What are my maternity leave rights on a fixed contract?

[TheAxe]

Hello,

We're trying to get pregnant at the minute and I'm worried about being able to keep my job. I'm currently employed on a one year fixed term contract and will have been continuously employed by the company for two years at the end of May this year.

My contract is up at the end of November this year. If I get pregnant now I'll be 6 months in November which will probably be hard to hide and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to not tell them I'm pregnant when the contract's up for renewal? If I do tell them I'm pregnant and they don't renew my contract what rights do I have?

If it takes longer to get pregnant and I'm on maternity leave when my contract's up for renewal are they allowed to not extend my contract?

I'm sorry this is such a long post but I've been looking all over the place for information but nothing seems to cover my situation and my company are very likely to not renew my contract because I'm pregnant! Any help you can give will be much appreciated.

[thederkinsdame]

Hi, try tiger.gov as this is the govt site for all mat questions. Quite useful, I found. If you can't get SMP you might be able to apply for MA instead. It's the same as SMP (around £400 month I think) HTH