dd has a teacher job share in yr 2 [sad]

[nigelslaterfan]

I think the schools have to give teachers the option to go part time or they leave.

I know job shares can work of course, but my experience in yr 1 is that it worked very poorly. The kids seemed really confused by it. Maybe it's easier when they're older or if they had the imagination to at least put a very strong LSA in there for the full week.

The teacher we have for three days is very able and I don't know about the 2 sayer.

I wonder how often a jobshare works really well in your experience as parent or teacher?

I mean, I wish them well but my experience has been it kind of sucks for the kids.

No child has just one teacher all week in primary, as they are entitled to PPA time away from the classroom. So with a job share there is a third teacher involved also. I cover a lot of PPA time for full and part time teachers in reception and year one in several different schools and, in my experience, children cope very well and it is parents who worry more!

I am a PPA teacher and teach 3 days a week, covering 2 SMT staff, 2 days in one class, 1 day in another. It's brilliant. We work together really well as a team, play to each others strengths, and can get the most appropriate member of staff to deal with a child who might need help. It really works. Our results this year were excellent, each staff member covers their strength area in the curriculum and it really showed in the SATs.

My girls are going into reception in September which is job shared. Has been for years with the same two teachers and really doesn't worry me.

I am a job share and think we do a great job

Job-share does 2 days and I do three. However, she is there 3 days (doing cover on day 3) and on the day we are both there, we have PPA together. We commiuncate brilliantly with each other and with the parents. We both teach maths and english but then teach to our strengths.

You do need a good pairing of teachers who are also excellent at communicating for it to work well.

My daughter had job share teachers in reception, and it never caused any problems. Both teachers were great.

we've never had a job share teacher in our primary school.
but we have consistently had a range of staff throughout the week for the last few years and other than thinking that one of the teachers is a bit of twat (but they truly are. doesn't upset the teaching though) all has been fine.
we have a single teacher again next year but i fully expect that we will actually have a similar number to the 5-6 members of teaching staff they have now

"The kids seemed really confused by it."

Are they confused by having two parents?

Prefer it. Adds abit of variety rather than same old face day in day out. In dds large school by year 3 they are having different teachers for different subjects anyway. Jealous - my primary I had the same dreary old woman for the first 3 years!

Certainly not worth being sad about

Children can and do adapt. They take their lead from adults. Some children cope with shared parenting. Most YR children have school rules and home rules and possibly another care setting's rules. Two teachers on a consistent basis is fine. They probably get better teachers. Part time workers tend to be more focussed than full timers

DD had job-share teachers in Year 1 and they were fantastic - each brought different things.

I was relieved as I work in a job share (not teaching) and think it's fab - I didn't want to be a hypocrite.

The only confusion would be if one of both of the teachers were incompetent, or if tensions between them set up competing classroom cultures.

That's not about the job share, that would be about the specific teacher/s.

Both DSs have had a year with job share teacher.

In BOTH cases it worked well and then half way through the year one of them had to take leave. Once for family illness and once for maternity leave.

In both cases the other teacher just moved up to full time to see the year out, which was much better for the kids than having a completely new supply.

Quite often they will have afternoons with just a TA etc so a job share doesn't really make a difference.

Thanks for all this encouragement, I'm hoping this will work well.