I'm a teacher in an international school. In our school, there are 2 teachers per class in early primary.
Normally we split the subjects and have an informal 50/50 agreement on everything. I've worked this way with 3 previous colleagues and its always been great. I'm not perfect but I think I'm a good teacher, with strong behaviour management skills and a liking for a calm, well managed environment with clear and consistent routines and expectations. I'm also a good colleague and team player.
This year I have been partnered with someone about whose teaching I have very serious concerns. She is notorious among the team for very poor standards of work, and has coasted along under previous management. In June, the previous management partnered her with me for this academic year. I was dismayed, due to what I had heard from others and from what I had observed.
However, I decided to start a fresh slate and try to be optimistic. I have tried to take her under my wing and act as somewhat of a mentor. Alarm bells were ringing very loudly from the start. I can't get too much into the specifics and won't give individual examples in order to protect privacy. However, I have concerns about the following:
Safety of the students: I have had to tell her that she needs to supervise and count the children when we are walking from one area to another, especially when outside the school. I still see that she forgets and only does a headcount after they have set off. Things can get very rowdy inside the classroom if I'm not there.
Behaviour management: she does not expect a calm environment and I had to tell her not to allow the children to talk over her or eachother. I have explained many times that transition times need to be broken into small steps, eg 'first put your book away. Next stand behind your chair.' Then send the children to line up table by table, for example. She just tells them to move to the next stage (eg, finishing their work then putting their coats on) and unless I intervene, they all run, pushing and shoving eachother, shouting etc.
Organisation of the day. Our timetable isn't like a UK classroom schedule, where the primary school day is generally the same each day. Our subject slots change from week to week, so we need to keep referring to the weekly overview.
If I don't remind her what she needs to do, she won't know in advance, despite us both having access to the planning. She will ask me 'am I teaching this morning?' and expects me to go and look it up rather than her access the document herself. There has been times when I haven't told her and she hasn't had anything ready.
Curriculum knowledge/skills: she doesn't have the knowledge of what to teach and her lessons are passable at best. I took the lead on the core subjects for first half term because she expressed a grave lack of confidence in the teaching requirements.
There are other things which I won't disclose here which I just feel aren't totally appropriate but I can't put my finger on why exactly they bother me. She has confided a lot of very complex, deep, personal issues to me, which I won't repeat here, but basically these are the reasons she gives when I address any of these issues. I have brought everything up with her, often more than once, except the curriculum skills as I feel like I just cannot bring myself to say the unsayable: that she should not teach.
We have new management and they are onto her. They have seen with their own eyes exactly what she is like, but ultimately the next step depends on me escalating things formally. A level of caution has been employed by all parties, due to the personal things which she has disclosed.
I have tried, from the very bottom of my heart, to be supportive, helpful, understanding, compassionate but also very clear and direct with her. However, working with her has been incredibly difficult, draining, frustrating, infuriating at times and ultimately I have had enough and don't want to work with her anymore. She is a nice lady but the strain has taken its toll on my physical and mental health. I would rather teach alone.
This is difficult because I do see her as a very vulnerable person who has trusted me but I have been informally feeding back to our new management team, and have now told her so. I am ready to take the next step and formally get SMT involved but obviously this leaves me with an awkward situation.
Do I tell her in advance that I am escalating things, or just let SMT get on with it? I will have to put it in writing so it will be formal, with facts, dares etc. I have been logging things. We share a classroom and obviously it won't be nice to co tinue to coteach with her knowing I've basically opened an investigation into her conduct. However, i cant do another 6 months of working like this.
Sometimes, I think she thought that because I'm 'nice' that she could continue to get away with this, then on some days i think that she really cant help it. Its a bit of a head-melt. We spoke recently and she has promised to pull her weight more. However, I feel like our working relationship is on the brink of breaking down irreparably due to her fundamental inability to do the job, whether she tries or not. If she was a PGCE student I would be very concerned, but she qualified years ago.
Obviously i havnt given specific details here, and reading over this, things dont seems as bad as they are. I've been a teacher for over a decade and have never thought a colleague shouldnt teach before. Ive never felt like I cannot continue to work with a colleague before either, and I've had a few tricky TAs in the past but we always found a way to overcome any issues and bobble along together. I am generally, I think, a fair and balanced person and assume thats why the previous SMT put her with me.
Can someone please give me some advice as for the best way to handle this. It's important to me that I conduct myself with professionalism and dignity whilst also ensuring that she is dealt with fairly. I really do not want to work with her but feel sad for her too, on a human level. However, I feel mostly protective of my own health. Last weekend, i wondered if I had depression and maybe needed antidepressants, and maybe thats why I felt down all the time. She was absent all last week and, as awful as it is to say, I felt back to my old happy, upbeat, cheerful positive self: so much so that four other staff members commented on it.
So, I would like some perspectives and advice. What would you and how would you feel? I want to handle this delicately as this person is extremely delicate herself.
Please help!