In reference to the title No! it is not as serious as all that!! Not Judgement Day... Day of Reckoning or Armageddon.... Just the end of an arrangement which has stood me in good stead for the past two years... JobSharing....
Tomorrow I go back working full time and of course apart from the financial implications, and my ever-dwindling paycheque as our government dock us more and more each fortnight to help ease the country's financial burden I could not recommend this arrangement highly enough...
Two years ago, while out from school on adoptive leave with Alex I got to contemplating the harsh reality of trying to juggle working full time, travelling 40 miles daily, 3 kids, Elena starting school, Darrelle finishing primary and a toddler plus all the extra curricular activities and driving after school and I wondered how I was going to combine all and do a reasonable job of any of it.... A chance conversation with an old friend (ok, not that old!) that Easter led us to talking about the following school year.. Marie, having spent the bulk of her teaching career to date in the one school wondered again about taking a career break, travelling, back to college and I jokingly said 'Why don't you come and jobshare with me?' Not for a moment was I serious or even saw it as an option... conversation continued along this vein as we jokingly imagined 'What if?' and I began to think 'Why not?'. Cutting the conversation I said 'Look, if you have any interest in upping and moving house, home and school we can talk about it...' To cut a long story short Marie did decide to move, take a year out of her school with the notion 'If it doesn't work out it's only a year and I do have my job to go back to'....
For me, it more than worked out...Having a house to sell, a move to contend with ~ the 5 days a fortnight I was off was a godsend, gave me a chance to catch up... of course a threatening WSE (Whole School Evaluation) did not help and our first term was a whirlwind of planning, schemes, school policies, assessments, evaluations so that after a while Declan began to feel very guilty as to why we would have inveigled Marie to come down to jobshare and have her working twice as hard for half the money'!!!
Luckily for me, Marie did settle very well, in our school, in our town and opted for a second year working in our school. She has become part of our family, and while we joke that 'minding our kids/pick ups from activites' was in her contract nothing has ever been a problem for her and she regularly pitches in in our household and the kids love her. She knows how Elena ticks and Declan and I never have a worry when we go away (not too often!) and leave Marie in 'loco parentis'....
Still, all good things must come to an end and we did not quite get to finish our second schol year as Marie was 'head hunted'!!!! well not really but a lot of people in our school community saw her potential and strongly recommended that she apply for a principalship in a school not too far away from the school where we are working now... She went with the flow, not too sure of what or where she was heading and she now enters a new phase next week as she takes up her new post and challenge... We, who know her well, and those who have met her on a professional basis in the last two years await this challenge with interest and we all have in common the belief that she will do a great job!!!
Of course, for Declan, the small guys here and especially me we are glad that while she has moved on in her career she will be staying in our locality... for the next few years or so anyway....
This photo was taken last June, the days the kids in our school won the county finals in hurling and camogie and a week before the official opening of our new school by Eamon De Buitlear... Marie and I had decided to go back up to the school and work on getting the room ready for the School Opening by putting up Art etc.... Well, we got chatting, we got working, and we were still there at 2.10 the following morning - see clock.... And No! we don't get paid overtime......
Tomorrow I go back working full time and of course apart from the financial implications, and my ever-dwindling paycheque as our government dock us more and more each fortnight to help ease the country's financial burden I could not recommend this arrangement highly enough...
Two years ago, while out from school on adoptive leave with Alex I got to contemplating the harsh reality of trying to juggle working full time, travelling 40 miles daily, 3 kids, Elena starting school, Darrelle finishing primary and a toddler plus all the extra curricular activities and driving after school and I wondered how I was going to combine all and do a reasonable job of any of it.... A chance conversation with an old friend (ok, not that old!) that Easter led us to talking about the following school year.. Marie, having spent the bulk of her teaching career to date in the one school wondered again about taking a career break, travelling, back to college and I jokingly said 'Why don't you come and jobshare with me?' Not for a moment was I serious or even saw it as an option... conversation continued along this vein as we jokingly imagined 'What if?' and I began to think 'Why not?'. Cutting the conversation I said 'Look, if you have any interest in upping and moving house, home and school we can talk about it...' To cut a long story short Marie did decide to move, take a year out of her school with the notion 'If it doesn't work out it's only a year and I do have my job to go back to'....
For me, it more than worked out...Having a house to sell, a move to contend with ~ the 5 days a fortnight I was off was a godsend, gave me a chance to catch up... of course a threatening WSE (Whole School Evaluation) did not help and our first term was a whirlwind of planning, schemes, school policies, assessments, evaluations so that after a while Declan began to feel very guilty as to why we would have inveigled Marie to come down to jobshare and have her working twice as hard for half the money'!!!
Luckily for me, Marie did settle very well, in our school, in our town and opted for a second year working in our school. She has become part of our family, and while we joke that 'minding our kids/pick ups from activites' was in her contract nothing has ever been a problem for her and she regularly pitches in in our household and the kids love her. She knows how Elena ticks and Declan and I never have a worry when we go away (not too often!) and leave Marie in 'loco parentis'....
Still, all good things must come to an end and we did not quite get to finish our second schol year as Marie was 'head hunted'!!!! well not really but a lot of people in our school community saw her potential and strongly recommended that she apply for a principalship in a school not too far away from the school where we are working now... She went with the flow, not too sure of what or where she was heading and she now enters a new phase next week as she takes up her new post and challenge... We, who know her well, and those who have met her on a professional basis in the last two years await this challenge with interest and we all have in common the belief that she will do a great job!!!
Of course, for Declan, the small guys here and especially me we are glad that while she has moved on in her career she will be staying in our locality... for the next few years or so anyway....
This photo was taken last June, the days the kids in our school won the county finals in hurling and camogie and a week before the official opening of our new school by Eamon De Buitlear... Marie and I had decided to go back up to the school and work on getting the room ready for the School Opening by putting up Art etc.... Well, we got chatting, we got working, and we were still there at 2.10 the following morning - see clock.... And No! we don't get paid overtime......
All in all, the jobsharing has been a great success ... whether that was because we are similiar in our teaching approaches or that we were friends in another life!! but the rest of the staff in our schools, the parents and the children have all gained from the jobsharing and if I had my way it would continue.....
I hope to jobshare again next year and while nothing is set in stone it is an option at the moment....
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