0.4 Part Time Teacher - How will it work?

[MichelleCGoulding]

Hi all,

I'm a Primary Teacher and just changed my role to part-time to better fit in with my children and family commitments. In September I'll be starting a new school with the 0.4 part-time teacher role. I will be teaching 2 days a week on Monday-Tuesday, and my job sharer will be teaching Wednesday-Friday, 3 days.

Wondered if anyone who has been in this situation/ fellow part time teachers could give me a brief overview of how workload will work between us so I'm more familar? Obviously, I am teaching 2 days a week, with the hope that it will not eat into my family duties other days of the week to much.

How much time each week would you say out of my 2 days at School would I need to devote to planning, assessment and marking? I'm set on working evenings when I come home on each of my school days.

Would you say only 1 day unpaid planning a week? Obviously, I'm in the class less than the other teacher so should set boundaries for myself with how much 'work' outside I do. Just a bit worried that i'll end up 'working' outside of school more than I should because I've been used to doing it full-time so need to set new expectations for myself. Wondered what would be expected in my situation?

Stepping down to 0.4 will be positive for my family and myself, hoping this will make work-life balance easier whilst my children are young.

Opinions on how I should split my workload over the week, given I'm in 2 days would be much appreciated - new to the job sharer community.

Thanks,
Michelle G

I worked with my partner and we split the curriculum, so the planning, marking and assessment was done by the same person. We rotated English and Maths every half term. You don’t mention which Year group, or how much planning is expected or in place already, and that varies wildly from school to school. Is your partner new to the school?
Excellent communication between you and your job share will be essential, as will expectations of how books, resources and the classroom are kept.
Good Luck!

If you are teaching two full days then you’re not 0.4 and you should be paid for 10% PPA time on top of this?

In terms of boundaries, figure out how many hours you’ve been working out of school as a full timer, and multiply by 0.4. So maybe work Sunday evening and the evenings of your working days and have everything else work free? It’s really easy as a part timer for work to creep into other days too and you have to be strict.

You should get 1 free ppa in school.

I work a 0.6 job share and we teach separate areas of the curriculum so if we need to take books home to mark etc then the other person doesn't need them. We have done this stage for 3 years now so not much planning and preparation. We tend to stay at school on our days to do marking and preparation so that we don't take work home.

I'd split it so as little handover and book sharing as possible is needed, especially if you and job share are not going to have any overlap time.

For example, you could teach discrete grammar and spelling and non-fiction texts. Partner could teach writing and fiction/ poetry. Keep grammar/ spelling work in a folder so you don't need the writing books.

Maths is a bit trickier to split neatly. You could do place value and calculations across 4 operations each week to get those rock solid, partner could take all the rest (measure, shape, geometry etc).

I’ve been a pt primary teacher for over 10 years!

I’ve always been paid for my ppa time rather than time out of class.

My current job share is in EYFS. We agree the areas of learning/objectives for the week but then do our own planning. We have similar ethos and level of experience so we compliment each other well I think. I work 3 days, and usually “save” one of my days off for planning/school work whilst my own kids are at school.

In other job shares I’ve had, we have shared responsibility for planning specific subjects and preparing all the resources for our subjects.

How will you manage handover?
I find this takes up a great deal of my time! My support staff are also job sharers so the TA cannot pass on any info or messages. We have to do all our communication via email and text. In past job shares, I have had an overlap which makes things a bit easier.

I often find I still end up doing the same amount of directed time as a FT teacher, particularly with parents evenings and meetings. My current school expects both of us to attend whereas my previous schools would alternate the days so only the teacher whose working day it was attended.

With data etc I’ve usually taken it in turns unless the school have arranged for one of us to come in on their day off as paid overtime. Occasionally we’ve split the subjects/areas but I think I prefer doing all or none.

With reports, in my past schools, they’ve always been split 50:50 regardless of hours. However, my current school split by % so 60:40.

I often say I do a FT job on PT hours! But I just couldn’t go back to FT teaching! I’m in awe at all the FT teachers with families.

