Maternity leave problem

[Hibou7688]

Hi everyone, hoping someone can answer this as i can't find a definitive answer anywhere.

OH and I are wanting to ttc. I am a teacher.. And justgot googling maternity pay. My problem is that i am starting a new job (going from an academy to a state school) in Jan.. If I fall pregnant in next couple of months, will this affect SMP and OMP? I've been reading some union guidance on it and i'm under the impression that i would possibly not qualify for the same amount of maternity pay as Iwould if I had worked there for 12months.

I had never realised til I researched that being new to a school can affect it. It's annoying because we have talked about ttc for months, i wasn't intending to move jobs but it came up and was too good an opportunity to miss. But i'm really excited about ttc and don't want to have to wait a year to get going :( but i am worried about maternity pay being affected.

Thanks!!

Yes I think the occupational part will be affected because you will be moving employers. If you moved from state school to state school it wouldn't be but having worked for an academy I think you've broken your local authority service record and you'll have to start again. But I might be wrong. Check with the local authority.

Yes, it can. Before academies when your employer was the local authority, you could change school within the local authority and maternity was unaffected. However, you are changing employers and so will most likely need to work up your full entitlement to maternity pay. You could always phone the local authority and ask?

Thanks for replies :) before academy I was in a state school but it was in a different authority anyways. Will ring them and see if they can help.

How long has the academy been an academy? If less than 18 months, your contract might still be under review. There's a term for it starting with t (someth

(Something like tooti) that means you're still covered by the burgundy book and the academy can't change terms of condition.

That might mean you're still counted as continuous service in the LEA.

I'd call HR in your LEA and ask, personally. You don't want to have to pay back your maternity pay!

(Sorry for disjointed response- very wiggly baby pushed the done button!)

TUPE? That means another employer takes on the employee with continuity of service, terms etc . Not sure if that works if moving from one LA to another or academy-state.

Yeah, that's it. What I meant was that if the OP's school is a new academy, and she is under TUPE, then it might still count as continual service following on from when the academy was a state.

So her service might count as state -> academy (but under TUPE) -> state.

Is the 1 year's service before maternity pay counted as before you leave, or based on 26 weeks?

I think tupe only works if i was at the school when it moved from state to academy' which I wasn't. It had been an academy as long as i worked there. It's in a different LA to new school anyways! I think i'm just going to have to wait a year to ttc :( annoying now i'm all excited about it!

Is it a year's service before you can ttc or a year before you can go on ml and at what week before edd ? Is the additional maternity pay worth the wait ? You'd still get SMP as long as you aren't pg when you start.

To qualify for SMP you have to have done 26 weeks in the job by 15 weeks prior to due date.
To qualify for OMP, which is a better deal, you have to have worked there for a full year by 11 weeks before birth.
(This is what i've understood from union guidance anyways.

So you only need to postpone ttc by about 6/7 months.

Moving from one LA to another counts as continuous service, it's the time at the academy which has broken the service record.