A reflection on Team Teaching
May 2021
In September 2019, for the first time in my career, the geography department entered the new academic year with team teaching of Year 11 formally on our timetables. At first, I was sceptical of how this was going to work. After all, as much as we promote collaboration as a team, our classrooms are our own domains where our individual teaching styles and approaches dominate.
So, I was unsure. How would it work? How would power dynamics be accounted for? Would less experienced members of staff be able to relax when I was in their lessons? What would the students make of it? What if staff saw it as an additional free period and didn’t take it seriously? What did I need to do to ensure it was as successful as possible?
I don’t propose to answer all of those questions here. Firstly, that would be a rather long blog and secondly, I would like to formalise my thoughts further before writing more- do some more reading into the approach and then try to share, as best as possible, the lessons I have learnt during two (unusual) years of team teaching.
Let me be clear that I recognise that team teaching is a luxury. To have this as part of our formal timetables is not cheap, it is resource heavy and it takes some serious logistical planning. However, I am incredibly grateful to my former Head of Faculty, Tom Woudhuysen, for pushing for us to have this. It was his idea, he worked out the logistics and he was influential in ensuring it worked. Whilst it was implemented across the Social Science Faculty, here I speak only for the experience of the geography department. The reason I want to share our experiences is because team teaching is, without doubt, an incredibly powerful tool. Perhaps it could work in your school?
How did it work?
The logistics:
There are 4 members of the geography department.
3 of us were involved in team teaching.
We had 5 hours a fortnight of Y11 lesson time.
My fortnightly Year 11 timetable looked like this:
Lesson 1- Myself as class teacher
Lesson 2 - Myself as class teacher
Lesson 3- Myself as class teacher- joined by Teacher A (RQT)
Lesson 4- Myself as class teacher
Lesson 5- Myself as class teacher- joined by Teacher A (RQT) & Teacher BThe Year 11 timetable of Teacher A (RQT) looked like this:
Lesson 1- Teacher A as class teacher - joined by myself (HOD)
Lesson 2- Teacher A as class teacher
Lesson 3- Teacher A as class teacher- joined by Teacher B
Lesson 4- Teacher A as class teacher- joined by Teacher B
Lesson 5- Teacher A as class teacher- joined by myself (HOD)
What were the benefits for the department?
1. Standardisation and moderation
One of the most significant advantages of team teaching has been the increased accuracy and reliability of moderation. With teachers teaching across the different classes, all department members come to know the whole cohort of students and are therefore able to place their own classes within the wider picture of the cohort. This has ensured that assessment marking and grading is far more accurate and reliable as staff increase their sample size of comparison.
This has been particularly beneficial for myself as Subject Lead- I’ve gained a far more comprehensive overview of the whole cohort, as a result of being in the lessons of all groups.
2. Targeted intervention and teacher support
Linked to the above, the Subject Leader is better able to pro-actively identify students requiring additional support at the earliest opportunity. I would argue that there is no better way to do this than being in the lesson. The team-teacher is able to circulate, observe and address issues (of learning and behaviour) as they occur. This in-lesson intervention has led to better informed discussions between the teachers following the lesson or in a subsequent meeting. During these discussions, issues can be discussed and targeted actions can be planned to continue the progress of that student or group of students. Whilst such discussions occurred without team teaching, the subjective nature of comparisons between students and classes has been removed and replaced with a more rigorous and objective process.
3. Cover for absent staff
With a team-teacher timetabled in most Year 11 lessons, issues around the cover of staff absence have been resolved. The team-teacher takes the lesson in the case of staff absence and thus ensures that no lesson time is wasted.
What were the benefits for the teachers?
1. Behaviour for learning
Secure standards of behaviour are integral to both successful teaching and the success of interventions. Here, team teaching has resulted in notable improvements, particularly for lower-attaining classes (which can contain a greater proportion of disadvantaged students). With two members of staff to reinforce behaviour for learning expectations, no student can ‘switch-off’- it is intervention for all and lesson time is used in the most effective way possible.
2. Professional development of teaching staff
One of the greatest advantages of team teaching has been the way in which it has developed all teachers involved, regardless of experience and expertise. For example, with myself as Subject Lead team-teaching in an RQT’s lesson, they benefitted from the sharing of knowledge of the course whilst I was able to diagnose areas for improvement in the RQT’s teaching and work with them to develop these. I also learnt a lot from the experience: I was exposed to different ways to present the material, explain key concepts and approaches to feedback. All of this would feed into department meetings and discussion, with best practice highlighted and further developed.
3. Workload reduction
Team-teaching has had a positive impact on staff workload, namely owing to the removal of after school interventions.
What were the benefits for the students?
1. Maximum impact intervention
Team teaching enabled the integration of in-class intervention and the removal of after school interventions. As a result of the team-teacher, we were able to target the most serious learning issues with the highest level of pedagogical skill- we were able to separate the class according to their areas of weakness and ensure the maximum impact intervention without increasing workload for staff.
2. Improved behaviour for learning
As mentioned above, this is significant. Team teaching enabled a cultural change within the classroom with student unable to ‘switch-off’ for parts of the lesson. It also ensured that intervention was not separate and seen as an optional ‘add-on’ by students but an integral part of the departmental culture and systems.
So there we are… That shares some of my reflections and thoughts on the benefits of two years of team teaching with Year 11. It hasn’t been perfect; we still need to strive to use this technique in the best possible way but I’d would argue it has been hugely beneficial and powerful. I hope that comes across!