EMA Payments

lufcgirl

Hi

I don't know if this is the right section but please feel free to move.
My younger brother is in receipt (or supposedly) of EMA and has been since he started college last September. He's doing a bricklaying course which is around 12-15 hours per week and recieved £30.

My Dad drops him off at college and comes back to pick him up every day that he's there. Whats been happening for the past three or four months is his money isn't going in 3/4 of the time. Every Friday when my Mum checks his bank for him and they payment hasn't gone in they're straight on the phone and the student services lady keeps saying that a particular teacher hasn't signed him as there and then him and the rest of the class aren't being paid this money till the following Wednesday. Now everyone is getting sick of chasing up this money nearly every week for him.

Last week, he wasn't paid again and we were told his teacher said he wasn't in. This time they refused to retract it because he was accusing my brother of skipping college, when the teacher was in a meeting and the whole class weren't there!

Is there anyone we can speak/complain to about this? All in all he must be owed around 8 weeks money which he's getting in bits and peices when the teachers decide to get round to correcting their register.

MrsManda

As the payments are made after the school has informed the LEA, the only thing which can be done is to talk to the school about the administration of the EMA register.
I suggest that your brother speaks to his head of year about it.
When I had EMA (which admittedly was a few years ago) if there was any problems with attendance you spoke to the head of year who decided whether you should still be allowed to receive the money. That worked on a centralised register though - it wasn't individual classes.

lufcgirl

Thats the thing though, there isn't a problem with his attendance. The whole class are being marked as absent because a teacher doesn't fill in a register correctly or on time resulting in his whole class not being paid.

MrsManda

But that's still an issue which if it can't be resolved with the teacher you go to the next level. It's probably best for your brother and his classmates to speak to the teacher after class about the problem - it could just be that s/he doesn't understand the importance. If that doesn't resolve the issue, then they should talk to the year head or personal tutor.

Oldernotwiser

I don't mean to be rude but are you absolutely sure that your brother is telling the truth? Lots of students blame tutors when really they haven't been attending/achieving.

lufcgirl

Yeah we know he's attending as it always gets corrected a couple of weeks later! It's the fact they can't do it in the first instance that's annoying.

He is an idiot sometimes but I know he wouldn't dare cross my dad and not attend!

hoochi

i used to wrk for the lea paying ema the schools have to send a sheet every week by a deadline saying who was there what i would do is sk the lea if the school is always late in sending this information in then go to the head directly armed with all the dates asking what protocl they follow for recording this info and passing it in they might have a ema spokesperson in school that deals just with that if not they may need it good luck