maternity leave and pay

[TheHappyHazelMember]

Hi everyone,

I am due 07/07/2025 and work for a local school as cover supervisor. I am entitle to 52 weeks leave and 39 weeks pay at this rate:
6 weeks pay at 100% of your salary (inclusive of Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)); and • 12 weeks pay at 50% of your salary (inclusive of SMP); and • SMP for 21 weeks (SMP is currently £184.03 per week)

I wouldn't want to "lose" the August pay and holiday and would ideally start materenity leave on 31st of August rather than 07 of July but I understand this is not possible. Would it be better to get shared parental leave?

Thank you for your help!

You would have to take two weeks off legally I think from the birth of the child, as with all jobs.

You could then in theory have a period of shared parental leave, however it depends on what the father’s paternity policy is as to whether that’s financially worthwhile. E.g. I don’t know if you would be forgoing 100% pay during some of those weeks, for them to only get SMP.

The plus side of the due date, is the following year (if you take the whole 12 months off) you’ll only have a couple of weeks before the summer holidays. So, if you wanted to go back part time for example, you could used shared parental leave to go back full time in July, get full pay over the summer and only go down to part time pay from September.