Job share. Opinions please

[mrsflux]

I'm a teacher and will probably be job sharing with another teacher - mrs x for arguments sake.
Head has suggested I do mon and fri. Mrs x will do tues - thurs.
I hate that idea but wondered what parents thought.

I think it gives the children much more continuity if they have one teacher at start of week and other at end.

What do you think?
Does anyone know of any mon and fri teachers who make it work?

I think the children will just get used to however it ends up working, but I agree that my inital thought was that it would be better to have one Mon/Tues and one for Wed/Thurs/Fri.
What year group is it? As a parent I would be concerned if it was a job share for reception, while they are settling in, but then my dd is quite sensitive to changes.

"initial" - sorry

My dd has job share teachers in y2. They split it mon,tue and wed with Mrs S and thu, fri with Mrs N.
For my dd it has worked very well, there seems to be lots of communication and I think this is helped by Mrs N working in school but in another class early in the week.
I would have thought the same sort of split would have been better all round tbh.

I teach secondary and have done Monday Friday as a job share. I quite liked it as it meant I was doing 'consecutive days' as far as passing planners etc was concerned but had a weekend between to plan work/mark books etc. My job share person however didn't enjoy doing 3 consecutive days so only did it for 1 year. I don't see why it wouldn't work at primary and can't see why it would affect the children's progress. I think they get used to whatever they get each year.

Have to admit have only come across primary job shares of Monday to Wednesday and Thursday to Friday.

I have shared a class with a colleague but each of us had additional management responsibilities i.e. assistant head and SENCo so when one of us was teaching, the other was usually in school somewhere.

We shared a particularly challenging Y5 class (the teacher who'd been allocated them resigned on the spot) in an already challenging school. It was felt that the class would benefit from two strong teachers sharing the week and they did.

However, the week was split so that I taught Mondays, Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons whilst my partner teacher taught for the rest of the week. It sounds like an odd split but it worked for us and for the children. We made sure that from the outset both the children and their parents knew who would be teaching which sessions in addition to covering one another when necessary e.g. statement reviews.

I think continuity is a lot about communication and planning. My partner teacher and I had worked together previously, planned together and had very similar style so sharing a class was straightforward and we each picked up where the other left off. However, if you and your partner teacher are going to be teaching different blocks/units in numeracy and literacy it may feel a bit weird for the children to be doing block A2 on a Friday, have 2 days off school then again on Monday whereas block D2 might be covered in 3 consecutive days. This will probably be fine for children who are making good progress but for those who need more support it might be asking too much to chop and change topics in addition to teachers - I'd recommend not worrying about the days themselves but ensuring that the job-share will facilitate consistency of delivery.

The children adjust regardless.

We had an open plan Reception class with 2 classess of 30. Both classes, had 2 job sharing teachers, one class a full time NN, the other had 2 job sharers that did am/pm split!!!!! So in an average week, the children had 7 main staff plus any students & volunteers. Probably an extreme case but it was just for 2 terms, due to retirements & Maternity leave.

I currently work Monday & Friday but I am doing PPA & have only just returned to work. When I job shared before this Mat Leave, I did Mon-Weds am, my partner did all day weds so we had a crossover time for planning/discussing concerns/chns progress etc.

I personally wouldnt like to job share Mon & Fri. I have found already that I don't have the flexability that I had before - going away for long weekends to visit family etc (my DC are under 3). On the plus side, not getting up & going to work on consecutive days is actually quite nice and "keeping up" with events is much easier.

Is there a reason why your partner & head are so keen for that arrangement? (I am sceptical because my head has a tendency to give in to his favourite teachers demands regardless of the effects on everyone else)

"Is there a reason why your partner & head are so keen for that arrangement? (I am sceptical because my head has a tendency to give in to his favourite teachers demands regardless of the effects on everyone else)"

that is exactly what I'm thinking!