Does your state primary have specialist staff

[AChickenCalledKorma]

Arising out of a discussion at a committee I am on at school, I'm curious to know what is "normal" in terms of specialist staff at a state primary. If your child is at a state primary, does it have specialist teachers? And if so, in what subject? E.g. languages, PE, music etc. I have the impression that ours is reasonably well resourced in this respect, but am not sure what is "normal".

P.E, music and art. There also an instrumental teacher but we pay for that.

Same as BarbarianMum - the specialists don't have a class. They are extra teachers and I'm guessing the reason it works is because it's a fairly large school with a big budget. Although my daughter (who is in year 5) is taught maths by one of the year 6 class teachers, so they do also seem to have an arrangement whereby class teachers are not necessarily only with their own class all day. Every year group is streamed by ability, so the children are used to going to different classes for different subjects - normally within their year group, but not always.

In my previous school, my PPA cover was taught by a music specialist and a PE specialist. Excellent for me- two subjects I am not very good at don't really enjoy teaching, and no planning to do. They also did the reports for their subjects, and the children were out of the classroom so I could do displays/ tidy up the chaos.

I did a teaching practice in a school where all KS2 staff had Thursday afternoon off and went home! They hired a company to teach art and music, but they weren't qualified teachers and their behaviour management was dismal, so Friday mornings were spent with the class teacher being handed a wad of notes about the appalling behaviour. As a student teacher, I frequently got roped into covering if someone was absent.

Dd's school has a (enthusiastic to the extreme) music teacher, PE teacher for ks2 and a RE teacher who seems a bit crap but she is booked in for cover rather than a permanent member of staff

DS's school (yr2) have a specialist teacher for PE and they also have a physiotherapist for kids that need it (DD aged 4 and in the nursery attached to the school has several sessions a week with her).

Don't know what they have for KS2 though....

mrz - is the curriculum timetabled like a sec school? Do you have a number of English/maths (etc) specialists so you can run the same subjects at the same time? Is this normal procedure where you are? Do you advertise for specialist teachers rather than 'primary' teachers?

Sorry for questions - I think it's a really interesting idea.

Our school has nothing.

Not quite like a secondary school mumblesmum as in the afternoon we mainly teach "topics" rather than separate subjects although science is taught at this time by a teacher who is only contacted for this subject.
We employ "primary teachers" who have a specialist subject knowledge/interest

They have specialists for PE, music and languages (French and German). The language specialists come over from a local secondary school though, so I don't think they're officially their teachers though.

So, if I were working in Y5, I might choose to do literacy and my colleague would therefore do maths. So I'd teach lit every morning to each class and my colleague would do the same with maths. Then we'd both teach foundation subjects to our own classes in the afternoon (?)

OR... do you teach across year groups? or ability group across year groups?

So, if I were working in Y5, I might choose to do literacy and my colleague would therefore do maths. So I'd teach lit every morning to each class and my colleague would do the same with maths. yes
Then we'd both teach foundation subjects to our own classes in the afternoon (?)
no- children still move to staff depending on the focus of the lessons
ability group across year groups no we don't ability group

So, do you only teach, for example, maths, to different year groups? How do topics work? And is your science specialist a science graduate? I am a HOD in a secondary school with a significant intake of students with poor literacy. We toyed with the idea recently of employing a KS2/3 trained science teacher, but were put off by the lack of in depth science understanding. Now, if we could find an actual science specialist, we'd be thrilled.

We actually with the Durham university for science in upper KS2

How do you mean?

Graduate students and staff work in the school with our pupils

alongside our science teacher

There are science specialist primary teachers around. Either having done degree then pgce or like I did a ba(ed)qts (science degree alongside teacher training).

I am particularly interested in primary secondary science transition right now, so I may ask questions...

The teachers we saw had the science specialism, but none were completely sound on the science we asked them to teach. We are still looking.

Sounds very good mrz. I am jealous.

We had specialist Greek teachers from Greece, paid for by the government there hence a massive drop this year - grateful that we still get what we do although I'm wondering if the funding has changed and the school is paying them directly. I have to admit I hadn't even thought about it before today so thanks for that. The shortfall in the language hours is made up with a specialist teacher doing Greek history and culture (which I actually prefer - more rounded)

Apart from that, we have a specialist Music teacher, a part-time PE co-ordinator plus the school buys in specific PE lessons with outside teachers. All other subjects are co-ordinated by Class Teachers with an interest or qualification in that particular area.

We were in fact the only primary school invited to contribute to a science fairs they organised.
The university's involvement happened because they came to look at what we were already doing and they were impressed.

Impressive. I on the other hand did a transition visit to one of our feeder primaries and was told by the teacher that year 6 don't do Science until after the SATs. Which is why I am particularly keen for us to work together.

He must have been exagerrating surely? Primaries would still do Science? My son is in year 6, and he does...

Or even exaggerating...

I hope he wasn't serious!
We are also members of www.sciencelearningcentres.org.uk/centres/north-east/kit-club

We have lots of specialist teachers at upper ks2, but we're in three tier system, so they move to middle school for years 5&6.

I'm the science technician, all year 5&6 pupils have at least one science lesson in a proper lab timetabled each week (as well as 2 other lessons, normally in their classroom).