Job Share - not enjoying it

[JulietiSpaghetti]

I've been teaching secondary for 15 years but am a first time job-sharer and new to my current school. I work 2.5 days and my partner, who has been there for decades, works 3, so we do overlap a bit, which I guess is valuable and useful for a 10 minute face to face planning/chat, as opposed to email.
But actually, I dread our chats. I like all the classes and my job share colleague is lovely but I find the tone of these rushed chats very stressful. It's a quickfire of "Have you done this yet? Did I not already give you that sheet? 10C were awful yesterday, we need to whip them into shape, I urgently need to tell you this, right 9A aren't revising, I'm very concerned about Year 12..." just stressful. I come away feeling very undervalued and anxious.
We share all our classes.
I know that job share is an adjustment for both of us, we are used to having control. Covid doesn't help, we are roaming so we don't even have a classroom to keep our things in.
Any tips or words of encouragement. I know I'm lucky to have a part time job and I guess this is the price you pay? Do I just need to toughen up?
I feel I'm working more than I should and as much as I can, and it's the first time in my career I've felt that I am not enough and I'm not adding any value.

It kind of sounds like she's conveying all the necessary info quickly and efficiently even if it's stuff you don't want to hear. Would an email be better, then you can refer back to it.

New schools are always tough. This term is always tough. This year is extra tough. If she's been there a while she will be seen as the classes "main" teacher. You can't change that mindset in the kids immediately (sadly).

Thank you for your reply. It's true the info is stuff I want her to tell me/ would expect to be told, so I'm a bit mystified about why it feels so stressful to me. I guess it's the time pressure, we don't have long together every week so whereas with other colleagues there's small talk, with her it's "oh good I caught you, I need to tell you things. First up.......... "
And I definitely underestimated how much we would need to communicate, I reckon I spend 2 hours a week on that with email/ text, and I'm sure she does too. I am the main teacher for the vast majority of our shared classes, but she is Hod, so needs to tell me about assessment and so on. I hope we'll get used to each other's ways soon and I'll just see the bigger picture. I never feel like I'm any use and I think that she thinks she'd be quicker/ handier doing it all herself. I'm feeling bummed about it - part time suits me as I have small kids, but I turned down a better opportunity because I had committed to this. For her she is going in to it with different motivation - health reasons. I wish I was easing get burden but in reality I don't know that it's ending up a good deal for her with so much to tell me, be concerned about etc.

It sounds like she might be quite a direct person who just cuts to the work stuff because she's conscious of time. I'm quite like this, I do absolutely care about my staff and hopefully my actions back that up. But I don't have hours for smalltalk!

It could just be teething issues with new ways of working for you both. Are you joint HOD as well?

Would any of it be better with a longer planning meeting and shorter catch ups weekly?

Is any of it irrelevant? Cut that stuff out ASAP if so!

Thank you again. No, I'm not joint HoD. I think you have it with teething problems and a longer planning meeting would definitely be better, but I don't know when that could happen as we only coincide on one morning, and don't have a common free period in that time, just break time.

If we were to continue this beyond this year I guess I would know what needs to be done and when. Year 2 of this would be easier- she hasn't given me a breakdown of what needs to happen longer term, and when (ok, fair enough, I'm used to rolling with the punches and have been Hod myself, I know there's so much to remember to tell someone). Add in Covid.
And then they've changed course books too, so it's all a work on progree and the only way is up. But equally, I am not sure if I would like to continue doing this job share beyond this year, simply because I think I'd feel more useful as a sub.
Thank you again for replying.

I give up time on my day off to do a proper planning meeting with my class share co-teacher. It’s virtual - I’m at home and she’s at school on PPA. It is a bit of a sacrifice of time off but avoids the dribs and drabs style communication and also the rushed meeting style you mention. I think of it as an investment of time: it pays off. However, we have a very similar style and it sounds like you two might not be entirely compatible job sharers? (I don’t share a job with my partner teacher - just a class)

Thank you, that's a good idea and I will suggest that to her.