3 teachers job share

[berthabean]

My DD came home yesterday after change over day and we found out she's in a class with 3 teachers job sharing. Now, I've had no problems with job shares over the years with my older children but 3 seems a step too far. What makes it worse in my eyes is they are mixed year groups (3 and 4's) and all the teachers have other commitments. 2 are both deputy heads and 1 is the SENCO. My DD school is a struggling school and a new head started at Easter. From my guessing it is a money saving exercise(1 teacher in the school is leaving and no one else has been employed). I'm really concerned for my DD education.

Two teachers job sharing is great, but I can see your problem with three sharing.

On the positive side, year group mixes can work really well esp if they are in the same key stage

If one teacher is ill it's more likely that they will over each others teaching time than get in a supply teacher

If your child dislikes one teacher then they won't have all day everyday with them

As your child finds school hard, abing the SENCO in her class could really help

I do think that sounds like an arrangement that is more for the school's and teachers' convenience. But the best you can do is to ask for a meeting to explain how it will work, and how they will overcome the challenges. If the teachers are deputy heads, they are presumably experienced and good at their jobs, which is one plus I guess.

I think jobshares can, and mostly do, work well, having been part of one for nearly 15 years now. But even I would question three.

My dd is coming to the end of year 3 and has three form teachers and two different teachers for numeracy and literacy.

I don't think it's been a problem for her, but it has been a problem for some. Her friend has had a dreadful year, in part because of the disruption it causes when classes move around and the time it takes to settle down. Also, teachers teach in different ways which can make it hard for children to switch between the styles.

My ds has had a jobshare (just the two teachers), but one teacher although excellent is also the senco so seemed to be in more meetings than the classroom, resulting in ds having a variety of teacher for those days

Given the choice, I would still go for two or three good teachers rather than one poor one, but it needs to be managed well.

Is it usual for deputy heads and Senco's in primary not to also have a full time classroom role?

Seems odd that these staff members are only in the classroom for 1/2 days a week.

Is it usual for deputy heads and Senco's in primary not to also have a full time classroom role?

Our medium-sized primary has two non-teaching SENCOs, two non-teaching deputy heads and two non-teaching assistant heads.

Lots of people appear to float around not teaching at any one time!

wow - letseatgrandma your school has more non-teaching staff than we have staff! Our school has only 4 classes, the head has to take on some teaching time, usually 0.5 or 1 day per week and the two senior teachers are full time teaching staff too!

The senco in dc school doesn't usually have a class, and only had 2 days in a class this year. It had been acknowledged that it didn't work and now doesn't have a class. Our senco has dealings with a large group of children and I can imagine managing that together with a form group being a lot of work.

wow. I had no idea.

In our (mdeium sized) school (1.5 classes per year) the head teacher is the only staff member not to have a class allocated to them.

find out details first we have 3 teachers sharing in 1 of the 4 classes in our primary and it works very well.

In practice it means we have 1 teacher (Mrs X) who works over all four classes so works in class 1 Tuesday Class 2 Wednesday Class 3 Thursday & Class 4 half of Friday

Class 1 then has 1 full time teacher who is not there Tuesday
Class 2 is a job share between 2 other teachers where 1 does Mon and Tues the other does Thurs and Fri
Class 3 has 1 full time teacher who doesnt work Thursdays in the classs
Class 4 has 1 full time teacher who is not there Friday afternoon

Teacher x works Tues- Friday Friday morning she does 1 2 1 with some students result is 1 teacher who is over all of the years and a constant for the children in all of their schooling there it actually works very well.

In this case Mrs X has specialised in certain subjects (Science and French) so they do these on the days they have her.

Frik that sounds good, apart from if your dc has an ongoing issue with, say, friendships. Having one teacher to monitor the situation is great; having two is doable if they communicate well; put three teachers in and surely that sort of thing gets a lot more difficult.

A job share with two teachers is brilliant if managed well. My DS2 has Mr D on Mon, Tue & Wed. Mr D is the Deputy Head. He then has Mr E on Thurs & Fri. The rest of the week, Mr E covers PPA time for 6 other teachers.

Every parent in the school crosses their fingers that their DC get these teachers at least once when they go through the school, they are the best teachers in the school.

However, a job share between three teachers? I would NOT like that at all, no continuity at all. And unless they are VERY good teachers, I can't see how it can be good for the DC. If my DC had problems in that class, I would be making big noises to the LEA by the October half term.

How would the teachers ALL know about who bullies who, who works together well etc? And I would be very wary of it when ALL 3 teachers had senior roles to take on. Isn't this going to limit the time the SenCo has to work with struggling DC throughout the school? Surely that will affect way more DC's than just the ones in this class?!

IMO, it seems like it is purely for the school's benefit, not the pupils benefit. When was the last time these Deputy Heads or the SenCo actually taught a class?

clinkclink if you notice I say the 4 classes in the school this is a small primary school with only 4 classes.. you can honestly talk with any teacher about your child and it will be known off so not a issue.. I could perhaps see that in a larger school.