Girls next year have 2 different teachers for the one class

emmaanddave

We have just received a letter telling us what class the girls will be in next year. They will be starting Year 2 and have been told they will be taught by job share - 1 teacher 3-4 days and 1 teacher 1-2 days. My initial reaction was not good as did not want them to be receiving this type of teaching.

Has anyone come across this with their child at school? How did they get on? Was there consitency? Did it work well? Pros and cons please?

I am on the wall on this one....

Shepherd1

My daughter had this in primary two the teachers were job share so one teacher the first half of the week and the other the end of the week and to complicate it more a different teacher on a Wednesday. I'm sorry to say I think it was a total disaster and did not work at all.

pigpen

i WAS VERY DUBIOUS WHEN THEY DID THIS with my daughter.. in fact it worked really well.. they get used to it very quickly and the different teaching styles worked really well for the children as they had things pt across in 2 different ways which reinforced their knowledge.

most classes have a second teacher for 1 day a week as the teachers have PPA time and if they are the SENCO for example they have extra time out of class for that so the children normally have 2 teachers regularly. At least this way the 2 teachers are permanent and known to the children and get to know them individually.

Mine did better in the year it had this set up than in the following year with the deputy head as class teacher as she was never in the class it was always random supply staff.

balletshoes

If its full days of jobshare there should be no problem with consistency or topics flowing, and your girls' class should see no disadvantages at all using this method. As in pigpen's daughter's school, my DD has one day a week without her normal teacher, instead she has the same teacher each Thursday (this is the teacher who is the dedicated stand-in for her year and year 6, so all 3 classes get her on a different day each week).

emmaanddave

Thanks, this is my worry.x

Naide

My son is going into Year 3 in September. Since the Foundation Stage, he's had two teachers in every year since then. In Year 3 he will have two job-share teachers again. It's worked out really well. He's been happy with it and the teachers have always been lovely and approachable. It's worked for us so far! The teaching staff at my son's school seem to work well as a team, so I guess that makes a huge difference.

ljw2701

Hi there, my son has had job-share teachers 3 years out of the 5 he's been at school!! In P2 and P3 it was because the main teachers were newly qualified and had non-teaching time and this year in P5 just because they have a job-share.

To be honest it bothered me more that he had NQT's two years in a row than the actual fact of having 2 teachers! It didn't appear to be a problem and in all cases there was good communication between the teachers. This year it worked particularly well with the Mon/Tues teacher concentrating more on the Sciences and the Wed/Thurs/Fri one more on the Arts. This meant he had the strengths of two separate teachers.

I definitely wouldn't say he has been disadvantaged in any way by this method of teaching but of course this could vary from school to school/teacher to teacher.

cyclingyorkie

We have a job share in Yr 1/2 and another in Yr 3/4 - both work really well!

It is up to the teachers to make it work - but in our place it does - BRILLIANTLY!

Keeping_Positive

No issues here either. Neither of my DDs seemed to suffer and made progress as usual. One teacher was disliked but at least they only had her half the week.

Curlywurli

All children in England will be taught by more than one teacher in a week due to PPA. A head of year I know has three different adults and her covering her class throughout the week. I jobshare at the moment and have done for the past three years. The class that I work in just has 2 because I cover her PPA time. At the moment it's going very well. The teacher and I are completely along the same lines with regards to discipline, she likes some subjects and I like others. The children don't have a problem with it and love having two teachers. I love teaching the class and put in extra hours. I've been working on an activity with the children and actually went in on my day off so that they could go and perform.

Unfortunately I have worked with someone who was absolutely awful and it was a nightmare for me. She had no disciplinary skills, didn't know what she was teaching and my life was a whole lot harder. I do think that the class found it a whole lot harder because she wouldn't deal with any issues and I had to sort it all out when I was in. I had the impression that the parents thought I was the mean teacher.

I think it can be a very positive experience for children, but obviously this does depend on how the school deal with it and if they put two teachers together that actually complement each other. There isn't really a lot that you can do. It's just a case of waiting and seeing and dealing with issues if and when they come up. Try to be positive that they've got two teachers and don't let them see your worries because children do pick up on that and will play adults against each other.


Edited to add: I work in year 2 and it has had no detrimental effects on the children's end of year assessment results. The children have made excellent progress this year.

skea56

Hi there, I've worked in my local school as a Classroom assistant and they introduced this scheme after Christmas, all the teachers had at least one full day or two afternoons during the week when another teacher taught the students. I think it worked quite well for both teacher and students - as they weren't as tired towards the end of the week. I think it benefitted the younger students especially, as were introduced to different teaching methods early and didn't get bored as quickly.

sk56