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 think May is going to be the winner. This way I get SMP, get to see my GCSE lot through, I will be honest with the school about not returning as we are relocating and hubby and I will just have to manage as best we can being apart from each other (we did it before we were married for a year, it was hell but 10 weeks is manageable and at least there will be a date to look forward to!!)

Thank you so much for your help and advice and most important some common sense, having you all telling me to look after our own personal well being really helps me feel less guilty!

No doubt in a couple of weeks time I will be posting again looking for advice and help re: living in Chester! Exciting times!!

One of my DD's teachers left in the February of yr11.
The school hired a new teacher but they shifted teachers around in the timetable so DD's yr 11 classes had teachers who already teached at the school and the new teacher took over their old classes. Iyswim.
This seemed to work quite well and there didn't seem to be much disruption to the yr 11's.
As parents we were a little bit worried about the change of teacher but it worked out ok in the end.

As a parent with a Y11, I'd be happy if you left at Easter if the syllabus was finished and you had briefed the pupils really well on revision books and revision resources, so however useless your cover they'd be OK.

Yes, HOD and SLT should sort it and it shouldn't be your problem and one of DD1's subjects has juggled their teacher being ill very well.

But you know and I know that some senior school staff are about as useful as a chocolate fire guard and some subjects are very difficult to recrute/cover.

Your health and your babies welfare must come first, but if you can remind DCs and their parents of every plan B that exists, should school fuck up, they will love you.

Do not assume panicking GCSE students remember anything. DD1 was in a total flap about Geography case studies (she's dyslexic, her notes are shit), teacher reminds her they are in the school Web site (which is very patchwork used) and she gets a B in her mock.

Seriously, one side of A4 is probably all it needs to ensure the competent hard working pupils, and their parents forgive you leaving and wish you well.

I wish you good luck regardless (these things cannot be planned, my DDs took wildly different times to conceive) and teachers need a life too.

patchwork=patcherly used (sp? I'm dyslexic too)

Patchily Starball :) And I understand what you mean about how if the teacher can leave neatly at the end of term with the syllabus wrapped up and revision notes left then it helps - but for me that would mean working til my actual due date. So I will have to leave slightly awkwardly before everything is nicely finished. This time we do have a better system in place so my Y11s will have an existing teacher as Audi describes, but if my dept hadn't put that in place, I wouldn't be compromising my health because of it. As I said, I was very upset that parents were cross with ME last time for having the temerity to have a baby midway through their children's GCSE!