As a parent, what would you honestly think if your child's primary teacher said they were going job share?

[Caz10]

I always thought I was going back FT but now it looks like PT may be an option...due to various things like long term sick, NQTs etc our school staff has been a bit unstable for a few years - I feel guilty in adding to that and I got the impression it wasn't popular with the parents when it was announced I was pg. I know it shouldn't be my concern, but it is a worry to me...if your child's teacher changed to a job-share set up, what would you honestly think?

There are loads of jobshare teachers in my school. The Head knows he gets more than 100% from two 50%s!

From a child's point of view, I think it's a good thing. It gives them two different personalities, and if they don't get on too well with one, it's only for half the week!

I actually just to be different wouldn't mind a job share in the slightest in Infants. DD is in the school nursery just now and there are several staff, and at 1 or 2 point through the year the childrens key worker changes so that although they do a lot with all the staff they have been encouraged to have close relationships with all the staff by rotating them so dd is used to it and wouldn't know any different in infants.

On the whole I think the benefits of it being done properly outweigh any negatives. They are getting 2 teachers with different strengths ans 2 teachers who are less frazzled ont he whole.

Both my dcs had 2 teachers who job shared in reception. It was a very positive experience. Personally I would be on my knees if I had to teach 30 4 year olds 5 days a week and I felt the kids were getting a good deal with fresh blood starting on Wednesday afternoons.

I wouldn't mind.

Ok. Kerry I wasn't speaking for all people.

Just that the 25 or so children and their parents in my dd's class seemed fine with it. Because it was regular agreed hours.

But they started off with 3 p/t teachers and I did start a rebellion re that!

My dd is in reception and has a NQT - only timetabled for 70% of the time and covered mainly by TA for 30% of time so I would see a job share by 2 experienced teachers as an improvement.

I think my first reaction would honestly be to worry but doesn't a change in anything in a childs life normally worry a parent? The parents and the kids will both get used to it!

My dd had jobshare teachers when she was 8. Both experienced, they had a changeover meeting on a Wednesday, and worked Thurs. Fri. Mon. Tues. Wed. pattern. Previously we had had experience of teachers with various health problems appearing and disappearing which was more confusing, when subs were factored in. Go for it!

ds in in year 2 and has one teacher in the mornings and one for the afternoons (because the morning teacher is head of the lower school so is doing head-related jobs in the afternoons and the afternoon teacher is PT after having a baby)

works well, no problems, as someone said above (martianbishop?) - two people, two approaches, each has lots of energy, they communicate daily, double the fun basically

DD has had job-share teachers twice at primary school, once in Year 2 and once in Year 5. Both times she liked one of the teachers & not the other - when I asked her what she thought about the job share she said 'Well, it was better than having Mrs J or Mrs B all the time' But from an 18 year old's perspective, she doesn't seem to think her education suffered at all - they were all good teachers, seemed to ensure consistency & it was just a personality thing she didn't like - DD has always preferred straightforward plain-speaking teachers to those who talk down to children.
Even the children in the ASD resource, who need consistency more than most didn't seem to have any more problems if they were in the shared class.

DS was never actually in a shared class, but he was taught Maths in Year 5 by the job-sharers - he said it could be helpful if there was something he wasn't getting with one teacher, the other would often explain it in a different way & give him a different perspective.

My two experiences of job share teachers have been nothing but positive - I think it works really well. Neither teacher gets completely knackered and out of steam by the end of the week, the kids get exposure to different styles of teaching and communication between the job-sharees has always been good. I would actually favour it over one teacher.

I have been part of the same job share for 10 years. We work very closely together and feel our pupils benefit from the different strengths that we both have.

None of the parents we work with have ever had a problem with it. (and they might be more anxious than most as we work with deaf children)

In my experience as a parent it worked ok-ish but seemed a bit disjointed if there was a query or a problem.

Thankfully nothing too pressing cropped up, but on a couple of occasions when I needed to see the teacher/s it became a bit fuzzy.

My dd has been in a shared Year 3 class this year and it has been great. Both teachers are good, though very different in style (one more traditional, one more creative). They complement one another well and seem always to know what the other is up to (they do parents' evenings and things jointly). My dd also sees a different teacher for maths (the other Year 3 teacher) and seems to have specialist teachers for things like ICT.

