Nightmare job share

[thatsnotabadger]

Please help. How do I manage this? Can't go into too many details as it's outing but she refuses to communicate with me outside of the day we cross paths (1 a fortnight), she doesn't write down her planning so I don't know what she's taught, she often leaves notes saying she didn't get round to maths/reading. We're under pressure to show achievement but I'm doing all the heavy lifting on my days. Recently we met to discuss planning and she was shouting at me, accusing me of all sorts. Never experienced anything like this and I'm struggling, it's been on my mind all through the holidays and my anxiety is horrendous

Get your line manager involved. Line manager should set some rules that you and your colleague need to stick to. It sounds like a nightmare!

Thank you for replying. I got our manager involved, asked her to sit in on our next meeting and she witnessed the very worst of my job share partner's behaviour. The next day I spoke to the manager again, she said she was "shocked" by it, then suggested that I reach out and clear the air. I was surprised by that as she admitted it was obvious I wasn't the problem. Then I found out that this manager has been friends with my job share for years, I didn't know that.

Speak to the headteacher and ask for advice. This is a very difficult and unpleasant situation.

I'm currently training and have seen a position advertised that is a job share.Its ideal because I have 2 young dcs and my partner has very inflexible hours. It puts me off thinking that the other teacher might do this though!

Sounds awful. Definitely speak to the head and also contact your union for advice or at least to make contact with local rep if you need to have a third party in meetings, if situation escalates.

Had a fairly awful job share experience myself, with hindsight as an rqt it probably wasn’t best move for me as didn’t have the experience and really did get taken advantage of to begin with. Once SLT realised what was happening (I was too green to twig I had been given more than I should have been in turns of workload/split) the job share turned nasty, lots of complaints (hold hands up I was inexperienced so was still learning) but wasn’t prepared to help guide me (not their job description, I completely get it). In the end, the head told them to back off but by then I had had enough and gave notice. Was shifted to another role within school instead (so I clearly wasn’t as useless as job share made me feel).

Have to add, communication is so important, I would give a detailed handover, annotate plans to show what had been covered etc. Did the job share do this? Nope, would generally be behind and then put the pressure on me to rush through 5 lessons in 3 days for core subjects.

I hope you can get a resolution as job shares when they work are brilliant.

@venusmay Sorry to have put you off. I have had good experiences with job shares in the past. I think it comes down to compromise and communication. It's just a shame that my job share doesn't do either of those things!
@Gobbolinothekitchencat I'm doing what you did- annotating planners, leaving notes, trying to organise times to meet job share to hand over. She is also giving me the bulk of the curriculum, she isn't shifting on that one and I don't want the kids to miss out so I do it.
Head knows about it and says he'll support me if it continues, it's just shit and upsetting.

@thatsnotabadger Can you speak to your union rep? This sounds like a very difficult situation and your line manager's response sounds inadequate to me. I also recommend putting something in writing to the headteacher - not necessarily with the expectation that this will change everything, just so that you have evidence that you have raised the issue.
@venusmay I have a job share and it is wonderful, I've gone from considering quitting teaching to loving my job again (and in the middle of a pandemic and a hammering of teachers from media/government/Ofsted, this is something!). If you get the right partner it is a brilliant way to work.