Pregnant teachers, are you in work?

[purplecrackerbox]

This seems to vary quite a lot. I’m tri3 and am supposed to be in but have been signed off.

We had a colleague who left for her maternity leave at the normal planned time last week. (Scotland so been back a good few weeks now)

Yes in YR/1 as normal with risk assessment. I’m 28 weeks and planning on working until 38 if I make it that far.

Yes. 26 weeks. Hoping to continue to work in school as long as possible, cases in this area are very minimal. Feel well supported and have good risk assessment in place.

Yes, but I will be working from home from 28 weeks with the other people who are pregnant. Maternity leave doesn't start until my usual time, so I don't miss out on anything.

Yes 33 weeks teaching year 1. But only 2 days and then 3 days working from home! Takes me the the whole weekend to recover from 2 days teaching. I would never manage 5!!

36 + 5 still in work - not teaching, just helping with admin, risk assessment has been done and I’m working in an empty classroom. One more week at work left.

I'm 24 weeks and a Reception teacher. My school have been very supportive and my HT said it was my choice whether to go back to the classroom or not. As social distancing is pretty much impossible with that age group, I decided against it after a lot of agonising. I'm now in school 3 days a week doing interventions with Y1 and Y2, and WFH the other two days doing curriculum stuff. After 28 weeks I will be WFH full time. I might then be carrying on interventions online, partly as a trial for if we have to go back to home or blended learning. I'll be taking mat leave at Christmas as I would have anyway.

Started WFH once I entered my third trimester.

I'm only 10 weeks but been told that the government have said not to work over 28 weeks. I don't know if I'd get furloughed for this. Has anyone been told this?

I’m still working at 32 weeks stop in 3 weeks time at 35 weeks. The original plan was only to go back till 28 weeks (Scotland) but I got told in August that was no longer the case when shielding stopped.

9 weeks and working from home. I am devestated and wish I'd never told them. Guidelines says pregnant women should try to maintain social distancing. Head says this can't be guaranteed and the school would be liable legally. Don't think I will cope at home for the rest of the pregnancy!

No. School resumed when I was 34 weeks and I worked from home until going on maternity leave at 37 weeks.

No, they wouldn't let me wfh from September so I started my maternity leave early instead

I'm WFH, I'm 30 weeks. I'll be going in to my 37th week when I start maternity leave but may request to extend it an extra week if they need me to still keep working, I'm happy to if they need me.

@SkyeBarn you won't get furloughed. If it's not deemed safe for you to be in class after 28 weeks then your school has a duty to either find you a safe alternative to classroom work or put you on medical leave with full pay. They can't furlough you for being pregnant, or put you on Mat Leave early. Speak to your union if you need to.

It seems to vary tremendously from school to school. I had someone become quite aggressive with me when I mentioned I’d been in school, because their school weren’t allowing pregnant teachers in!

It’s pretty hard. Lots of walking about and lots of worry. I’m in a local lockdown area too.

I was pregnant but sadly mc at 6 weeks. I would have now been 11 weeks but tested positive for covid this weekend. The only likely place I could have caught it is school or from dd who is at nursery, so also a school setting.

If/when I get pregnant again I will be asking to wfh as soon as I know. You can get coronavirus more than once, school really, really can't guarantee my safety and there is no proper social distancing. I also know from the PHE advice about contacts that the contact guidelines are insane for an airborne virus.

If I had still been pregnant now I would have been terrified - there is so much we don't know about this thing. It's not worth it in my opinion... school will cope, I can do valuable work from home and I'm not prepared to put a future baby at risk.

RCOG have archived their advice for pregnant healthcare workers to work at home/non patient facing and it’s now down to the discretion of individual trusts so I get the feeling schools are less likely to allow teachers WFH in the near future. Several of my nursing and midwifery friends are staying patient facing until mat leave now.

I’m sorry to hear of your miscarriage

The problem is that if there is no setup or precedent for working from home, your options are to be signed off or to struggle in. It’s very difficult to know what is best.

Yes! Primary here. 24 weeks and planning on working for as long as I can. I'm happy being in and am being as careful as I can.

I’m almost 33 weeks now. Secondary school teacher. I have worked in the classroom with groups of 36 until last week when my consultant (higher risk pregnancy) said I had to work from home. Of course during lockdown it was smaller groups. He was shocked that I hadn’t been told to do so before (first time I had seen this particular one) and said I should have been working from home at 28 weeks. I was very emotional last week when I was trying to put contingency plans in place for my sudden departure but feeling positive this week as I’ve realised I’m not coming home and worrying about having to quarantine and therefore miss vital appointments. There is plenty of work for me to be getting on with remotely until half term, which is when I’m due to start maternity leave. I’m also lucky that we’d just appointment someone to take over my teaching post before I left so they will be starting very soon and so minimising the impact on my pupils.

Is anyone working in an area that has gone into local lockdown? Has this changed anything at work for you? I’m 21 weeks pregnant and my area is due to go into lockdown on Thursday, so any info would be appreciated x

I was and no, is the short answer

I can’t even visit a friend but I can be in a classroom with thirty children. I have been signed off (not because of that) but it is starting to get to me now.