pregnant teacher leaving job mid school year - opinions please!

[Howly]

Right, I have a question for teachers and in a sense people who already have children of secondary school age!! I've posted in 'pregnancy' as I am a pregnant teacher and it would be helpful to hear advice from the point of view!

We've had some excellent news, my DH has just been offered a new job starting in Feb in the Wirral which means we will both be eventually relocating to Chester from South Wales. It's an office based job which is great as he currently spends 4 weeks out of 6 working away, so now he can be at home with his new family all the time and not away!

I am a secondary teacher and given the notice period the earliest I can leave is April, if I did this I wouldn't have full maternity pay but would be entitled to maternity allowance from the govt.

Now, the money is not the problem, we will cope. I'm just having a real moral dilemma for my pupils and the school! by Easter my 21 GCSE pupils will have finished the course and just be revising so they will be ready for their exam, my year 10s will have started their controlled assessment and my key stage 3 classes will be fine! I just keep reading other forums which say teachers are unreasonable for leaving mid year!

If I leave at Easter I have to spend 7 weeks living apart from my DH, if I hang on until July (when I can take Mat leave) it will be an additional 8 weeks on my own (I don't have family in s.wales just friends who I see maybe once a fortnight!) and by this point I will be heavily pregnant! I would get maternity leave if I hang on and maternity pay but I would have to keep it a secret that I won't be returning from maternity leave and that my hubby isn't living with me anymore! This becomes increasingly difficult when I have work colleagues on fb!!

You advice is appreciated!

I dont have any advice but I do live in Chester so any help I can give you with that just shout!

Thank you so much, I've never even been there before!!!! But everyone says its lovely!! We've started researching places to live - Hoole is somewhere we are looking, or generally the east outskirts of the city!

I think it's really awful the way society places so much guilt and pressure on teachers like this.

It's a JOB OP! Your family and your happiness and welfare come first. The school can find someone else. And when you move, you'll never have to see your colleagues again, so don't feel embarrassed.

I took over a Year 6 class before their SATS after the February half-term as the regular teacher went on maternity leave. I know it's not the same as GCSEs but they were fine.

If you dont return from maternity leave, dont you have to pay some of it back? No advice otherwise as I'm not sure what I'd do in your situation.

It's an awesome school, I'm so sad to leave, they will cope my HOD is fabulous, they will get a permanent teacher to replace me so I think disturbance will be minimal, the GCSE exams are both early too so my pupils will be ready for the exam by the time I leave! I will be putting additional pressure on my HOD though which I feel guilty about!

Yes Delgirl I would, not done my research yet so financially it might not make much difference!

I'm a secondary teacher. I would be tempted to hang on until July for the Mat pay but that would be my only reason for doing so. If you do hang on & the kids do well you could credit yourself with their achievements if/when you are job hunting after baby arrives I guess, but ultimately do what's best for YOU

I think it's a really tricky one. If I understand your post correctly you are saying that if you take your maternity leave when you are entitled to it you would stay at the school until the end of the school year? Therefore able to support your students to a finish point, rather than someone else taking over.

It would be disruptive to the students to have a new teacher partway through the year, however not the end of the world. DS had this last year, where his teacher left at the end of feb and then he had a new teacher from then and he did struggle a bit but liked his new teacher too, so wasn't it too bad. (He's not secondary age yet though).

However from your point of view you need to think about how it would be for you if you stay. How pregnant will you be by July, those last few weeks are always tough and especially if you are on your own. If you are stressed and unhappy being apart from your DH for the 15 weeks, as well as being heavily pregnant will you be able to cope with the stress of exam time etc too?

I think ultimately you need to do what you think is right for you and the baby, stress wise, emotionally etc.

Good luck! And congratulations on the baby, new job etc! Exciting times

It's inevitable that with a 9 month gestation creating new people will always affect someone's GCSE course. However, you're leaving, as opposed to going on maternity leave. So the school should be looking to replace you with an excellent teacher (as opposed to botching cover in the hope you'll be back after 3 weeks not that that's happened, oh no ).

You are one person, and you've got to do what is right for you. It's probably no fun living by yourself when your pg. Move with your partner. A new teacher should be able to handle the revision.

I would be leaving at the start of July so not right til the end of the year, I'm due the last week of term! I will be 36 weeks by 1st of July when I can take mat leave!

And yes, for maternity pay you have to go back for 13 weeks (pro rata, so if you go from ft to 0.5 pt you'd have to be back for 26 weeks).

In that case I would say that leaving in April is probably better then, as then they will get a new teacher for a complete term rather than someone for 3 weeks, which will probably be covered by supply, or other members of the team as extra work? It's also a better option for you to be with DH ASAP too!

Leave, but be honest with the school that you will not be returning so they can recruit a permanent replacement. It's a disruption to the kids, but you can't put off pregnancy until the baby will be born in the summer holidays!

Leave when it is best for you.

It is a job.

