachers are employed by county rather than an individual school.

I write this as someone whose son was on the recieving end of a frankly disasterious job share. I am not against primary school teachers working part time. It is something that requires careful thought to make sure that no one (including the teachers) lose out.

As a job-sharing, old(40 something) teacher, I am delighted that my partner will work for me tomorrow as I am in bed with suspected swine flu. So much better that I don't go in and give it to my lovely class!

BTW - we both take our PPA time in our own time ifyswim so our class are not taught solely by a TA, ever.

When job-shares are thought through they are great. When they are 'cobbled together' they can be more problematic imo.

I disagree with you policywonk, it is easy to say that people are being over sensitive when in reality, what has been raised is not to do with an individual schools job share not working. It has led to some blanket statements being made and many of which do come across as sexist. Your own comment below demonstrates this along with your only criticism of job sharing initially was that the children may prefer one teacher to another.

'But yes, it does seem to raise some uncomfortable questions about the consequences of lots of flexible working and maternity leave. Primary schools are such hotbeds of childbearing-age women'

TBH, people probably do feel sensitive about this issue, but there has been some accusations made about teachers taking the piss with maternity leave and part time working when they are only taking what they are entitled to. If anything, I think it more a case that perhaps yourself and others, feel a little uneasy about the direction in which the thread went and are keen to maintain your liberal stance, when in fact the things that were said were anything but.

I am really pleased that so many people joined the thread to say how well it worked for their children and pointed out the many benefits of job sharing for female teachers.

I agree with Tombliboobs, but to be honest, I am feeling too disheartened to mount a counter argument to yet more accusations. I am pissed off, not defensive. If women don't support other women in the workplace, what hope do we have?

Hear hear!

No. I don't think policywonk's observations are sexist in the least. Issues regarding flexible working and maternity leave are thrown into sharp focus in workplaces where there are lots of women having children. It is not in the best interests of a class to have a change of staffing because the teacher returns from maternity leave just in time to be paid for a holiday. Of course, the best interests of all women in the workplace would take priority over the interests of that class, but it isn't wrong or sexist to acknowledge that there may be disadvantages for other members of staff or for the students.

My DC have both been taught by job sharers and it has been fine.

But in my secondary school department, there is some pretty convoluted timetabling to accomodate part time workers and the students would benefit from a more consistent staffing. Not enough to prevent teachers from working part time, but it isn't ideal at all.

TFM, do you work ft in the secondary school department as a teacher? Timetabling will invariably be affected by pt working arrangements. Have the students complained?

I do. I know that timetabling will always be affected by part time working, of course. I don't think people shouldn't work part time. I would very much like to work part time and were my DH's industry more buoyant I'd be requesting a drop in hours myself. I think the ideal for the students is consistent staffing, but that doesn't outweigh the needs and indeed rights of the staff.

And recruitment and retention of course, and that's a whole other ball game. My school couldn't adopt Morosky's school's position because it wuld end up significantly understaffed in many departments.

Thank you TFM! I was wondering whether I needed to burn my entire socio-political structure right back down the ground...

So. For which other jobs does job-sharing not work? There must be many.

Let's start with gp.

Job-sharing works for gps. Almost every time I see a different gp at the same practice. Does not bother me.

What is your point, pointy?

My point is there are disadvantages and advantages with job-sharing, in any job. There are bound to be.

I find it strange that there seems to be a train of thought here that job share teachers are a Bad Thing.

And is there really an obligation for secondary schools to try to give a member of staff whichever part time hours they prefer? When I went back to work as a job share (not as a teacher), there was a condition that my job was suitable for job-share and that a partner could be found.

Secondary teachers tend not to job share as such. They work a fraction of a timetable. The difficulty comes because lessons for each class are spread out over a week, and staff of course want to work for example three days a week, rather than 15 hours of lessons spread over 5 days. So effectively they end up sharing classes with a number of colleagues. But whereas in primary, classes stay with one teacher (or teacher equivalent ) most of the time, in secondary they might only have 3 hours of science a week. Splitting that can be problematic, for both staff and students.

oh. My secondary friend job-shares.

A Secondary should introduce job share then, if bitty hours don't suit the workplace.

Really? Maybe it's just us? But we have all sorts of teachers on all sorts of different timetables - Senior Leadership Team and people with teaching and learning responsibilities have reduced contact time. Together we add up to the number of hours required to deliver Science.

So all those important people are messing things up too, which is why I don't overly exercised over part-timers.

I think I'm being erroneouly put in the Bad Thing camp, when I've said that I fully intend to go part time as soon as DH's company is on a firmer footing. I'm just saying that pointing out the potential issues doesn't make you a bad feminist or teacher-basher.

well then, senior leadership team are buggering up consistency for the students too.

In fact, since one of dd1's seconday teachers because acting asst head he has missed chunks of lesson time and is most definitely not consistent.

There's a case there for sorting out managers' arrangements before jobn sharers'.

lol - x post

yes, but I think there are issues with all jobs and there are issues with a range of staff - not just job sharers - but this thread is very clumsily pointing the finger at jobsharers.

A disproportionately large number of managers are men, of course

Now SLT missing their timetable lessons pisses me off because they have so bloody few of them in the first place. If I want to go on a course - no! Think of the cover implications. But SLT get cover for meeting timetabled in one of their 10 lessons a week, and that annoys me!