How is maternity pay calculated?

[xxlau11xx]

Hi all, I'm a teacher who is currently 32 weeks pregnancy. I am having difficulties in my pregnancy at the moment and have been looking into trying to go part time for the last few weeks to take some of the strain off. I intend to start my maternity leave at 36 weeks so need to get through these last four weeks. My only worry is how my maternity pay is calculated. Does anyone know? Is it based on the last two pays before I go off on maternity? I've been told this is might be the case by someone who wasn't sure. However, I've also read that 15 weeks before my due date is the qualifying week so would this be the pay that is used to calculate it? I'm so confused and would really appreciate any help anyone can provide.

Thank you!

It's calculated as your average earnings over the 8 weeks leading up to week 25 of pregnancy - so probably your two paydays before 25 weeks would have been the ones to count.

I would double check with work just to make sure though.

It might be worth checking with your HR with regards to options, especially if you are an academy.
I'm a secondary teacher and at my school I was offered 'options' that wouldn't affect my maternity pay like later starts.
I was lucky and never had any issues so just worked as normal until I went on mat leave. But I know people who had changes to their timetables made to help them work longer.