A few questions! Why do to think you can't take maternity leave until you are 36 weeks? If you want, youcould start your maternity leave earlier (I think from 25 weeks?). If you inform the school you won't be returning you get SMP which you can keep. If you told them you would return, you would get enhanced pay on top of SMP and would have to return the enhanced pay. Either way, you keep the SMP.

Why would you keep this secret from your colleagues? It is completely normal and acceptable to state that you will not return to work after ML. Being upfront with the school about your plans is the best option as they can be planning for a permanent replacement.

All kinds of events can happen which may disrupt a child's education, it is the school's responsibility to minimise disruption by employing suitable cover. It is not your responsibility. I will be on ML from this Easter until next Christmas. My school will have to ensure they get a good cover teacher so that the handovers are as seamless as possible. Teachers get pregnant, move away, get ill or injured sometimes and this affects their pupils. A good school manages this - teachers are human and entitled to their own lives.

As a side note, if you are moving to Chester, look up 121 midwives - a free service where you will get your own mw for the whole pregnancy who will do appts in your own home. Good luck for your future!

Not the same situation but I too am a teacher and taught four exam groups (2 x GCSE and 2 'A' level as well as some KS3) and my baby was due end of May. I felt so guilty about abandoning the kids that I stayed till the bitter end (despite it being a high risk pregnancy) and only took maternity leave the week before I was due, leaving the day of the exams. I was also head of year 11, which didn't help. If I'd taught KS3, I would have gone at 36 weeks.
I look back now and think I was insane.
There is such a culture in many schools of obligation to put yourself at the bottom of your priorities, with the kids at the top in all situations, when actually there are times to put yourself first.
It is very easy to fall into the trap of believing that because your relationship with the kids impacts their learning (and I do believe that) that you are betraying them by not doing everything possible to maintain that. While it is important, I just don't believe it's more important than our health and personal happiness. I'm quite willing to suck up marking and planning impacting my weekends and time with my family - that is part of it.
From the perspective of having had my baby and gone back part time, I now wonder what on earth I was thinking, sacrificing so much during my pregnancy, leaving myself exhausted and stressed at a time I should have optimised my own comfort and welfare.
Do what is best for you, but be as honest as possible with the school about leaving as soon as you can so that they can recruit properly. I'm sure you'll leave a really good handover too, which will also be best for the kids. Very good luck.

I agree that you should not be feeling so much guilt and pressure. I think you should do what is best for yourself and your family.

I'm a primary school teacher so appreciate it's a different kettle of fish but I'm having a csection on 11th April and am staying at school (hopefully) until the end of term which is 4th April. A lot of my reasoning is to maximise maternity pay after baby is born, but also I think it'll be easier for the children (including four autistic children) if I leave at a natural point of the year and they have a new teacher at the start of a new term. Appreciate the difficult decision but like so many have said, it's only a job.

I was under the impression that I couldn't take mat leave until 4 weeks before the baby is born!? This is my first child and I have not done all the research about the ins and outs of mat leave yet so I think I'm wrong!!

Having just looked at the govt website, I can start mat leave from early May, meaning I would get some maternity pay. This would mean I could see year 11 through their exams too! It would mean working longer than Easter but only by 1-2 weeks!

Yes hoole and Handbridge are the places to be, Westminster park and curzon park nice too. Pm me if you want any help/info!

In my first pregnancy my school hired a terrible replacement for my maternity cover. I expressed grave concerns to management but they went ahead with the appointment. The education of my students, including GCSE students, was certainly adversely affected. On my return to work, I was the recipient of some vociferous complaints about how the students had been let down by the school. I very politely suggested these complaints were directed to management, which none were - the parents just wanted to let off steam. I had to make up for what they had missed during my absence so was working even harder than usual and I wanted to ask the parents what the fuck they expected me to do? Ihad no power over the hiring process and whilst on maternity leave it was NOT my responsibility - what was I supposed to do? Teach my lessons via video link up from the delivery suite? Mark assessments whilst breastfeeding my newborn? Return to work early against the best interests of myself and my own child? Seriously, these problems are what SLT are paid to manage. If decent cover is appointed, the kids will be just fine.

And to reiterate, OP, you don't seem clear on what you are entitled to wrt maternity pay and not returning to work so please do read up on what you can get. As I said before, you can go on ML early and be paid SMP with no obligation to return and you do not have to keep this secret from your colleagues or management.

Sorry, cross posts! I took ML at 31 weeks the first time around. Going off early May sounds good for you, though I appreciate it will be tough for you to live apart from your husband.

Go on maternity leave rather than quitting. You don't need to take the enhanced pay bit, so you won't have to pay anything back, and you'd get the first 6 weeks at 90% pay which is worth having.

Parents don't like teachers leaving mid year, but that's really just tough. Other people can quit their jobs whenever they like, we are already restricted to three times a year.

I agree with noblegiraffe. In my local authority we had the option to be paid the enhanced part of the maternity leave when we returned from leave in a lump sum, to avoid having to pay it back if we didn't return.

I went on maternity leave at 34 weeks as I was a reception teacher, and couldn't get up and down from the carpet anymore!