Teachers maternity???

[jimmyb03]

Hi,

not sure if this is in the right section, apologies.

My wife has just found out she is pregnant, she is a teacher and has been working for her employer for a few years now. Due date will be approximately May sometime (mid i think) were beyond excited as have been wanting this for a long time! Have just brought a house and move in next week which has led us to thinking about the dreaded money

Can anyone, teachers or other informative members (of which i'm sure there are dozens! ) shed any light on maternity pay. We have been reading up on the teachers union, but maybe through stupidity i can't seem to put my finger on it. Apologies, if this is very simple just a million things running through the mind! It states the first 4 weeks are full pay inclusive of smp. Does that mean its just your usual amount for the first month but part of it is made up of smp or does it mean that its your full pay plus smp on top? (doubtful, but wishful!). It then says 2 weeks pay at 90% inclusive of smp so same question as above?? Then 12 weeks 50% plus flat rate smp (what does that mean?). then 21 weeks flat rate smp???

As my wife is due before the summer holidays, which she would normally be paid full pay for the duration, would she actually lose out and get the reduced pay? if so does anyone know anyway around this? could she go back to work for say a week before and then get paid fully?? could we split the maternity time to do this? just trying to understand things a bit more, as with the house, the wonderful news or the pregnancy and job stress my head is not processing things!!

Thanks in advance for all the help and apologies again!

James

 

[newbie1984]

Hi

It sounds as though the full, 90 and 50% rates would mean full pay, 90% pay and 50% pay (based on her usual monthly wage). SMP is about £430 per month and this is what she would receive once the above has ended. Does that help?

 

[newbie1984]

She wouldn't receive SMP plus her normal wage (albeit full, 90 or 50%) the statutory maternity pay (SMP) would be paid after x week on a monthly basis once her regular pay stops.

 

[littlemonkey]

I'm not a teacher but am in public sector and my mat pay is similar to what you've described.

Where is says 100%, she will just get her normal weekly wage, nothing extra. Where it says 90%, again she will get 90% of her usual weekly wage and nothing extra. Where it says 50% plus smp, she will get half of her usual wage as well as the flat rate smp. If you go on direct.gov it should tell you what this weeky rate is. So say for example she usually gets 300 a week and Smp is 100 a week, then she will get 200 for those weeks. The weeks she gets smp, that is all she will get. So in this example she gets 100 a week. Hope that makes sense!

The blunt answer is yes you will be worse off on maternity pay, but unfortunately this is the way of the world. The only way around this if for her to go back to work sooner to get back onto full pay. You can take what I think is called additional paternity leave, but for this your wife has to go back earlier and you will also only receive the same rate as smp, so in theory you wont be any better off.

 

[benjis mum]

I'm a teacher and the maternity pay is exactly as you described. The first month is the same as usual, the second month isn't too bad but the next 12 weeks are half plus smp. I'm on leadership pays scale so that was a huge difference for me, but if she's on a lower pay scale maybe m2-4 it might not be too big a drop. Then it is just smp (£430) a month after that.

Better than a lot of people get but not as good as nhs, job centre workers.

Good luck!