I'm a teacher in a non-government school. I tried to take my maternity pay at half pay and I was told I wasn't allowed to. There was nothing in the agreement that said one way or the other whether I was allowed to or not, but the school said no. I didn't try contacting head office directly, and now I'm thinking I probably should have.

I did get an extra 7 weeks of pay in the end, though. I managed to work up until the end of the school year (finished at 35 weeks, Sam arrived early at 36 weeks) which meant I got paid for the summer holidays before my maternity pay started.

BW