Return to teaching after mat leave

[Englishpetal89]

Hello,

I'd really like some opinions from teacher parents on my potential mat leave plans. I'm due in January, so plan to take mat leave a few days after the start of term 3, and return a few days before the end of term 6. In theory, this makes finding a maternity cover easier for the school (as they can go from Christmas to the summer), gives me Xmas and summer paid in full rather than as maternity leave, allows me essentially 8 months with my new baby, and makes finding a job share to allow me to go part time easier (as it will be starting from the beginning of term) while causing less disruption to the class.
I want to know - has anyone done similar? Was 8 months far, far too short? Can anyone see a reason school wouldn't agree or any reasons I haven't thought of to not do this?

TIA!!

Sounds fine to me, but you don't need to do a few days at start of half term 3. You could just have christmas hols paid then put maternity leave to start on first day of term in Jan.

Yep, I agree with pp. put down the first working day in Jan as your leave date. Unless you're due beforehand. I was due in the summer holiday and I put that down as my leave date. I started work the first monday of the half term holiday so I got paid for the week before I returned to work.

Agree with pp... put first day of term as start of your mat leave... I did for the start of the summer term. And DS was 8 months when I went back 3 days... totally fine

Sorry should say 3 days a week!