Multiple teachers

[Whyisitsodifficult]

My Dd's teacher is leaving at the end of term. We have been told it would prove difficult to replace this teacher in the middle of a school year. Therefore they have decided to give us four different teachers that already work at the school! Some doing split days, some just afternoons. The most regular one will be doing two days. How can this possibly be effective? Anyone have any experience of this? Year 3 by the way.

Yes year 3. 32 kids in a poky classroom! How can four teachers communicate daily about that many children? Would there be any reason for a school not to advertise for a replacement?

My DS goes to a big state primary with mixed abilities and they change teachers for different subjects - DS has a form teacher, and different teachers for maths, phonics/spelling/literacy, PE and science. It works really really well & the kids seem to like it. He's in year 2, they also did it in yr 1.

If they can use teachers they already have then they will save thousands over the next few months.

I thought you were going to complain about having 2 teachers (which is a set up I quite like), but 4 sounds crazy.

I wondered if it was a cost cutting exercise. Why though? If this teacher wasn't leaving they would have to pay the wage. Aren't they duty bound to find a replacement? I'm not very up on the workings of schools!

Dreadful but that's happened at our school because of difficulties in replacing staff, same with long-term absences.
I think the most important thing is for the teachers to work together to ensure consistency for the children and to have a key contact person for the parents (perhaps a deputy head or something) to co-ordinate.
Good communication is key. If it's organised well it could work -but certainly far from ideal.

Hmmm good communication is not a strong point of this school! Just seems so wrong and ill thought out.

I feel your pain. A similar thing is happening with ds1 yr 4. His teacher from last term hasn't left, but is now teaching the year 5 class of the teacher that has left. This leaves ds1's class with a TA for the most part and a mix of teachers that liaise with her. We are assured that they will try to find a teacher ASAP, but in reality how quickly can that happen?

There is, in many areas of the country, a shortage of primary teachers. We didn't find anyone last time we had a vacancy and there is even a shortage of supply teachers. It will only get worse!

Try
disidealist.wordpress.com/2014/12/31/269/

for some ideas on why it might be harder than you think to find a teacher for a vacancy!

I agree with spanieleyes, depending on where the school is they may just know that they will not get any good applications.

At my last school (in the SE) we pretty much continually ran advertisements and very rarely got any good applicants. We were reduced to going to recruitment fairs for teachers trained abroad wanting to do a year or two in the UK. It was heart in mouth before every September as to whether we would be fully staffed.

DD1's teacher left at Christmas with no prior warning (other than being signed off "sick" for December). They have a new teacher. She has already told DD1 that she needs a different coat as 1. It isn't the right colour (uniform list says plain dark colour -it is purple and quite dark) 2. It isn't waterproof (was sold as shower proof, uniform list does not state it must be waterproof)

I am teaching DD1 that the correct response to her teacher is "if you are not happy about something, mummy says please speak to her" (I.e. Do not send stupid messages with my 7 yo). Incidentally, I very rarely pick up, so speaking to me requires a telephone call!

I am also led to believe that this teacher now has 2 children who gave been admitted to the school, in both cases putting the class size above 30.

Yes, how can there be 4 teachers with that much slack in their timetables? They must each be having a whole day a week of non-contact time at the moment.
I know people are saying that other children have different teachers for different subjects but this is not the same. They will have 4 teachers for maths, 4 teachers for literacy 4 teachers for phonics etc. As a parent I definitely wouldn't be happy about it. I'm surprised that they can't get a short-term replacement but I suppose it depends on the area. We don't seem to have trouble recruiting here.

It's better to have 4 teachers that know the school and the children already than a string of different supply teachers tbh.

But I would guess it's a good way of saving money for the summer term as it's not that hard to advertise for a summer term start and they should get some applicants. The issue may also be though that they can't find a candidate who is suitable.

Maybe they had some part-timers who have agreed to do some extra hours for a term.

I wouldn't be happy about it either but I would take it over a supply teacher with a very obvious drink problem or who spoke very broken English (both of whom turned up at my last school).

Similar happened to my DD last year in year 2.

Teacher went off long-term sick at Christmas. Long term supply hired - meant to cover rest of school year, but left at Easter. Summer term covered internally by a variety of teachers, main one did 2.5 days/week.

TBH, while it wasn't a complete disaster, DD felt very unsettled and didn't much enjoy it. We had tears at home, although feedback from school was that there was no problem.

We have a similar situation. Year 5 in a grammar school area, NQT quit at xmas after 1 term, class officially being taught by HT and a Mat leave returner, but in reality he has so far had 4 different teachers in 10 days including some supply staff. All other local primaries full for his year group so no option to change school.