When women have a new baby, they will need to take time off work to give birth and to look after the newborn during their first weeks or more. It’s a precious time for both mother and baby and the good news is that employed mothers are legally entitled to maternity leave under UK employment law. 
Today, we’ll take a look at how much time and money mothers are entitled to under Statutory Maternity Leave and what the eligibility requirements are. We’ll concentrate purely on the rules for mothers who are employees in this post. However, we will follow up to cover paternity leave, shared leave and support for self-employed mothers separately, in future guides.
Statutory Maternity Leave Entitlement
Eligible mothers are entitled to take up to 52 weeks of Statutory Maternity Leave:
- The first 26 weeks (i.e. first 6 months), known as Ordinary Maternity Leave;
- The last 26 weeks (i.e. months 7 to 12), known as Additional Maternity Leave.
These are the statutory maximums, i.e. mothers do not need to take all 52 weeks off. However, they must take off the first 2 weeks from the date of birth as a minimum, or 4 weeks if they’re factory workers. (They can also arrange to share some of the remaining 50 weeks of their leave with their partner under Shared Parental Leave (‘SPL’) rules, which we’ll cover in the future).
Timing
Statutory Maternity Leave can begin up to 11 weeks prior to the baby’s anticipated due date. It must, however, begin no later than the day after birth if the baby is born early. For eligible mums, Statutory Maternity Leave (& Pay) must also start automatically in the event that the mum-to-be is off work for a medical illness, related to pregnancy, during the 4 weeks prior to the week the baby is due.
Eligibility
The good news is that, to be eligible for Statutory Maternity Leave in the UK, just two main rules apply. You need to:
a). officially be an employee of a company 1 and
b). give your employer the right amount of advanced notice.
How long you have been employed is not a factor and it also doesn’t matter what you are paid or how many hours you work.
1. Not a ‘worker’, ‘contractor’, ‘office holder’ nor ‘self-employed’ (like a sub-contractor) under UK employment tax law.
Notice should be given at least 15 weeks before the baby’s due date. The notice may need to be in writing, depending on your employer’s preference. It needs to confirm the baby’s likely due date and when you would like to begin the maternity leave. Once notified, your employer then has 28 days to officially confirm the beginning and end dates for that leave.
Statutory Maternity Pay (‘SMP’)
Statutory Maternity Pay (‘SMP’) is available to mothers who:
- earn £120 minimum per week on average;
- have given their employer proof of pregnancy (usually an MATB1 certificate or letter from their doctor/midwife);
- have given their employer the correct notice (min. 28 days) of going on Statutory Maternity Leave;
- have worked for their employer for a minimum of 26 weeks (6 months) including into the 15th week preceding the anticipated due date;
- have not been in police custody during the SMP period.
Those whose income has dropped below an average of £120 per week due to being on furlough during the pandemic may still be eligible for SMP.
How Much Do You Get?
You can receive SMP for up to 39 weeks. For the first 6 weeks, you receive 90% of your average gross weekly earnings. For the remaining 33 weeks if you take them, you receive the lower of £151.97 per week, or 90% of your average gross weekly earnings. They’re paid to you from your employer with tax and National Insurance deducted as if they’re part of your usual wages or salary. (Figures correct at August 2021).
Your Employment Rights
When you are away from work on Statutory Maternity Leave, a number of statutory employment rights are still protected. These include your right to a possible pay rise, your right to accrue holiday leave and your right to return to work when your maternity leave comes to an end.
Company Maternity Schemes
Some employers have their own Maternity/Paternity schemes. These must be at least equal to the statutory leave and pay schemes, however, many offer even greater allowances and benefits. So, always check with your employer or HR department to see what may be available.
Try the Online Tool
There’s a great online tool that you can use to check whether you are eligible to claim maternity/paternity leave and pay (as well as Maternity Allowance, which may help self-employed mums). It’ll also calculate how much you could receive. Head over to the Government tool here, ensure you have everything ready in the ‘Before you start’ section and click the green ‘Start now’ button.
If You’re Not Eligible
If you’re not eligible for Statutory Maternity Leave or Pay, other Government help options may be available. For example, for the self-employed, those who have recently stopped working, or are receiving one or more benefits. Click the bold blue link for more details.
Unpaid Parental Leave
Did you know that it’s possible to take unpaid parental leave if your child is under 18? In fact, eligible employees are entitled to up to 18 weeks off work before their child reaches the age of 18. Rules apply, of course, including a maximum of 4 weeks of unpaid parental leave being allowed in any one year. We cover eligibility and the finer detail in a separate post, so click the bold link earlier in this paragraph for the complete picture.
Outstanding Childcare in Streatham, for Your Baby, Toddler or Under-5
Are you looking for a high quality nursery in Streatham for your baby, toddler or under-five child? Little Cedars Day Nursery offers outstanding childcare in Streatham, close to Streatham Common, Streatham Hill, Streatham Park, Furzedown, Tooting, Tooting Bec, Tooting Common, Balham, Norbury & Colliers Wood. We’re one of the very best nurseries in SW16 and open on weekdays throughout the year. We’d love to show you and your little one around, so you can see the setting in action, and to answer any questions that you might have. Please select an option:
Being let loose with coloured paints, art materials and creative opportunities is sure to bring a smile to their faces and a sense of enormous fun, creativity and discovery. No doubt too; they’ll be proud to show others their creations!
