What am I entitled to when I comes to a new job whilst pregnant?

[Truecroft]

I've just found out I'm pregnant, the pregnancy was unplanned and I've recently been offered a place on a 52 week post graduate course for public health nursing. I'm worried about telling them as I don't want to miss out on the opportunity to do the course as I've been waiting a long time to do it. The course doesn't start until September so I'll be around 5 months by then so I'll have to go off and have the baby after Christmas. As I won't have worked there for 26 weeks before I have to take maternity I don't think I'll be entitled to SMP but won't be able to survive on Maternity Payments from the government as its significantly less than what I earn currently.

Am I best giving up the job and staying where I am and hope that the course becomes available again in the future or is there any hope for me? I was also thinking of asking them to defer the course until September next year but I'm not sure if that's possible.

Will you be employed whilst doing the masters? Who by- are you current NHS and would you be with them still for this course?

If it’s the course I think it is (SCPHN) it’s a hard year, brutal at times. You’d be much better off deferring or dropping out. There are usually yearly intakes & it’s not as competitive as it was.

If it's a course leading to a qualification, even if you only took 6w mat leave you'd miss over 10% of it. I'd ask to defer for a year.