Oh forgot about books and marking! (As I’ve been in EYFS for a while)

My last school were very strict about taking books home so I’d end up staying very late on a Wednesday to get all the books marked before I left. (supposedly to help us get a good life/work balance but it actually made life more difficult)

The PT staff are usually the last to leave as they are trying to get everything done so they don’t need to take any work home.

The key things that you HAVE to sort out iare:

1. Handover. Shen I job shared, and didn't have PPA togetheer, we used to have a long phone call at the end of 'my' days, and another at the end of my jobshare's days. E-mails are less instrusive, but take longer.

1. PPA. Will each of you have 'paid but at home' PPA, or will you have joint or separate PPA at school? Is it a multi-form entry school (in which case, there is the additional problem of co-ordinating tasks done for the year group across teachers, which we do in PPA), or a single form entry?

1. Subjects. Some subjects are split easily - so you might do all science and Art, your jobshare all Topic and PE. Take care that you manage to split subjects with more marking fairly - when your jobshare has PE, games and Art, and you have Guided Reading and Science, they're getting a much easier deal in marking terms!

1. School policy on Maths and Emnglish. this will critically dictate how you manage these 2 subjects. if you can, try to run 2 separate Maths books, 2 separate english bopoks, and topics / books that each of you cover. However, IME this is now very rare, wit schools wanting classes with jobshare teachers to have the same 'seamless' experience as classes with a full time teacher. So you need to think really carefully about planning and about handover in these two subjects. If you are in a multi form entry school, it is likely that you will be part of a planning rotation with your colleagues. if a single form entry, plot out the weeks of term so that you each have a planning load proportional to your teaching load ... and try to avoid weeks when you plan both Maths and english for 5 days each! I have always found that 2 day / 3 day planning within the same week doesn't work as well as a single person planning through the whole week and the end of week teacher tweaking as needed - but your experience may be different.

1. Reports, Parents' evenings, staff meetings and INSET. You have to be quite careful around these - for example, if staff meeting is always on 'your' day, you end up attending all of them, whereas your partner gets that additional time to mark. Will the school expect both of you to attend all parents' evenings? When is INSET taken, typically?

1. Working at home / in school: With a jobshare, you tend to be marking to a much tighter deadline (I did once work with someone who would stop marking when they had to leave school to pick up their child - even mid book - and would simply abandon the rest...and refused to work at home. Within the 'letter of the law', but irritating nonetheless!). I would therefore anticipate that you will spend 'your' evenings mainly in marking and handover, and then use up 1 further day planning and doing longer term tasks. Be disciplined about this - for example, if you have a small child, place them in nursery or pre-school for an allotted number of hours and work to that as a deadline.

1. E-mail. You will tend to get all school email regardless, and it can be tempting to reply when 'not on duty'. if it CAN be left to a day you are 'working' - whether at school or at home - do so. if you and your jobshare agree, they can be 'first responder' for anything that comes in on 'their' days and vice versa. I have seen part time workers who put their working days on an e-mail autoreply, so that it is clear why there is no response.

Apologies for typos!

I found it easier to be strict with myself when working PT, than when I worked FT.
When FT, I always thought I somehow ought to be able to get everything done back in the days before I realised you have never, ever 'finished' your work , but when I went PT, I didn't want the proportion of the time I wasn't being paid for to be taken up with work, so used to note down what I did, and was very comfortable reminding management that I worked, and was padi for 0.6 of a week, and therefore asking them which of the tasks they were requesting, was a priority.
How you arrange your working hours is up to you, but be ready to put a cap on them once you hit that 24hour mark, or 22 hours, or whatever you feel comfortable with.
(Allowing for the fact that the first few weeks in any new job does tend to take a bit longer than a place you are familiar with).

It all depends on your school too. I'm 0.6. I get 1/2 hour a week ppa with my job share partner. Funnily enough you don't get much done in that time!
We can't have separate books for English and maths so keeping up to date is essential. We both use one of our 'days off' to do school work so it frees evenings and weekends. Some weeks are much worse than others eg when there's data to be inputted it reports to be written. We both do 3/5 inset days. It's hard to be firm about this esp when they fall on a day that you usually work. But you need to stick to it so it's not expected that you do more.