Maternity pay bullsh*t for teachers

[Teacherprebaby]

My school (state/academy), offers 6 weeks at 90% and the remaining at SMP so £185 a week. This is discrimination against women who want to have children. Am I being unreasonable to bring this up with my school?

@Bushmillsbabe how much do you think that maternity leave policy costs the NHS?

Confused as to how the legal requirement is discrimination?
If you have an issue with the statutory minimum that's a bigger issue than your school.
But no-one gets full pay for all of maternity leave so by your logic that's all discrimination.

teachers don’t have to spend money on childcare for the school holidays while others bear those costs.

military personnel may be sent away regardless of whether their partner will give birth.

I got 6 months full pay on maternity and then made redundant.

some people get enhanced sick pay, some get
SMP.

its not possible for everything to be the same for everyone. If mat pay was a big deal for you then changing employer before getting pregnant might have been prudent.

Teachers have 13 weeks a year where they are not working. No other public sector job has that.

Not much help to you but for my first mat leave in a state school in the 1990s you got hall pay for 6 months if you went back after mat leave. It was also only 6 months leave at that stage. MATs are a disgrace in so many ways.

That’s irrelevant. And technically we are not paid for that time off.

True you’re not being paid for that time off. But in that case, if you pro-rata the salary from 39 to 52 weeks then teachers are much more handsomely paid than other public sector (52 week) roles.

@Notellinganyone not enough funds to pay for it

"But no-one gets full pay for all of maternity leave so by your logic that's all discrimination."

I'm sure very few women get 52 weeks on full pay, but I imagine lots of women are paid in full while on maternity leave because they go back to work when their pay runs out.
That's what I did when I had my first child 27 years ago.

Rightly, maternity pay is much better than it was then and I'm glad that women today are able to take much longer periods of maternity leave than I could afford.

I think it should be better still. But unless we think it's right for a woman to take as much maternity leave on full pay as she wants, which is surely unaffordable for employers and the country, there is always going to be a trade-off between taking a longer leave, some of which is unpaid or paid on SMP, and taking a shorter leave which is better paid.

Absolutely.

It's completely relevant when you're talking about MAT pay and comparing it to other public sector jobs.

You ARE paid for that time off, because your salary is pro rata so it's spread over 12 months with the knowledge that you are not 'in work' for over three of those months. Plus annual leave.

Which is fair and fine.

What might not be fair is the idea that teachers MAT pay should be in line with the rest of the public sector because every teacher would have no childcare costs for 13 weeks a year plus annual leave.

Whereas NHS, council workers would incur those costs if they were at work as they don't have a job where their pro rata salary includes 13 weeks not working before leave entitlement.

Again- irrelevant as we’re not working for that remaining holiday time.

I’m not sure what you mean by whether the post is or isn’t irrelevant.

It’s simply a fact. If Jane is working for 75% of the year for £36,000, her FTE salary is £48,000. Which is pretty good compared to other public sector roles.

It’s just maths 🤷🏽‍♀️

I don't get why you keep saying it's irrelevant that teachers have 13 weeks 'not working' and then annual leave entitlement.

Newly qualified NQT salary is 28k.

Newly qualified nurses salary in the UK is 28k.

One doesn't work for 13 weeks of the year before annual leave entitlement.

The other works all year and has annual leave entitlement.

One is working more.

One would need more childcare than the other.

What are you going on about saying you're 'technically not paid' or talking about holiday time?

Wow...I hope you resolve your issues.

Interesting conversations. I want to thank anyone who has given advice. I didn't have a lot of that information.

To those of you who don't realise this is a site where I get to choose my topic, you've been interesting to say the least 😂 I'm an entitled spoilt brat because I asked a question.

My situation is my situation, your opinion about that doesn't bother me in the slightest but thanks for coming on and ranting.

I’ve often heard this said on mn. But if you have time off and are paid an annual salary, I can’t see why it’s not annual leave.

It is what you said. Maybe read back your own posts rather than snark at me and other posters.

So, your MAT doesn't follow STPCD? If it did, you'd be getting 50% for 3 months plus SMP, which is a much better deal than you get. I'd start there, do you have decent union representation at your school? Collectively ask your MAT to honour what is in the STPCD, as that is what the majority of schools will follow, so your schools offer is uncompetitive within the employment market. Do other local schools have better maternity policies? I'd have a look at other schools' websites to see if you can find info, they may just say they follow STPCD, but that's all the info you need. Failing all that, resign and move to a different school that doesn't have such a shit maternity policy before you have a 2nd baby.