Shared Parental Leave gives teachers more flexible control over maternity time. The rules can feel complicated but SPL can be an amazing way to maximise paid time at home, especially when you plan around school holidays.
This guide explains how SPL works for teachers and how you can combine it with holidays to increase your income during your time off. You can also read the official overview here:
Gov.uk Shared Parental Leave and Pay
How SPL works for teachers
SPL allows you to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay after maternity leave begins. You can stop maternity, take SPL, return to work temporarily or take holiday periods as “back at work”. The Government also offers a planner that shows how SPL and pay can be shared:
Plan Shared Parental Leave and Pay
For teachers this is powerful because school holidays can be used strategically.
Why SPL is different for teachers
When the school is closed you are technically classed as working. This means you can return to work during Christmas, Easter or half-terms without actually going back into school. Your SPL pay stops during those weeks and your employer pays your normal salary instead. You can find extra teacher focused advice from unions here:
NEU Shared Parental Leave Guidance
and
NASUWT Shared Parental Leave Advice.
This creates opportunities to take more paid time off overall.
Combining SPL blocks with school holidays
You can:
• Start maternity
• Switch to SPL
• Return to work for a holiday
• Return to SPL afterwards
• Repeat this pattern to stretch your paid time off
The SPL Teachers Calculator does all holiday and pay calculations for you and ensures SPL blocks stay in multiples of seven days.
Example
You stop maternity after OMP finishes. You take an SPL block for four weeks. A half-term appears inside your leave. You can pause SPL, receive your normal salary for that week, then restart SPL after the holiday.
Use the calculator
Our calculator will build this full plan with dates, salary figures and all holiday adjustments for you.
