Teachers' maternity leave, is this normal?

[lurkingmum]

I was wondering whether it is normal for 4 of my DD's teachers being on maternitiy leave almost same time. My DD is in year 7 and her history, geography, drama and music ( her form tutor) are on M/L or about to go. Of course, teachers have rights to leave and I am certain they must have informed the school of their leave well before and so the school should have had time to reshuffle teachers to prevent this happening.

I am quite concerned about continuity of teaching and buliding relationship between teachers and students.
Can anyone advise on this?

I think it is department heads who assign classes to teachers so no-one will have an overview of the timetable of every child. Not ideal but I'm sure your dd will manage.

It's perfectly normal - a lot of teachers are women of "child-bearing age" so it will happen a lot. Not sure what you think the school could have done about it? The shuffling will have been done to avoid disruption to exam groups. Year 7 are way down the list of importance, I'm afraid.

Yadnbu. Why can they take their M/L in a staggered fashion, even if their babies are due at the same time? One could have it straightaway, another when their baby is a year old and so forth. That way, they would prevent any disruption at all to the teaching of all the pupils, as I betcha the cover will be WOEFULLY inadequate in all these subjects. Why DO heads insist on employing women of child-bearing age? I despair, I really do.

Year 7 students might be taught be up to 15 different teachers. It is very likely that some of them will leave during the year for a variety of reasons, one of which is maternity leave. She will cope just fine!

I'm a secondary school teacher and am 1 of 4 members of staff on maternity leave at the moment BUT that's out of a total staff of 120 - % wise it's just the way it is.

My classes were shuffled so my exam classes were covered and done continuously; but my replacement is a highly qualified and competent teacher; I wouldn't have employed her otherwise. Her education might not be suffering; she will still be being taught. If you trust the school I'd trust them to have employed good cover.

There must be a special seat in the staffroom :)

It's hard enough time tabling teachers within one department to account for maternity leave without then having to cross check the timetables of every single child across all departments within the school. So long as the maternity cover is competent (and they will be teaching for a significant chunk of time so there will be plenty of continuity there) then it won't be a problem.

Are you serious OP? What do you want the school to do - reshuffle classes multiple times in a year so your child doesn't 'suffer'? Get a grip

Or maybe you think there should be a strict rotation on whose turn it is to have unprotected sex in each term?!?!

What if there are some male teachers whose wives/partners are due to give birth at this time too - there'll be the PL, and then he's bound to be performing below par until the child is at least 15, by which time they'll be a teen tear away, and the Dad'll not be focussing on his job because he'll be worrying about what time his DC got home.

I appreciate that you are your DD's mum, and thus looking out for her, but please don't ever presume to overstep the mark in this way again. If this thread were in AIBU, then I would soundly tell you that you are.

Or maybe you think there should be a strict rotation on whose turn it is to have unprotected sex in each term?!?!

Glad I'm not the only one who thought that.

If you DC was in year 11 I would say you would have a point. The school has probably ensured as much continuity as possible for the pupils taking GCSEs or A Levels.

Maternity leave is much less disruptive than other sick leave by teachers. It is predictable (you know when it will start and roughly how long it will go on for). It is also relatively long, so you can recruit a good teacher to cover the period; you are not relying on just short term supply.
My DDs form tutor went on maternity leave last year, before she went she was paired with an overseas teacher, who learnt how form time works here before taking over for the duration of the Maternity leave. It worked fabulously.

I am a teacher on ml and agree, the school will be prioritising exam classes. It's also lovely to see that this hasn't turned into a teacher flaming thread like so many do!

Remember too that there are legal guidelines regarding the discrimination of women which tie a school's hands somewhat when it comes to changing the classes taught by people on ml.

When I go on Maternity Leave at Easter there will be four of us going at the same time, there is already one on ML and two dads expecting PL at the same time.

We are a small school and have had nobody on ML in the four years I've been here, so this is a strange situation.

We have also had the 'special chair' joke, and 'something in the water'. It's just one of those things - we're all late twenties/early thirties couples, baby-making is what they do!

Yes, us teachers have special cross departmental meetings where we carefully plan our sex lives in order to ensure the minimum level of disruption for each pupil we teach.

See?
See the problems that are created when you give women jobs and rights and all the rest?
They start expecting that they can have families and jobs. That's just greedy isn't it?
Can I ask all the parents out there to only give birth between September and December please, those Summer born youngsters are messing with my statistics. Oh, and alternate between the sexes as I like my classes to be 30/50 split female male.
Thank you.

'Multifacetediguana. is there a place for orgy INSET weeks?
Then you could replace staff as a block for a set number of months.

Whole heartedly agree that a rota for babies should be hammered out in schools. So unfair otherwise.

We had a special chair in our school too. Ended up with 7 staff members up the duff at the same time and we're not a big school. It did have an impact but that's just life I'm afraid. The school will prioritize the exam classes over KS3 and quite rightly so.