Year 2 teacher 'jobshare'.

[cowsarescary]

My dc's year 2 teacher has just gone on maternity leave. Her replacement, we now find (there was no announcement) is working three days a week. The other two days will be covered by other teachers within the school - at least two of them, possibly three, one of whom is herself due to go on maternity leave very soon. As yet, we have only sketchy details of which lessons will be taught by whom on the two 'vacant' days: the timetable gives initials for some slots, but not others, which is not reassuring. According to the timetable, however, core subjects such as maths and English (including the weekly testing) and guided reading will be taught on these days.

It is impossible not to feel concern at this: it isn't a jobshare in the accepted sense, it seems to me. The previous teacher did not work on two afternoons a week, but the timetable was arranged so that non-core subjects fell into these slots. I don't see how proper handover / consistency / etc can be ensured, particularly for maths and English. The teaching assistant works (I assume) 5 days, but is new herself.

Does anyone have any experience / views?

Yes we have a similar arrangement currently in my DC yr 2 class due to a teacher reducing hours. We won't have a regular job share and the cover has also included supplies most of last week too. I think it will depend very much on the communication skills of the regular teacher and as we are only a week into this change, it's hard to tell! I'm not convinced so far but hope to be proved otherwise as term progresses. Obviously, like you am concerned as its a SATS year and we also have a new head to boot

That doesn't sound like a very great arrangement IMO.

The lack of communication about your DD's teacher going on maternity leave isn't satisfactory either.

Hopefully someone who knows about the statutory requirements of schools re providing consistency of teachers will come along. I'd want to know what the EA's line on this particular situation is - it might be that they rather than the school are cost-cutting.

'Tis a private school, choco.

Hopefully being private you should have some strong grounds for dissatisfaction - surely they don't want to lose parents over this? Do you still have yr 2 SATS?

Yes. We do as well. In YR the teacher had a baby and went on paternity leave and then part-time. It was quite scary for the parents. The children got to know a lot of the KS1 and KS2 teachers before the routine set in I have to say. In the end it did work out. But there was a time, when they must have roped in someone from a local church, as in the middle of October DS kept going on about Jesus dying on the cross.

In retrospect it is ok, if you have the part-time arrangement set up in advance. In our case they had to quickly find new YR teacher in the middle of term for just part-time, and the transition period was the worst. Once they found someone willing to take over those days, it was fine.

In Y1 the teachers in both classes went on maternity leave, but thankfully their new teachers are full-time.