Job Share Teacher in 1st year....is this a good idea?

[nearlychrimbo]

My dd starts in Jan and have just found out that her current teacher is leaving at Xmas.

She will have 2 teachers from Jan 2 and 3 times a week.

Can this work?

This happens at our school. I don't think it's a problem. My DD has one teacher but the other class in her year has two. It seems to work okay.

But, even in my DD's class there are more teachers who pop in and out to do certain subjects/tests. I think this is good because DD gets to know a wide range of teachers and then when she moves on to the next year she already knows her new teacher.

umm never looked at it like that

In theory it can work but we had this situation in Reception and I wasn't that happy with the setup. If you have a child that doesn't start until January (ds was also a January intake) and you have part time teachers I don't feel that there is sufficient time for them to get to know the child. Communication is also key and if these teachers are also new (again we had the same situation) it is going to take them a while to settle in and work as a partnership. Ds's school report was written by one teacher and the parent consultation was with the other half of the job share, they both contradicted each other and I had no idea how ds was really doing.

Ds is now in Year 1 with one teacher and I am so pleased with his progress, we had the parent consultation meeting just before October half term and I really felt that the teacher had got to know ds very well in such a short time and came away feeling very confident.

yes these are my concerns.

My dd starts in Jan (joins starters from Sept) how long will she stay in reception for - will she move next Sept to year 1??? Sorry to sound thick - but this is all new

I work as part of a job share with a Reception / year 1 class. I think it has pros and cons. You get the expertise and talents of 2 teachers, and they tend to have more energy because they are not working full time. But sometimes information gets missed, however carefully you try to communicate. And it only works if the 2 teachers get on and support each other.
On the whole I think it is a good thing. But frankly, you don't have the choice - this is what the school has done, and your opinion is not really being sought! I would advise being as positive about it as you can, and if there is something really important you need the teachers to know, tell both of them!

woah - great advice youre making me feel better about this situ by the minute all of you. My DD is very social and seems to love school rather than the teacher also like someone else says there are assistants, helpers allsorts in and out the classroom

Presumably, she can choose to send her child to another school where this is no jobshare.

Can you talk to parents of kids who have already started and ask them how well it works?

"frankly, you don't have a choice."
"Your opinion is not being sought"

Jeez, if my kids' school said thos words to me, I think they'd find we weren't going to be friends.

What about working in partnership with parents?

Im sure it will be fine I dont want to take her out and disrupt before giving it ago...just all very unsettling for us parents I think rather than the kids!!!

I may go and see the head prior to Christmas and hopefully he will reassure me

Athene, your school is not going to say those words to you (I hope!), but it's the truth - the way the school employs teachers is their decision and you can't change it. What they would probably do is tell you the advantages of job shares, and then prove to you that it works. What I was trying to express is that you cannot change the situation, but you can be as positive as possible. And the OP seemed to understand that and feel reassured.

I hate to point this out, but there will be a 3rd person also 'teaching' your child every week - a Teaching Assistant who will cover both of the job sharers P&P time (they are both entitled to this time off every week). So, not just 2 teachers, but 3 different members of staff.............

I have the same issue with my daughter's school. Essentially, a TA teaches the class (on her own) for a minimum of a day per week (often more!) Unfortunately, in the case of her class, on one week she had 5 different members of staff covering her class.

Also, beware the school which ensures that the teacher opens the door to the children (and parents) in the morning, and then quickly makes an exit out of the classroom once the doors are closed to the parents - because the Teaching Assistant is actually their teacher for the day.

I didn't actually believe that this was happening until one day when I was hunting through the lost property along the corridor from my daughter's classroom and saw the teacher making her rapid exit! My daughter had been telling me about it for weeks: "No, I didn't tell my teacher because she wasn't there, Mrs XXXX teaches us" - it went on for weeks and weeks!

Unfortunately, schools won't go out of their way to explain the difference between a TA and a Teacher.

Not all schools use TAs to cover planning time. A lot of them have a teacher just for cover. TAs used for cover are supposed to have a higher level of training. They can be used for supply cover as well.

