Maternity pay

[ChristinaMarlowe]

Morning all. I'm freaking out about SMP! My maternity leave starts in July - due date is 20th but I have gestational diabetes and will probably deliver at around 38 weeks.
My question is, if I've eared my pay until September as normal am I still docked 10% from day one for the first 6 weeks? I'm guessing the answer is yes but can't see how that's legal?! I know I need to talk to my line manager but am wondering how this panned out for anyone else? I've just not thought about it until this morning and am now stressing myself out so would be grateful for any experience or advice.
Apologies in advance if I'm lucky enough to get back to sleep for an hour or two but will be back later if so. Thank you!

I had a summer-holiday dc. I went in mat leave the day they were due, which was a few days before actual birth. Pay was standard mat pay, so I didn't get full pay until September. So you are correct, unfortunately. If my dc was born in September, I would have had more mat pay... but I would also have had a further year of childcare costs at 4-5 age, since they would have had a further year to wait before school. So I tried to see it as a (very long-term) win, to stop me being pissed off about it.

Thank you for your reply @TheBitchOfTheVicar.
I thought as much but it's so unfair I thought I'd check to see what others experiences were.
Guess I'll suck it up and start trying to see the summer birthday as a bonus!

It is a legal requirement for you to be on maternity leave when your baby arrives, it's not just schools that do that!

It does seem unfair, but when you go back next year, you will be paid for the summer, so it'll even out.

Ohhgreat but in other jobs holiday pay is accrued. It is not accrued in teaching. So in another job, if someone takes 12 months off for maternity then the next year they will have 12 months salary plus their accrued annual leave pay. Teachers do not get this.

I lost out at the start of my mat leave due to a summer born. I'm going back for the last week of the academic year though so I'll get another 6 weeks off at full pay.

Yep, maternity leave is automatically triggered when the baby arrives. But if you’re taking a year off, definitely go back the week before the summer holidays so you get the summer holidays as full pay. Top tip, if you’re going part time, you can then go part time from September so you still get full time pay for the summer.