Maternity Teacher Paternity Teacher Project
Fully Funded opportunities for all state school colleagues in Hertfordshire
The MTPT Project is the UK’s charity for parent-educators, working to address the damaging impact of the motherhood penalty on our workforce, and transform teaching into one of the most family- and life-friendly careers available.
We are the leading voice for the parent-educator community, co-authoring the landmark Missing Mothers report in 2024, which strongly influenced the 2025 Teaching Commission Report, and the 2026 DfE White Paper, which placed women aged 30-39 and maternity returners at the heart of our retention and workforce conversations.
Around 15,000 teachers and teaching assistants take a period of maternity or paternity leave every year. We lose 5,456 of these colleagues in the four years following their return from maternity and extended paternity leave.
This loss is particularly acute in the first year of the return to work, where 18% of each maternity cohort – almost 2,000 teachers – are lost every year (MTPT, 2025). The inequality of our parental leave and pay policies lag far behind other graduate professions and embed gendered parenting roles.
Pregnancy and maternity discrimination, and discrimination on the grounds of sex remain hugely problematic in our schools, and is often compounded for single parents, colleagues from minoritised backgrounds and the LGBTQ+ community.
Cradle to Classroom
The MTPT Project’s Cradle to Classroom programme of parental transition support provides coaching and workshop support to educators as they become parents and in the first five years following their return to work and is enriched by online and in-person networking events.
A fourth programme – a block of x 4 1:1 coaching sessions – is available, funded according to certain criteria.
The Cradle to Classroom programmes are open to teachers, leaders, support staff, central Trust colleagues, supply teachers, and returners to the profession who have taken an extended caring related career break. We welcome participants of all parenting identities, not just mothers.
Since 2021, more than 1,300 parent-educators have benefited from one or more of our Cradle to Classroom programmes, and we know that coaching can improve wellbeing, occupational mobility and retention in the post-parental leave period, and support the negotiation of different flexible and full-time working patterns.
Read the MTPT Case Studies below