As well as being enormous fun, messy play allows children to express themselves in unbounded creative ways. That’s important. Self-expression and creativity will help children to gain a sense of achievement and, through this subtle way, a greater sense of self-worth and confidence.
Hand-eye coordination will also benefit, of course.
We fully understand the many benefits of messy play at Little Cedars Nursery, of course. Indeed, it’s part of the curriculum. Under-fives are encouraged to learn through messy play using an enormous wealth of resources, equipment and materials at the setting. That’s both indoors and in our outside play areas. From paint and paper indoors to sandpits and water play outside, toddlers and preschoolers have a wonderful time with messy play at Little Cedars, all in a safe, structured, fun and educational environment.
Recent studies show that use of connected screens and devices by children, including under-fives, is growing fast. The pandemic appears to have increased kids’ screen use too, as children have spent more time indoors and less time playing ‘in person’ with friends.
Over 75% of children under five have access to a connected device, with up to 60% of preschoolers actually owning their own.
“Parents have always played a huge role in curating what [under-fives] consume and how their time is spent, but toddlers are now confidently navigating digital platforms for themselves, and using touchscreen devices with purpose and determination.” (Childwise)
that the ‘RF wireless radiation’ emitted by Wi-Fi connected screens and devices may carry potential health risks particularly, they argue, for pregnant women, their unborn foetuses and the young. The very young, of course, have brains that are still at a critical development stage. For this reason, the experts concerned advocate that access to devices like mobile phones should be limited, removed from children’s bedrooms at night or, at the very least, placed in Flight Mode when possible. Using devices wired instead of using Wi-Fi apparently reduces risks. Use of them in hands-free mode is another useful approach, so that the devices are not so close to youngsters’ heads. We’re not experts ourselves, but these measures seem like sensible precautions.
While time spent by children on connected screens and devices is rising, it’s not all bad news. The pandemic has also seen an increase in the time that parents have been spending with children, including on shared screen viewing as well as on other pastimes like baking, crafts and family activities. At the end of the day, it’s all about a healthy balance and, of course, adult supervision to ensure children’s wellbeing at all times.
Despite many dyslexic people being highly intelligent, dyslexia makes it difficult for them to recognise words and/or be able to break them down into their smaller components. It is recognised as a Specific Learning Difficulty (‘SpLD’) and can seriously affect their education if not recognised and addressed early.
Such an affliction can have profound implications for a person. It will adversely affect their reading, writing and comprehension, thereby limiting their overall learning capability and hindering overall literacy. These are particularly critical skills during their early years as that’s at the start of their education, when the knock-on effects of such limiting factors will be at their most significant. It will slow down their progress in many topics and areas of education, also leading potentially to lower self-confidence and possibly even getting them mislabelled as ‘slow’ or ‘lazy’ by the unenlightened. Ultimately, it can severely limit their potential careers and life outcomes.
Children finding it difficult to learn the alphabet;
The child describing words and letters as visually jumbling, blurring or even moving around when they try to read them;
There is no cure for dyslexia, but measures to mitigate its effects can be taken by education professionals, parents, carers and even those affected by it. It’s incredibly important, though, for both parents and education professionals to try to recognise it early, for example at nursery or pre-school, so that a suitable teaching programme can be introduced as early as possible.
Babies benefit enormously from breast milk; from simple, practical considerations to major health benefits, many of which continue to benefit them into adulthood. Let’s take a look:
Breastfeeding also has a range of significant health (and other) benefits for mothers. These include:
The childcare professionals at Little Cedars Nursery are keen to fall in with the wishes of parents when it comes to baby and infant milk. To that end, parents are free to supply 
The EYFS framework sets the statutory approach required for pretty much every aspect of early years childcare and education provision in the UK. The standards cover the learning and development programmes, learning goals, approach to assessment, safeguarding, welfare of children, staffing, and much more. In this guide, however, we’ll focus purely on the 7 key areas of learning and development covered by the EYFS. Essentially, these form the core curriculum at nurseries like Little Cedars Nursery in Streatham. Let’s take a look …
It would be hard to overstate the importance of good communication and language skills, as they underpin early years progress in just about everything else. So, early years providers like Little Cedars encourage two-way interactions and language-rich communications between staff and children right from the outset. Childcare professionals will introduce new vocabulary regularly and help children to understand it and use it themselves through activities like story-telling, role play and question-and-answer sessions. Practitioners will regularly read with (not just to) children, using a wide variety of high quality reading materials, encouraging feedback and engagement from the children as they progress. In this way, new vocabulary is embedded, conversations come naturally and children will thrive in their language and communication skills.
