Multiple teachers for same subject

[Nightwing]

DS is going into year 9 in September, his school take GCSEs over three years.
I’ve just received his timetable for September. DS has 2 science teachers, 3 English teachers, 2 Maths teachers and 2 for one of his humanities subjects.

This seems like a lot of different teachers to me. I have older DDs and on perhaps one or two GCSE subjects they had different teachers but not to this amount.

Is this normal for secondary?

Yes: I would love not to have split classes but it often can’t be helped.

Ds1 is just finishing yr13 and Ds2 is just finishing yr10, they had 3 science teachers, one for each science and did have 2 teachers for other subjects but never 3.

It is fairly standard due to the number of classes a teacher has and across several year groups plus some have other duties if they are SLT for instance.

I think it can work well especially if they don't gel very well with one teacher. Ds1 excelled at GCSEs and Ds is going the same way.

Same at my son's secondary. 2 for science, 2 for history, 2 for maths. They do study different areas of the subject with the different teachers. For example, in history my son has been studying medicine with one, and World War II with the other.

That's very normal in my kids school, they've often had multiple teachers. Dd is doing A levels and has 6 teachers for the 3 subjects.

Thanks for the reassurance.
I think 3 for English is too many especially because DS is severely dyslexic so needs a lot of help in that area.

I’m also not happy with one of the Maths teachers so the fact there are two is maybe a positive!

2 science teachers can be really positive if they have different specialisms. For DD they did 2 out of the 3 subjects at a time, with one teacher taking each, as they had 10 lessons per fortnight (for combined) it worked out fine.

Are the Maths and English 'standard' timetable, or do they include booster groups? 3 for English sounds a bit much, but again it depends how they teach - eg they might teach Lang and Lit in parallel which might be 'easier' than sharing the teaching of a book.

Part time teachers means that 2 teachers can be needed. If it is a generally good school I'd be tempted to trust it will be OK unless you have evidence to the contrary.

@TeenMinusTests DS has 5 booster lessons (over a two week timetable) with one teacher who doesn’t teach him for anything else.

They will probably split topics, so History for example, might be Modern and Tudors, English literature(perhaps split by text) and language and so on.

So the 3 English teachers are in addition to the booster sessions?
It does sound quite a lot to me. I'd be tempted to contact the HoD and ask how it is going to work, just so I could get a handle on it (DD wouldn't have been able to explain) (but you may think I'm that parent).
As a parent of a DC who needs booster sessions, however I think querying it is not unreasonable.

Multiple science teachers is totally usual, mine had a different science teacher for each science when they took triple.

Two maths teachers also not unusual, ditto English as so many lessons to cover. English is not an issue as they can do different subjects (one can do lit and one lang) or different books. Agree tho re querying effectively four English teachers.

I taught a German GCSE class once with a colleague who was part time, she had them three times a fortnight and I had them twice a fortnight. It worked, fine, we just studied different topics. Also the contrast in our teaching styles was a good thing I think!

I'm a school governor. I can remember our head talking about this and saying something like it wasn't always ideal but due to timetabling issues, it was the only option.

Ds had this for two classes last year, he was in S5 and doing his Scottish Highers.

For French it worked well, one teacher focused on reading and listening, the other on talking and writing.

He also had it for chemistry and it was a nightmare. One teacher did unit 1, the other unit 2 (and both regularly through the year said to the class they didn't like doing it this way). It was like learning two subjects at once, but slower and with the lockdown over Christmas they hadn't finished the content on either unit (when the other single teacher class had completed a full unit) and they gave them two whole unit tests where there were questions they hadn't had time to revise and the whole classes results/target grades were poor compared to the other class that had one teacher focusing on one unit.

He caught up in the end and got his A with lots of extra focus/independent study over Christmas but they were disadvantaged the way they did it and overall his classes grades were lower. Chemistry was previously his favourite subject and he had planned to take to Advanced Higher but last year put him right off it and he has now dropped it.

I think it can be a good thing because you're not stuck with a weaker teacher all the time.

There's also a teacher shortage nationally so if schools needs to offer job shares to retain teachers then that's fine with me as a parent.

