3 class teachers for year 5 children

[Mary1935]

Hi am wanting opinion of this situation and what you would do.
My son is going to year 5 - we were told his teacher was Mrs A - however the children have come out and told us Mrs A is part time and will teach them three days each week. They will have another teacher for the other two days Teacher B
. In January a teacher C is expected back from maternity leave - she’s does not need to tell them yet if she will be back. However they have made an assumption she will be and this teacher will then take over from Teacher B.
My son is very happy at the school and is making good progress.
We spoke to the school today and they have offered to move him into another class which will mean he will actually keep his current teacher who he likes.
I’m concerned about his friends in his current class and keeping stability for him.. Also to add I split up with his Dad last August and he appears to have coped well with this.
Thank you.

I like a job share class. They often plan and deliver lessons in the subjects they are better at and they aren't knackered.

The children get used to the different expectations of different teachers.

The third teacher is just speculation so there's no point in worrying about that.

I wouldn’t be concerned about what you have described.

I had almost identical situation with ds in year R, and he doesn't usually cope with change well.
However it worked very well, they had quite a long period of hand over and he adored the teacher C, who never had quite gelled with dd2 when she had her, and it was lovely to see that ds got on so well with her.

I think it sounds fine, I'd stick with it

I don’t really understand the problem. Job shares are fine-all my kids have had them.

They haven’t got three teachers at once; they’ve got a jobshare, one of which will be replaced by the teacher currently on maternity leave.

Im surprised they've offered to move a child due to jobshare worries. If they moved everyone who wanted to change teacher it would be chaos!

Teacher is exhausting at the moment so jobshares can have more emergy!

I suspect you have a lot of job sharing teachers replying to this thread. My daughter has had two job share years (one with a maternity returner thrown in for good measure) and I think it affected her learning. I'm lucky she is top set for everything anyhow but I think her attainment could have been greater and I certainly felt some balls were dropped.

No point complaining though (and I never complained) as nothing will change - it's within all of the staffs legal right and it's up to the headteacher how the classes are shared out. For what it's worth most parents I spoke to were quietly annoyed about it.

So it's just a job share really. We have quite a lot of job shares at our primary school. In general the teachers get on great, they each have their own strengths so tend to teach what they are most interested in, it works very well. It also means if one goes sick or needs an emergency day off, the other one generally provides the cover which is good for class continuity and much better than a random supply teacher.
You just have one extra teacher, for 2 days a week, for a term. I certainly wouldn't be asking to move classes because of it.

My eldest ended up with 10 teachers over the course of the year when in year 4, due to recruitment difficulties, now that was something to complain about.

This is quite usual isn't it? My DCs have been in classes with part time teachers a lot over their time at primary and it was never an issue.

In year 5 it's a good introduction to having different teachers at secondary, no bad thing imo

My DD has what would seem a very disrupted year in year 6. Teacher A was supposed to have the class till she left at Christmas and then teacher B would take over.
But teacher A suddenly left three days before the start of term in September. Teacher C ( had retired in July) came back and covered Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Teacher D covered Tuesdays and teacher E covered Friday.
DD had been through quite a traumatic time my marriage broke down, her father was arrested when she was with him and then he choose to take out his frustrations at his conviction on her resulting in contact being stopped.
It was in fact her very best year in junior school all of the teachers worked really hard to make the complex job share work.

If it’s same every week then it shouldn’t be an issue

Hi I’ve discover the part time teacher for the 2 day role is actually a Teaching Assistant. Is this acceptable. It doesn’t seem it but what can we do?

I imagine its a hlta (higher level) who are qualified to take classes but usually the work set is overseen by a teacher.

In our school each head of year has a day away from class a week and the day is taken by a hlta. Ita shockingly normal (in the old days you didnt use to be able to leave kids without a qualified teacher)

If its just cover for until the other teacher takes over they may well decide its better for the children to have a familiar hlta than risk a supply staff.

It really is quite normal and common practice in schools. Unless you change the education system and its funding you wont make much difference!

It sounda like youve already moved your son so I wouldnt worry.

4 DC, at least 5 job share years. Not a problem at all. Much worse is a weak teacher 5 days a week. Have had a couple of those.

(to a pp - I'm not a job sharing teacher!)

Sounds like they were unable to cover the maternity any other way, and since the woman doesn’t have to state her intentions about coming back they have to make do until they know wha is what!

My DD has had 2 job shares Y1 and Y3. The first one was split 4 days and 1 day and I hardly noticed any difference to the main teacher being full time. The Y3 one was one teacher 3 days and one 2 days. There was a joint email address for them and they both came to parents evening. They were a good team and I thought was better than one teacher as you get benefit of two viewpoints.

I think it’s reasonable to ask about the HTLA and how the lessons will be set etc but I think it can work well. I wouldn’t worry about the maternity leave teacher coming back I’m sure they will bring her up to speed before she returns.

Hi thanks all I’m feeling more reassured now so will relax and will keep him in the same class. Best wishes and to all the teacher “enjoy your much needed break.”