Key takeaways
- Team teaching changes allocation accounting as well as classroom delivery.
- Record when several teachers share the same class in the same period.
- Use the local agreement to decide how the shared class counts.
- Include the result in overload checks.
What must be explicit?
The planner needs to know which class is shared, which teachers are assigned, and which periods are shared. Without that, the workload report cannot apply the local counting rule.
Do not assume every jurisdiction counts team teaching the same way. Use the local agreement, and treat the New Zealand class-size rule as a regional example.
What belongs in the team-teaching record?
The record should be enough to reproduce the workload count.
- The shared class or group
- The periods where several teachers share the class
- The teachers assigned to those periods
- The local workload-counting rule
- The calculated load for each teacher
- The effect on each teacher's overload check
How do planners check team-teaching load?
Run this before overload checks are treated as final.
- List every class taught by several teachers in the same period.
- Confirm the local rule for counting the shared class.
- Apply the local rule to each teacher's workload count.
- Update assigned periods or load values for each teacher.
- Compare the result with each teacher's cap.
- Include the result in overload checks.
How does this affect part-time teachers?
A part-time teacher in a team-taught class still needs the shared load counted against the pro-rated cap where pro-rating applies. The shared class also has to fit inside that teacher's working days.
Check this with part-time teacher availability before treating the shared class as feasible.
What should leaders confirm?
Confirmation should make the accounting rule visible.
- Every shared class is listed
- The local counting rule is named
- Regional examples are not treated as universal rules
- Each teacher's calculated load is shown
- The load is included in overload checks
- Any part-time cap effect is checked
How does this connect to fair distribution?
Team teaching can make a timetable look fair on paper while the load count tells a different story. Fair distribution depends on accurate workload accounting first.
Once the shared class is counted correctly, use fair distribution to review whether duties and load are balanced as far as the soft constraints allow.
Questions planners ask about team teaching
Is team teaching only a teaching-method decision?
No. It changes allocation accounting when several teachers share a class each period.
How can shared class size be counted?
In one New Zealand agreement example, average class size is divided by the number of teachers for workload purposes.
Why model team teaching explicitly?
If the shared class is not explicit, workload checks may overstate or understate individual teacher load.