At A Level it is usual to have 2 teachers per subject.

At GCSE (apart from sciences) it isn’t usual or recommended, but is increasingly common. It all comes down to timetablimg and school finances.

Lots of students also experience teacher turnover, especially across a 3 year GCSE course. Some could have more than 5 teachers across their GCSE course in just 1 subject.

It is one of the areas where independent schools’ extra funding makes a difference as they have more flexibility for timetabling so you’d expect just 1 teacher per subject at GCSE. Schools doing dual award science might have 2 or 3 and those doing separate sciences would have specialists for each science.

There’s nothing you can really do about it. It’s a feature of funding squeezes. Teachers already teach their max periods and tight timetabling with no slack means the same teacher often cannot be scheduled for all lessons. It results in 2 week timetables and often 2 or 3 teachers, esp in subjects that have more periods such as Maths or English. Add in a couple of part time teachers or SLT who don’t teach many periods and it can be loads of teachers. Teachers will usually split the course according to how many periods they have and take different topics. It works well in some subjects but less so in those that require prior knowledge and more building blocks. There can be advantages if a child doesn’t like/get on with 1 teacher, but also mixed messages about technique etc.

Secondary isn’t like primary…it’s not a job share of 1 class and there probably won’t be much liaising between teachers - those teachers might share 4 or 5 classes or more with another teacher.

It’s a great pity, along with the squeezing out of some of the creative subjects that can’t muster large numbers at options time, and limited options to boost curriculum numbers in certain areas so large classes can be run at the cheaper stage ‘per head’ price, never mind whether those subjects are actually what the students want to do or will give them the best opportunities at the next stage.

Mine had 3 science teachers, 1 per speciality and 1 teacher for everything else. In science I think its better taught with one teacher per speciality.

No. Not my experience at all.
I would be quite concerned about this.

Yes, I understand timetabling can be a nightmare, but they shouldn't be having to have more than one teacher in so many subjects, no.

I would be concerned.

@WombatChocolate I hadn’t even considered that DS may not have the same teachers all the way through his GCSEs so could potentially end up with even more teachers teaching the subjects across the three years.

There really isn’t anything I can do about it except move DS which is looking even more likely after seeing his timetable for next year as I have other concerns too.

Nightwing

Moving has its own complexities.

Timetabling may well mean your DS can't do the same subjects
If they started curriculum in y9 they might have done things in a different order, or be with a different board
If they don't officially start until y10 and your DS swaps some subjects, he may have missed out on 'building blocks' for it in y9.
There may be some movement in the set he is put in for core subjects if they don't get it right first time.
Instead of teacher changes in 2 or 3 subjects he will have them in 9 subjects.
He'll be settling in, finding his place which might hinder learning.
There is no guarantee the new school won't have multiple teachers for some subjects anyway.

That said, your other concerns may well outweigh this.

It can work well particularly when there is a 'natural' break so as different sciences.

Some children do better with a particular teacher so it can be used to inform timetabling for the next year.

It can also be one teacher 'teaching' and another 'delivering' - I've done this, so lesson 1 taught by specialist, lesson 2 planned by specialist, delivered by less experienced teacher on NQT.

I had separate teachers for each of the 3 sciences from when Y8 - science teachers generally have a science degree in 1 of the 3 (or an allied subject eg medicine or vet) and a physics specialist might well be have done no more than GCSE Biology while a Chemistry or Biology specialist might just have GCSE Physics...

For maths they split topics at A-level into preferred areas - one teacher focussed on statistics, one on mechanics and they split the "core" side of things.

It is entirely usual to have 2 teachers at A Level and to have different teachers for Biology, Chemistry and Physics at either GCSEor lower down the school.

It is not usual or ideal to have 2 for Maths GCSE or for most subjects at this level. However, it is increasingly common.

My daughter in year 9 has 3 maths teachers. It is not helping at all. I understand it for science (where there are 3 sciences) or English (where there is the literature and language split) but not for maths.

There's a national shortage of maths teachers, so it's likely to be to help with timetabling or to protect classes in case a teacher leaves and can't be replaced straight away.