Co-teaching and team teaching are a bit of a personal frustration of mine. They are popular topics, yet there is relatively little research on them worldwide. Fortunately, that is starting to change in Flanders. In 2025, I wrote about a study on the possible impact of team teaching on student learning. Based on the publication trajectory, the study discussed here was likely conducted around the same time but was only recently published. This time, however, the focus is not on learning outcomes but on the people who experience team teaching every day: the students themselves.

Dries Mariën, Ruben Vanderlinde, and Elke Struyf surveyed 428 primary school pupils to answer that question. Using surveys and focus groups, they investigated how pupils experience lessons in which two teachers teach together.

The findings are largely positive. Pupils particularly value the additional support. With two teachers in the classroom, they can get help more quickly when they get stuck. They also believe they learn more, although it is worth remembering that this reflects perception rather than measured learning outcomes. Not because the content changes, but because teachers can offer more explanations and present different approaches to the same problem.

That advantage, however, comes with a caveat. Many pupils benefit from hearing different explanations. They pick up extra tips and strategies and often gain a deeper understanding of the material. Yet the same variety can also create confusion. When teachers explain an exercise differently or seem to expect different things, some pupils become unsure about what they should do.

The study also shows that pupils do not experience all forms of team teaching in the same way. They respond most positively when two teachers work together within a single class. Once schools combine two classes, and especially two different year groups, enthusiasm declines. Pupils report receiving less support and mention noise and disruption more frequently.

In other words, team teaching does not become effective simply because two adults share a classroom. How schools organise it appears to matter at least as much as the idea itself.

The study naturally has its limitations. It measures pupils’ perceptions rather than actual learning gains. Yet those perceptions remain valuable. Pupils spend far more time in the classroom than any researcher observing a lesson. Their experiences therefore provide an important window into how team teaching works in practice.