Maternity leave

[user1491810905]

Hoping fellow teachers might be able to help and advise...

I'm an infant teacher and I found out I'm pregnant with no2. Due Jan 3rd! My first was 3 weeks early and this one will be likely be born via elcs and I assume they'd do this 37/38 weeks as I had a complex first birth. Meaning a baby just before Xmas.

I will be (all being well!) 12 weeks towards the end of June and I work in a independent school that finishes for the summer at the end of the first week of July.

I would ideally take my maternity leave at the start of December. This means I would only be with my class for around a month and a half before going off for mat leave.

I suspect my headteacher would rather get a teacher in to cover the class for the whole year, and would have me back in Sept to do extra bits and support work until I went off on mat leave.

But if I don't tell him until I'm 12 weeks, he won't have time to sort someone. Should I tell him early? What if things go wrong, I don't want everyone to know 😔, even though I'm happy for my head to know.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

[user1491810905]

Two and half months, not just one!

If it makes any difference, the class I would.inherit have had a difficult year with teachers job sharing and going off on maternity leave. Some quite frustrated parents too - understandably.

[OutComeTheWolves]

Yeah I told my head at 8 weeks for this exact reason. I just said it was confidential and explained why I was telling her earlier than the rest of my colleagues.

[puellapuellapuellam]

I teach in a secondary school but in the independent sector like you. I was in a similar situation with due dates of October and November for respective DCs.
There are two questions really - what do you actually want to be doing in the autumn term, and how much do you want to be paid for it? My school was incredibly supportive and let me continue on full salary for as long as I wanted before going on leave, but both times took on a cover teacher who started in September. We did teamteaching and I did a huge amount of departmental work and generally made myself as useful as possible to make the most of the situation.
I was very open with the Head and told the school about the pregnancies asap (before the scan) so they could have time to decide what would work best. I don't really like sneaky game-playing in any area of life, but in teaching the people who suffer when things are badly handled are the kids, and no one wants that. I would have thought that your management will have more respect for you discussing it with them in a way that shows consideration for the pupils' and school's needs at an early stage than deliberately making things difficult in replacing you.
I think I'm right in saying that the school can't ask you to go on leave before you want to, but it might be that there is some flexibility about having some overlap with your replacement. You also want to protect your salary as your mat pay might initially be based on it before you move to the statutory pay. Good luck!

[user1491810905]

Thanks both, that is in line with what I had thought.

I agree with you puella, the stability of the kids is key and I think it highly likely the head would want someone to cover them for the whole year - for their sake. I teach reception too, so that initial teacher bond is even more key. I'd just not be giving them that option if I kept it all hush hush.

Work wise i'd be more than happy to team teach, run interventions (definite need for this) and I also run a department so could certainly get on with other admin tasks. I couldn't afford to have my pay cut.

I also wanted to wait until after the pay reviews as I'm due to move up the pay scale in September... But am assuming this would still happen even after I've announced a pregnancy because it's based on my performance this year and so not giving it to me would be discriminatory?

I thought a Jan baby would be well timed, wasn't quite planning for a late December one!!!

[user1491810905]

Is six weeks too early? Where would I stand if something went wrong with the pregnancy and cover had already been arranged? I have several friends who have suffered from losses recently (at 8 and 19 weeks) so that's playing heavily on my mind too.

[orange47]

Could you follow your current class up to year 1 so they have their transition to a new teacher when you go on mat leave in December instead? That way you get to stay in class longer but the disruption to the children is reduced.

[user1491810905]

That's an option, yes. Hadn't thought about that! Not sure what the current y1 teacher would do, but it might be a viable option. Good suggestion :)

[TheSleeperandTheSpindle]

I told my Head at around 8 weeks as it was April by then and I knew she was thinking ahead to September. We kept it from the rest of the school (apart from my TA and a very close colleague) until I was around 16 weeks. It had to come out then because everyone was being told where they would be come Sept. I was due in Nov and wasn't allocated a class, I did some assessment, covered classes and did 1:1/small group work and my DS came in October. My class was covered from two PT members of staff stepping up to full time for the year, is this something that would be possible within your school?