How to get the best financial outcome when your maternity/ adoption leave is due to start in a school holiday

This is a topic that is close to my heart - as my first baby was due in the summer holidays. I remember the feeling of injustice at having worked the whole school year - more than earning my six weeks summer holiday pay - but facing the reality that most of that pay would end up being my 6 weeks of the only decent part of my occupational maternity pay offer! That’s what led me to discover SPL and its benefits in the first place, so ultimately it was a blessing in disguise, but that is for another post!

Every year hundreds of teachers will face the situation of their baby being due in a school holiday. Some mistakenly believe they can simply defer maternity leave to start on the first day of the next term - but this is not an option. Maternity leave legally cannot start any later than the day after the birth. 

The biggest misconception we see though, and unfortunately this often comes from HR themselves too, is that maternity leave must start no later than the due date (or in some cases people are told on the sunday the week of the due date). These ideas are very outdated and absolutely not the case today. Under current regulations (The Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations 1999) employees have the right to choose their start date from 11 weeks before the Expected Week of Childbirth (EWC) until the day the baby is born. 

This means that if your baby is due in a school holiday, and you are able to work until the holiday starts - you can opt to start maternity leave at the birth (and in line with the legislation this will mean the officially start date will be the day immediately following the birth). This means you remain on full pay for as long as possible - particularly valuable in the longer holidays. If your baby is two weeks late that is an extra two weeks of full pay!

If your baby is still not here by the date term time is due to start you can notify your employer that you wish to change the start date (from when baby arrives) to the first day of term. Technically 28 days notice is required, but in practice no employer is going to ask an overdue pregnant woman to come into work - they will have planned for you to be absent by this point. In an absolute worst case scenario (and we have never seen this!) you would be able to get signed off by a doctor at this point anyway as being too physically tired/ in early stages of labour etc anyway. 

You do need to be aware that you need a start date for maternity leave and pay to do your SPL paperwork - so this will mean you have to delay submitting it until after baby is born - but this will be worth it if they are late - and from an SPL perspective it is fine to submit forms after the baby is born. If you are using our support services we usually provide you with a draft plan based on your due date, then get back in touch once baby is here to finalise the plan and draft the forms. 

For more info on this, or if your employer is challenging it, have a look at Maternity Actions’s article on this here: https://maternityaction.org.uk/advice/pregnant-at-work/

ACAS also very clearly state here: https://www.acas.org.uk/statutory-maternity-leave-and-pay/planning-leave that women can tell their employer they are planning to start maternity leave the day after they give birth - rather than a specific date.