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?

Do you know anybody who works part time? Bloody hell I can't fathom that this is even a real question. Teachers agree and work on a consistent approach to ensure support for the children is the same all week. It's really, really odd to think anything else. Teachers are highly qualified professionals who know what they are doing!!

As in all jobs a mixture of ages and experiences make for a stronger team. Having children has made me a far more empathic teacher and colleague but I probably spent more time on some things and went on more residentials pre kids. I mean we could go back to victorian times and say women have to give up teaching when they marry or have children but that would make the current recruitment and retention crisis a LOT worse.

My kid had a job share in year 1 and it worked really well. They were both good teachers.

It got "derailed" by people responding to your own posts.

If you don't want people to respond to your opinions, don't post them.

I’m sorry but your kid is in y1. Nothing important happens in year one so it’s not like GCSEs or even year 5/6. They’ll be fine

Not the point of the thread, but actually Year 1 is an incredibly important year. Within primary, the year group most affected by Covid are current year 3 who missed the last term of reception and middle term of year 1. These are the years when the foundations are laid: phonics, reading, number, basic punctuation etc. The government phonics check is in year 1 and ofsted focus a lot on the year group due to the emphasis on phonics and establishing reading.
@TableTops23 quite an ignorant and condescending view. Sick of people not appreciating the importance of Early Years and KS1 education and the dismissive view of the professionals who work with these age groups.

I’m not being dismissive of their work - how DARE you. Everything which you mentioned can be covered at a later period in addition to what they would be learning then. Covid affected everyone - those who are currently in year 3 would not be the most affected at all - do you remember what happened when you were in year 1? No - of course not.

@TableTops23
The tone of your post WAS dismissive.
The pace of the primary curriculum does not allow for the teaching of year 1 content alongside new material and you can't learn new stuff without the basics in place.
It's not about remembering what you learned in Year 1 (actually I do remember a fair bit) but about having the foundations firmly in place to facilitate further learning.
Of the pupils I tutor, the majority are current year 3 with gaps in phonics, sentence structure and number who are struggling to access the year 3 curriculum as they haven't got these basics in place.
I've also taught for over 30 years across the whole primary range and unequivocally say that the most noticeable strides in learning are made in reception, years 1 and 6.

You think flexible working should be available for teachers but are questioning job shares in a primary school?

How exactly do you think part time teaching is going to work in a primary school? We're not on a timetable with specific classes like in a secondary school!

Also I teach full time in Year 1 with 2 kids - I don't do less of a job because of this!!

So incredibly ignorant!!! Year 1 is currently a crucial year for both the government and Ofsted. The expectation is that most children can read by the end of year 1. If your child has a crap year in Year 1 (or poor parenting that year because it's not important ) then your child will be behind going into Year 2. Nobody wants their child to be behind from their first year or two in school!

I surely can't be the only person to spot this from OP:

"I’ve worked with poor teachers that have only been identified due to parental input."

What a self-damning statement!

Which is probably why they have opted to job share, so they can have time to focus on their family in the knowledge that they are also able to continue to develop professionally. Win win.

Just as well the parents didn’t “scrutinise “ you too hard then isn’t it?

Absolutely this, I can see the advantages of working full time in my job but part time working still works well with effective team work. Overall the advantages outweigh disadvantages, I’m happier and more focussed on my job during my working hours than I would be otherwise, the staffing is better as I wouldn’t be doing my job anyway if hadn’t been allowed to work part time. My colleagues similarly with being allowed a good work life balance. Plus the better balance allows us to be better parents, spouses, children and friends which no doubt saves society more hassle which eventually filters to the people I care for having a better life and the better outcomes which is what I ultimately do my job for. Plus it would all be very well DC excelling academically but if they end up having to give it up or live a stressed miserable life because they one day don’t have the opportunity to have a good work life balance because of such attitudes then that was all a bit counter productive?

I’m disabled and job share as I cannot work full time. I hope the parents don’t secretly hate it when their child’s class get me as they worry about having job share teachers. Never thought of it until now.

IMO it all depends on the partnership and how good their communication is and how much time they devote to the handover. It’s not as simple as teaching and planning. There’s safe guarding, behaviour management, CPD and keeping up to date etc.