Taking KIT days to wind down from work during early mat leave?

[TheLordisGood]

I work at a boarding school and it is very full on (6 days a week, sometimes up to 12h days onsite) some adaptions have been made but I’m now 30w, very tired and not coping as well. I asked for further adaptations to my hours but this was sort of batted away… so I was thinking about starting my maternity leave early - ideally and originally the idea was that I’d finish the term, would be at 37 weeks, so normally a good time to finish before baby. Also works out the best financially.

However I thought perhaps finishing 3 weeks or so earlier would give me time to rest and prepare to be a mother, and then I was thinking to use 2/3 kit days a week during that time to wind down (if work agree!). Originally, I wasn’t planning to use the 10 KIT days anyway as I’m going on SPL after the initial period, so I will have 20 SPLIT days too and I didn’t want to work when baby would be so small!

Is this a strange idea? Am I mad to want to start leave so early? Fears are that I would be bored - though if work agree the KiT days I’ll still kind of be working part time and other fears is that I will regret it financially but I think the difference only comes to something like a months’ normal wages and because of SPL I still get a year off with baby, so I don’t have to go back any earlier than originally planned.

You can only take KIT days as full days. I finished work at 36 weeks (technically 38 but I had 2 weeks off at christmas prior to starting) and I'm currently 4 days overdue. I'm so bored and sick of waiting. Potentially i'll of had 6 weeks at home before arrival and it's driving me a bit mad. Have you got any holiday to use as an alternative?

In theory it could work. I am confused as to how you get a year off with SPL? It's 52 weeks total, and you share that with your partner, so get 52 minus whatever they have?

OP takes the SPL during term time and their partner does it during the hols. A year off and normal pay during the 15 or so holiday weeks.

You only get 10 days, even if you only use half a day - you cannot split it into 20 half days

What is your mat pay policy? We get enhanced mat pay of 100% salary for the first X months and our policy states that you cannot get paid for KIT days in addition to enhanced mat pay. So for us, it doesnt make sense to use the KIT days until after enhanced mat pat ends as you'd basically be working for free. I guess if your policy doesnt state this, then you might be ok?

@PickledPurplePickle its 10 days for KIT days on maternity leave but oddly if you move on to Shared parental leave it’s actually 20 SPLIT days (they call them SPLIT but it’s just KIT days). I’m currently on that now. I haven’t tested the theory of using both sets though, I only started the keeping in touch (SPLIT) once I had moved onto ShPL. Which is 20 days.

The maternity leave/ShPL is 52 weeks in total though. It’s not in addition.

Aside from the KIT days, why have your suggestion of adaptions been batted away? Are you talking about actions off the back of pregnancy risk assessments or ideas you've put to them? What are they?

20 SPLIT days isn't 10 KIT days split. SPLIT is the name for the keeping in touch days on shared parental leave.

I think you’re totally reasonable to take leave early, but you can’t use your KIT days like that. Don’t forget you can also get sick leave if you think work are putting too much pressure on you/not making allowances.

Normally any time off unwell after 36w means that your maternity leave starts

Potentially okay now but would eventually end up cutting out of her maternity leave

yes but if you need to you need to. I finished a week early with my first and he came two weeks early - my body was obviously telling me something! I was glad I didn’t work until the end.

I was teaching full time and struggling.

Had a routine appointment at 32 weeks. Consultant said: we normally get our high risk ladies signed off from 32 weeks.

I said that’s nice for them. And he looked at me expectantly.

(I had loads of different risk factors).

Emailed work that night and never went back (until 2021…) Was the best thing ever to just have that time for myself.

If you use your KIT days at the start of your maternity (when you are possibly receiving full pay based on your workplace policy), you won't receive any extra payment. If you use them at the end of your maternity leave when your money has reduced, you will receive a day's pay for them. Might be worth considering

It depends on your company policy actually as my company does give extra pay for KIT days or SPLIT days even if taken in our enhanced pay period (first 24 weeks). It’s also true that you can get 20 SPLIT days and we don’t have to work a full day to be paid although we can’t take a ‘half day’. I would check with your HR on the policy in your company specifically.

@Luhou I'm not able to use any holiday as I'm a teacher so I only get holidays in the allocated holiday time.

@CrispAppleStrudels thanks for this consideration, I'm scouring the maternity policy but I can't see anything about not using KIT days at the beginning - there's no enhanced pay though so I go straight to SMP, 6 weeks at 90% and then SMP for the rest until I take SPL. @Shortbreadfingerss @ChocHotolate

The only issue then would be maybe being over taxed in the first month and perhaps I might be able to ask HR/payroll to not pay me the KIT days until I start receiving SMP because otherwise like you say, it won't be worth it.

@RedPinkPeach can I ask why you say you can't use the KIT days like that?

@Blue2020 I understand SPL is not in addition, but if you work at a school - I will be going "back to work" during the school holidays when the school is closed, so that saves me around 15 weeks or so which I can tag on the end of SPL to make my time last more than 52. I can't take past the baby's 1st birthday though. As a teacher I don't get holiday days or accrue extra holiday, so SPL is the only way to get more time with the baby and still receive the holidays we should be entitled to

@Goawaytina I don't want to be too identifiable on here so I can't list them but I have a doctor's note that says I can't work more than 40hrs but with all the things I'm expected to do here I do work longer than that (much longer in fact 50hrs or so) but if you look at my work timetable I can't prove that as they don't take into account my lunch breaks, lesson planning, marking, waiting on the school site to meet students for meetings and support session etc.

I could fight it and I've thought about it but I'm too tired to fight at this stage, I know that's bad! But I'm not sure what else to do!

@Potatohigh if I wait until 36w and then get sick it is potentially no advantage to me because that is only a week before the Easter holidays and I am due in the middle of the holidays - so I would have gone onto SMP and only saved myself a week's work - if that make sense?

@RedPinkPeach @LividBreeze I don't have any risk factors so I'm not sure I can - I'm just exhausted (tired but also having a lot of insomnia) and have pelvic pain. I tried to speak to the doctor but they said that my 40hr fit note wasn't legally binding - they suggested taking off two weeks until the pregnancy symptoms settled but I was signed off for a week in December and felt so stressed because I was being emailed about setting work for my classes and safe to say I didn't receive that nice a reception when I came back. I know all wrong but I don't want to go through that stress again :(

@LividBreeze Reassuring to hear that you had a good time to yourself before the baby arrived! You didn't feel bored like @Luhou ?

Never been bored in my life! 😂

Loved it.

Ironically, baby came end of March 2020 so I was glad of the last couple of weeks of “normality”.

Screw work. Seriously.