There is no reason why a job share shouldn't work if properly managed. Kids are perfectly capable of coping with seeing more than one teacher. In fact, dd has got her head around it much better than I have. I am forever telling her to hand in some note or other to Mrs A and being told 'Oh mum... you're so forgetful! Today's Thursday; it's not Mrs A today, it's Mrs B'.

Has happened several times with our DC's and the teachers have been much better than a single teacher. Our area finds it difficult to recruit good teachers because they get paid London weighting a mile up the road so the full timers are those that have been turned down by the outer london boroughs, they are therefore happy to have job sharers who imo have been fantastic (usually stay much longer as well)

In Y1/2 dcs had job sharers - it worked brilliantly because they were both great teachers who communicated well. Children got the best of both of them - also 2 Monday morning and no Friday afternoon type slumps per week! They could swap and both had enough time for other commitments without being resentful (though I'm sure they both worked nearly full time hours!). Worked less well in Y5 - one teacher Mon - Thurs and another on Fri so kids thought Fri didn't matter. Also teaching styles of the 2 teachers didn't really work together.

mine have all had job shared teachers (one does 2 days the other does 3) - it seems to work fine. Small school, teachers keep in close contact, and cover for each other sometimes.

We and dcs seem perfectly happy with it (oldest is in year 2).

Even if you don't have a jobshare, most children in Infants won't be seeing just one adult. There will be learning assistants working with them, and specialist assistants and all sorts.

Yes, children need consistency- but even in a family setting most children can cope with more than one adult .

By the time they got to Yr 3, I felt both my children benefited from having different teachers for different subjects. By this time, they are doing streaming so you end up taught in a group of children at a similar level, not all from your own class. Dd in particular has benefited from having an extremely good and enthusiastic teacher for maths, which is her weakest subject.

And ds was delighted to find that his favourite teacher ever would continue to take the class one day a week after he was supposed to have retired.

I love teacher job shares as a parent. You always get more than the sum of the parts.

DS1 had job share teachers in year 1 (he's now in year 5). From his point of view he didn't mind having two teachers and continued to make good progress in this year.

From my point of view communication between the two of them seemed to be lacking. I found it pointless to approach one teacher about something that the other was responsible for. For example spellings were always given out on a Monday by the teacher who worked Monday & Tuesday and then tested the following Monday. You always had to check if the spellings were in the book by the end of Tuesday and sometimes the odd books were missed, and ask her about them before you left the playground as it was useless asking the other teacher about it the next day as she'd just say 'Mrs X does spellings, you'll have to ask her on Monday' by which time it was too late to learn them!

I also found I had to be ultra-organised in that it was useless telling Mrs X if DS1 needed to be off school for a medical appointment later in the week as the message wouldn't get through to Mrs Y. Even if I wrote it down for them they still didn't get the message so I found myself thinking must tell Mrs Y now, a week in advance, so that she'll know the next time she's in!

In my daughter's bi-lingual school there is de facto job sharing. The main class teacher is French but there is a subsidiary class teacher who is English/American.

What's more, the class composition is different. There are three parallel French classes of up to 30 children, but six or seven English classes of 12 or so children, streamed according to fluency/ability. So the children are not even in the same group all day.

It is entirely unproblematical.

I wouldn't mind teachers job sharing - in fact they can be a very good thing, two teachers keeping an eye on my children's progress.

I would assume it was due to family committments, and I would support that.

I have absolutely no problem with it. And frankly even if I did have a problem with it I would consider that as a working mother I had no basis for my own objections .

Ds' P1 teachers were a job share and they were great. It worked out really well as their different styles complemented each other and i am sure that ds got a lot of value out of it.

One concentrated on numercy and the other on literacy - and then half way through the year they swapped over, just in case some kids would be more receptive to the other teacher's style

The only problem for me as a parent was that we had to get two presents!

Interestingly, ds chose to give the "nicer" present (the same vase, but a different colour) to the (on the face of it) the tougher teacher - but he liked both of them.

My ds2 is in yr1 and has teacher1 mon and tues teacher 2 thurs and fri and the alternate on a wed, I was unsure at first but it works fine and he likes them both.