Physical development is, of course, another key skill that is foundational for children. After all, it impacts on health, mobility, strength, fitness, agility, coordination, wellbeing and general happiness. So, great care is taken at nurseries like Little Cedars to help children hone their physical skills and development incrementally, to improve all of the above. This is done through the EYFS programmes that are set and customised for each individual child. Skills like balance, gross and fine motor skills, coordination, spatial awareness, hand/eye coordination, strength and agility will therefore gradually improve and become second nature to each child as they grow. Active children will generally become more healthy children. They will also improve social skills and confidence through the activities that they participate in alongside peers. It is also, of course, great fun!
Health, happiness and even the development of early years cognitive function are all underpinned by children’s personal, social and emotional development (‘PSED’). Indeed, PSED forms the backbone of children’s relationships to all adults and peers around them — and also governs how they feel they fit in. That’s all incredibly important, so childcare settings like Little Cedars Nursery approach PSED as a ‘prime’ element within the EYFS curriculum. The result is that children are supported and support one another, they learn how to manage emotions and behaviours, how to eat healthy diets, look after themselves physically, and independently manage their own personal needs. All of this will have the knock-on effect of improving confidence and self-esteem and even allow them to set some of their own goals. Close bonds will be made with both staff and other children and conflicts will be more easily resolved peaceably.
Reading and writing are crucial elements within every child’s education. Without these skills, learning about other topics would become much more difficult. Literacy is therefore a key area of focus within the EYFS learning and development framework. Like other nurseries, pre-schools and childcare settings that adhere to the EYFS approach, Little Cedars Nursery will therefore endeavour to encourage a love of reading within every child. Reading teaches children to comprehend language, vocabulary, grammar and spelling as well as learning more about the underlying topics themselves.
Nurseries, pre-schools, kindergartens and other childcare settings also recognise the importance of mathematics within children’s learning and development. The EYFS curriculum caters well for this, encouraging early years professionals to help children master counting first to 10 and later to 20 and beyond. Children will learn the patterns around numbers, including recognition of odd and even numbers, along with skills like simple addition and subtraction, and the ability to recognise low quantities without having to count. They will also learn to recognise when one quantity is more than, less than or equal to another. In so doing, children will also learn the vocabulary around mathematics in readiness for school once they leave their early years setting.
A good early years education is nothing unless children understand the world around them. The EYFS framework used by early years nurseries like Little Cedars builds in programmes to help children learn more about the world. This includes helping them to learn how to observe, recognise, describe and even draw what’s immediately around them as well as exposing them to environments like the natural world, local parks and museums. It even teaches them to recognise similarities and differences between other cultures, religions and communities in the UK and lives being lived abroad. They will get to know more about people’s roles in society too, for example through visits from police officers, firefighters and nurses. A broad range of written material (both fiction and non-fiction) will inform them further. Topics explored will touch on culture, technology, ecology, religion, community, nature and much, much more. This will enrich their knowledge and understanding of the world they live within, giving context to what they see, hear and read about as they grow older.
Expressive arts and design are also integral elements within the EYFS curriculum. Early years childcare settings like Little Cedars ensure that children are given a wide range of opportunities to be creative and to free their imaginations. A huge variety of media, materials, tools and activities can be used by children to express themselves and communicate both visually and audibly. Colour, texture, form and function are explored along with opportunities for role play, story-telling, poetry, singing, performance and even dancing when appropriate.
Little Cedars Nursery (Streatham) uses the EYFS framework to shape the educational activities and programmes that babies and children experience at the nursery. Part of this includes the setting of learning goals that each child needs to work towards as they gradually approach the age of 5, when they will move on to school. These are individual goals, tailored to the unique needs, interests, abilities – and any disabilities – of each individual child. A continuous regime of assessment will be undertaken by staff to monitor each child’s progress during their time with the nursery, with the learning programme adjusted, as necessary, along the way. A ‘Key Person’, allocated to each child, facilitates that assessment proactively. Additionally, staff will regularly engage with parents or carers/guardians to ensure that progress towards the learning and development goals is continued at home, wherever possible. Progress is communicated and a learning journal retained and available to parents at any time. In this way, each child achieves personal bests in all areas and everyone is kept up-to-date with the child’s progress.
In April last year, we published a compelling article about 
Reading with children also makes the task less daunting, particularly for the youngest children. Reading together also makes it more interesting and more fun. When it’s more interesting and more fun, the child is going to enjoy it more and naturally want to read more often — eventually independently — and all of that is priceless as part of their education and general knowledge going forwards. Reading can also bring parent and child closer through the time spent together. It can be great fun for the adult too, particularly when the child gets older and adults are exposed to classic children’s books that perhaps they were not, themselves, exposed to when they were young.
The Nuffield Foundation’s mission is to advance social wellbeing and educational opportunity. In a partnership with the University of Newcastle, the foundation funded a deep study
It will come as no surprise, therefore, to learn that we put all of the above into practice at Little Cedars Nursery in Streatham. Getting closely involved in children’s reading, using a huge variety of reading material in an interactive way, gives our nursery children the very best start in life. Indeed, our childcare professionals prepare them thoroughly for school by the time they leave us. They take with them reading, writing, literacy, language, vocabulary and self-expression skills in the process — and all this accomplished at least in part through guided reading.