Return from maternity leave

Case 5: The facts

Primary school teacher Mrs Blundell was teaching a reception class before she went on maternity leave. On her return, she was assigned a year two class.

Blundell claimed that this was not the same job she had been employed to do before her absence, and said the failure to assign her to the reception class again amounted to sex discrimination.

The ruling

When deciding whether an employee has returned to the same job, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) said, a tribunal must take account of the nature of the work done and the capacity and place in which it was and is done. It held that Blundell had returned to the same job, as the nature of her work was as a teacher and not specifically a reception teacher; she could therefore be required by the head teacher to teach any class.

However, the EAT also found that the head teacher should have asked Blundell her teaching preferences for the following year; all the other teachers at the school had been asked but Blundell had not, because she had been on maternity leave at the time. This amounted to an act of sex discrimination.

Blundell v The Governing Body of St Andrew’s Catholic Primary School and another EAT/0329/06