A lot of job shares do work well, especially if the teachers have similar teaching styles and the same approach to behavior and classroom organisation. I job share in a year 2 class and unfortunately it doesn't work due to the other teacher being just plain crap at her job! Then again if she had a class full time it would be even worse for the poor children so its better for them that they get to have me half the week

Personally I do think it is a negative thing, the continuity of one teacher (plus TA) full time is far better for the children then 2 teachers. If I were thinking of teaching then I would expect to work Mon-Fri, I don't think it's a job that can be effectively job shared.

My dd is in yr one also and has 1 teacher. This teacher is away every Thur on a training course so they have 2 cover teachers who alternate. If the teacher is ill thye have another different one. So far since September they hae had 4 different teachers. It's unsettling and unproductive - the cover teachers have no idea of the children names, their abilities or the work they are currently doing, so they do random topics for a day.

yes hando, but the OP isnt going to be in this situation is she, both the job share etachers will gte to know her child well and will plan to her needs.

I job share in a recption class and honestly it does work well. I have jobshared for 4 years and with my current partner it works brilliantly. We get on well, think in the same way and both pull our weight, infact more than our wieght so I think the children get a good deal out of the situation.

i should reiterate what i mean bout my current partner. My 2 previous jobshare were in one case a member of senior managament who simply did not have the time or energy to do her part of the job and one worked full time but between 2 job shares so again, didnt have the time or energy to fulfill her part of the bargain.

Currently we both work part time, cover each others course days, sick days etc whenever possible.

For the poster who says her childs class is ttaught everyday by a TA, that is unacceptable and you shoudl complain. Also TA's should not be covering lessons unless they are higher level TA's and even for a full time teacher PPA time is about an afternoon a week, so I dont know why a TA would be taking a class for 1 full day a week.

Actually, there may not be 3 people teaching the class - my job share partner and I cover each other's PPA time. Another advantage!

My son had a jobshare for Reception. The team of 3 worked really well together and it was a great year. I think it really helped that one of them was very experienced and the less experienced teacher was on site all week so communication could be constant.
Teaching Reception is pretty hardwork and the second teacher brought a fresh end to the week.
Sometimes when a teacher was away their jobsharer could cover so they had very few supply teacher days.
My initial reaction was 'eeeek' but actually it worked really well for us.

Gingernutlover

I was surprised that the TA was taking the class for a day per week. I had expected that as it was a job share they would work it to ensure that any P&P time was covered between them (the two teachers).

Apparently, the TA also has an assistant - so formalised is her role teaching the class. All I know is that neither can spell or add up - as they mark work too! On two occasions they've actually corrected my daughter's work with incorrect spellings (when her spellings were initially correct). The whole thing is ridiculous.

DS2 has two teachers. As a result, he doesn't have the stream of supply teachers that DD seems to encounter, as if one of his teachers is unable to teach the class, the other is called in. They did parent consultations together, so we got a comprehensive view of his abilities and achievement.

DD has 2 teachers....one works three days and one works 2.

They cover for each other when necessary, so I find it preferable to having one teacher and a constant stream of supply teachers covering when necessary.

Last year (YR 2) DS2 shared two teachers who were full time in the school and were both very experiened. It worked really well. The two teachers split the work load so one of them always took, say, Maths and the other always took English.

However, in YR1 he had one teacher but she was away a lot with a repeated illness and he had a series of temporary teachers and it did not work well at all. His teacher and the temporary teachers were not very experienced and he also had part of his teaching from TAs. He never knew who his teacher was or who was going to walk through the door the next morning.

The important thing is having a stable regular teacher for a given subject who can get to know the child and nothing gets missed.

many thanks for all your comments its going to be "suck it and see" I suppose.

My son's reception teachers job share and it has been fine so far. But they're both very experienced and have been teaching for 20+ years each.

It has a lot of advantages-as people have already mentioned. They shouldn't need a 3rd for PPA time (not that TAs should be used for that IMO). If one is ill the other is likely to be able to do a swap and cover, rather than get a supply teacher. It all depends on the job share partners and how well they get on, and cooperate, and whether they have similar teaching styles. I have done it in the past with year 2 and it worked well, but we worked closely together and I spent a whole day in observing her before I took it on so that I could fit in and be consistent. I can think of lots of teachers that I couldn't work with, however tempting the job!
You will have to 'suck it and see' but bear in mind it could be much better to have 2 enthusiatic teachers, with plenty of energy, than one tired, frazzled one! I think that it will be become much more common as the teacher's workload gets heavier.