Job share Y1 primary class teacher- impact on children

[Orangepink5]

Just after any thoughts from primary school teachers. My daughter is going into year one and will have two teachers- one for 3 days/week and the other for 2. Any thoughts from any teachers among you whether this is good or bad for the children? I’m worried about the lack of continuity and whether there ends up being one ‘main’ teacher and the other just fills in for the 2 days. Thoughts?

It’s a good idea. It means they’ll both probably be happier and more engaged as opposed to run ragged and stretched very thinly.

Mine had a job share in year 1 and it was fine. Can’t say there were any particular benefits or particular downsides… it was just fine. Both teachers did parents evening etc together.

I'm a parent, not a teacher. DD had this in y3.
It worked well. Each of the 2 teachers had different strong points and I feel that the kids really benefited from their complementary skills and qualities.

Yeah I reckon it’s a good idea too. Less exhausted teacher!

No issue, I used to job share y2 with my senco work taking the other 2 days. I oversaw the planning and did the majority of assessment and report writing. We both attended parents evenings.

At a time when teachers are leaving the profession in droves, in large part due to excessive workload, I'd be grateful that your DC has any permanently employed teachers at all.
In terms of impact on your child, it will be fine. The two teachers in question will work hard to ensure the week runs smoothly and will liaise regularly.
When I've job shared, we split out as much of the curriculum that we could so were responsible for our own subjects and those that had to be shared like maths and English, we liaised really closely. Your child will get double benefit of having two not quite so exhausted people working with them.

Dd found it very hard, she's autistic. She also found having 2 different tas each day very difficult, thus resulted in be collecting her regularly

My son has job share teachers (and my daughter also had the same ones a couple of years ago). It works really well. No problems whatsoever. Both teachers are very good and seem to be very much in touch with each other. There have been no issues with continuity.

This would be the same as my experience. 7 year old kids, teachers were week on week off. I was apprehensive at the beginning but it was fine in the end.

I’ve been job share in KS1 since maternity leave. As long as they work closely together for continuity in things like behaviour management and marking (usually very much the case as there will be whole school policies around these things) then I’d say you get the best of both worlds.

I should say it would probably have been better than fine if my daughter hadn’t had 2 teachers who were close to retirement and had quite clearly had enough by that point. Neither were particularly enthusiastic or energetic.

Thanks very much for your replies, very interesting. The teacher doing 2 days a week is the deputy head so might be stretched rather thinly and have other priorities and the other teacher has young children.

It’s interesting because I used to teach sixth form English and I much preferred being the sole teacher for my class- they had nowhere to hide and I feel I got to know them all so well as I had so much contact time with them and was able to chase up missing homework etc the next day rather than leaving it 3 days. I felt I was a better teacher than when I shared the class with another teacher as I felt more responsible when I was the sole teacher. This was pre-kids though so I was much more dedicated to my job than I imagine I would be now!

My daughter had this. Seemed absolutely fine. No better or worse than any other year. Curiously she never seemed to prefer one over the other . And when one was sick the other would fill in which seemed a bonus

My daughter is in Year 4 and has only had one year without a job share. That was the worst year of her education to date. The teacher was tired, stressed, clearly wasn't coping. She's had 3 years of 4/1 split. That does end up being a main teacher plus the other teacher.

As others said be grateful you have 2 qualified teachers in the class! (which actually is quite sad and shows the state that our education is in at the moment).

It is very common in the Primaries local to me to have job shares for both teachers and TAs (if there are TAs)

DS2 had shared teachers in primary. It worked just fine.
He currently has 3 English teachers in secondary. It's not great.

I think there is a massive difference sharing a class that has maybe 5 hours a week, and sharing a class that you are with 25 hours a week. The second still gives you a significant chunk of time to get to know everyone.

All 3 of mine have had a job share year at one point or another throughout primary school. No issues at all. This year, one had a job share between a teacher and the Head teacher and hes loved it.

I think it can work, but I wasn't that impressed when we had a similar arrangement (not least as DC actually had 3 teachers as they had one day a week with a cover teacher for prep time as well). I think that was more due to the individual teachers rather than the actual system (neither seemed to really know my child).

Had this set up in y1 and y2 for both my children. For this age group it worked really well. I couldn't fault all the teachers, the kids were happy. My second child went from non-reader to reading level 4 books in a matter of weeks in yr1

At a time when teachers are leaving the profession in droves, in large part due to excessive workload, I'd be grateful that your DC has any permanently employed teachers at all.

Absolutely!

and the other teacher has young children.

What has that got to do with anything?

Given the primary school teacher shortage, she is lucky! It can be a real bonus if they have different strengths eg literacy and numeracy.

DD had this in Y6. It was fine.

and the other teacher has young children

I don’t think you’re in the right place if you’re suggesting that people with young children aren’t going to be fully committed to their job.

She's 5 or 6. It will be fine. Seriously.

Both my DC have this set up at the moment. It seems to have worked well in both classes. I think there are some positives to it, such as that the teachers may have different methods of explaining things and strengths in different areas. I am not a teacher myself though so not an expert in these things!