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.

yup. Double standards.

Management meetings should all be out of school hours.

Well of course there are. But there are potential problems associated with job shares and we can't just stick out fingers in our ears and yell "la la la" because it's to do with maternty rights and flexible working.

I agree pointy getting a senior member of staff as a teacher is a mixed blessing.

I don't think sticking fingers in ears ever helped anyone. But neither does refusing to consider the ways to make things work better. If you look at the research on flexible working you will see that it is a very effective way to retain your high skilled staff and also improve workforce performance, loyalty and morale. I think that schools that don't consider the long term needs of their workforce are simply going to lose out because increasingly people are not opting to work standard working weeks forever. Men as well as women are taking more childcare responsibilities, caring responsibilities will only increase with an aging population, and the numbers of people who semi-retire (both before and after 65) will only go up. So all workplaces need to figure out how to make that work, and that includes teachers.

Personally I think this thread largely shows that job share works pretty well in schools. So I really don't know where the "For which other jobs does job-sharing not work" comes from, as it's implicit in that statement that job sharing doesn't work in schools.

As for GPs, bear in mind that there is still a shortage, so it would be a very foolish practice that said to a prospective candidate if you can only do x hours we don't want you. Then also at partnership level the GP can choose to work how they wish, as they are part of the decision making process.

Of course timetables, client facing time etc need to be carefully worked out, but that's about the competency of senior management and their admin staff.

with you 100% tombliboobs.

a friend was distraught to be told her school did not consider it possible for her to return on a job-share basis -it meant returning after only 6 months maternity leave (her baby was reflux, LBW, and generally difficult) on the advice of her union - i am sure the school would have shot itself in the foot had she decided to quit, as they would then have hired a new teacher with the standard bedding-in time and all that entails.

Exactly, nooka. Things could work better. Like having secondary job share and not part time biuts and pieces that are hard to timetable.

And when I said "For which other jobs does job-sharing not work" this, I did not mean that js in schools does not work. I meant that, to say it does not work in schools is a fairly ridiculous statement and you may as well say it doesn;t work in any job. There will always be advantages and disadvantages.

You cannot just "encourage job sharers into secondary school education". It's a different ball game. I would not be at all happy for a primary school teacher to be teaching A level classes and I would probably be a crap reception class teacher. (I am a secondary school teacher and teach a lot of sixth form classes.). Besides some primary school teachers have BEds, not BA or BScs. And you have to do different PGCEs when you train as a teacher. So this would not work. To be honest, if I were a primary teacher and I thought a job share would not be in the children's interests, I would go full-time to do my job properly. I think you could also make which years they teach a little bit more flexible (I suspect that reception class teachers could also teach Year 1 or maybe Year 2 very well for example; I think they tend to specialise.) so that they could stop children continuously having jobshare teachers. e.g. if a Year 1 class were taught by job sharers, you would make sure that their Year 2 teacher was FT (and hope she didn't get pregnant!).

That's not what I meant, mess. Obviously that would not be possible.

Secondary teachers should do a proper job share - like primary ones do - and not opt for parts of a timetable, if that is more beneficial to the workplace.

Well yes of course nooka. My point was that if you don't identify possible pitfalls, you can't work out how to overcome them. And people have identified pitfalls on this thread and been shouted down as being sexist.

I think some ocmments have been sexist. And I think some of the problems managing job sharers in schools have been management problems.

I'm really not sure what you mean by 'proper job share' in secondary schools pointydog. How does it work with your friend? What does (s)he teach? Do they have any responsibility?

Plenty of smaller schools need part time specialist teachers as they don't have the classes for a full timer, so I don't think it is necessary for them to job share - for example my mother taught Religious Studies part time for her whole teaching career - granted she never expected to have specified days. Is this what what people are really objecting to - the idea that teachers are demanding particular working patterns?

Part time secondary school teachers are in no way a new thing, so I really think timetablers should be able to cope.

Im not for job share teachers at all - Im afraid if there is a full time post it should have a full time staff member. I dont care if it sounds harsh or old fashioned.

My dd1 had two years of js teachers and her education certainly suffered. Ds 2 has just begun primary and has js teachers and I requested she be moved class, the school has yet to have the decency to get back to me so will be chasing that up.

It may work with experienced teachers who are used to each other and communicate well but the main problem seems to have been that they both have different ways they want things done which confuses children, and also primary aged children should be given consistency and support and the chance to develop a relationship with one main educator which will let them develop a love of learning that stays with them for the rest of their life. Very hard in todays world of job shares and specialist teachers.

Lets leave all that for the secondary, older children who can cope with it and get back to nurturing our babies. Gosh I sound like a terrible hippy - if you only knew me....

This is my first post, sorry if I get in wrong...

You say that jobsharers in primary don't work - what should we do? I have 2 sons under 3 and love my job, need to work but also want to do the best thing for my family.

How should schools function? As a jobsharing teacher who is also a member of SLT, I think all of my roles work for the best of the school. If there was no leadership team, headteachers would make all decisions. But they can't teache full time as they are being heads, so how would they be in touch with how life in a classroom works? I am timetabled SLT time out of class for me to do SLT activities that cannot take place outside of school hours - does that make me an ineffective teacher?

Sorry but makes me mad when I work my little socks to ensure that jobshare works well - we email, have a communication book at school, text, often 'pop' in on days off to see assemblies, help with displays, both do parents' evenings, write half reports and then read and change other half. In other words, there are often 2 of us in school, so as a parent you are getting double the effectiveness, not half.

I think it depends on the teachers. My ds had a job share in y1. It was a really good year. The teachers seemed to ensure consistency. I also think that good communication must be key.

You get good and bad teachers without the job share. The job share means you have a 50/50 chance. Also - if your child does not see eye to eye with one teacher, he may get on well with the other. A year is a long time to spend 100% with a teacher you really do not like!

I think that, whether people like it or not, job shares are going to become more common. Full time teaching, these days, is difficult to combine with a young family.