Is EMA Fair???

rev_henry

LemonGrove wrote: »

Grove

Oh dear, sorry. I'm not doing very well with you tonight. Can't even spell the wrong thing right lol. I meant to put Juice!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

I'm on disability benefits, surprisingly enough (for David Cameron and the like) because I am disabled and have ongoing active disease progression, not because I like drinking beer and watching Jeremy Kyle. DD1 went to a, frankly, rubbish school and was part of their 'Aim Higher' programme (which consisted of a couple of visits to the theatre and one of their successive stream of headteachers claiming credit for her work).

She is entitled to full EMA for her college studies.

She has to travel 5 miles - 30mins walk, 60min bus (usually 2 - 3 different buses as the direct one is really unreliable; the college has zero tolerance of what they call laziness, as students are 'expected to get up earlier to guarantee punctuality' - 5am?) - every morning and night to get to her college. She leaves at 6.45am and usually returns at about 6 pm, sometimes later.

She is studying for 4 A levels. In the evenings, she takes a further course for a BTEC. She is also expected to continue instrument lessons and take one 'enrichment' activity - in order to keep fit, she has chosen Dance, as the college offers it for free.

She has worked solidly every night/weekend since she started college. When she isn't working, she is sleeping or trying to help me with housework.

Before she even gets the EMA, she had to pay £120 - a 'contribution' towards college facilities and as a deposit towards the issuing of an ID card, computer access permissions, a library ticket and allowing her to be issued with any text books. Until this was paid, the college said she was not allowed to use their facilities. She then has to pay a materials contribution of £25 for each practical subject (£75). She has to buy a specific camera. She has to buy stationery and further materials. She has to eat. She was told she has to have a computer, as all work and resources are accessed via the college's moodle. Her work has to be printed out. She has to have a memory stick to back her work up and an MP3 player for her music assignments.

All this has happened and she still hasn't received her EMA. At the same time, the Child Tax Credit was suspended for 3 weeks in the change from school pupil to student. I didn't get a back payment, they just add a bit of it onto each remaining week in the year. Income Support decided to switch to fortnightly payments, so nothing coming in from there until this week.

At the same time as all this, DD2 needs clothes, shoes, (she's still growing) her music lessons paid for, as well as her Year 6 school educational trip deposit and everything else that comes up.

Now, I'm going to use my DLA to pay for all of this because education is their ticket out of my rubbish life, but I know DD1 feels guilty and loses sleep before she presents me with yet another demand for money. DD2 even takes letters out from her school bag with a 'It's going to cost £xxx' or 'Don't worry, it's free' rather than a 'I want'. My buffer zone of savings went by the second week in September.


I am sure that there are people out there that resent the fact that I get any income at all - after all, every benefit claimant is faking it, the Daily Mail says so - but the fact is that EMA is going to ease some of this pressure on us. I hate knowing that people think of my family in such a contemptuous manner, but they only know what the papers and politicians tell them, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the other students are trying to overcompensate as a result of hearing/reading about how much they are hated by the [STRIKE]expenses thieves[/STRIKE] politicians scrabbling around for votes.

From my point of view, anything that distracts her from her studies has to be a bad thing. If she were to be searching for, or working in a McJob in order to pay for college materials, this would be taking away time that would be best put to studying.

I will not apologise for my DD getting EMA (hopefully soon). I just hope that the benefit bashers posting never actually get ill and find out exactly what it is like to live on this side of the divide.

ultimatedingbat

looby75 wrote: »

dd's school insists that any job is no more than 10 hours a week. So is pretty much on par with what you say.

It's just finding one that fits in with school hours/Saturday that's the issue

I was given similar advice when I got a part time job on saturday and Sunday mornings. I did 12 hours per week and college were not happy with me.

On the subject of 'soft courses' I hate this debate. For one Media Studies is not a soft subject. I say that from personal experience as I took media studies at A level, alongside English Language and English Literature. I was in college every day for at least 6 hours per day. I had at least 2 hours of homework per subject per week so that was 6 hours homework, and I also had personal study time and reading time tog et through.

The 'soft subjects' argument is to be frank rubbish. No subject is soft to the person taking it as they still have to show up, still have to do the work and still have to pass.

Although saying this I was advised against doing my subject choices at AS. Originally I chose History, Media Stduies, English Language and ICT. I dropped history fairly quickly as I didnt enjoy it, and took up English Literature. In 2nd year purely because of work loads, I dropped ICT. It was impossible to keep up the work load that all four subjects required, especially media which required alot of analysis and reading every night.

ultimatedingbat

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

I'm on disability benefits, surprisingly enough (for David Cameron and the like) because I am disabled and have ongoing active disease progression, not because I like drinking beer and watching Jeremy Kyle. DD1 went to a, frankly, rubbish school and was part of their 'Aim Higher' programme (which consisted of a couple of visits to the theatre and one of their successive stream of headteachers claiming credit for her work).

She is entitled to full EMA for her college studies.

She has to travel 5 miles - 30mins walk, 60min bus (usually 2 - 3 different buses as the direct one is really unreliable; the college has zero tolerance of what they call laziness, as students are 'expected to get up earlier to guarantee punctuality' - 5am?) - every morning and night to get to her college. She leaves at 6.45am and usually returns at about 6 pm, sometimes later.

She is studying for 4 A levels. In the evenings, she takes a further course for a BTEC. She is also expected to continue instrument lessons and take one 'enrichment' activity - in order to keep fit, she has chosen Dance, as the college offers it for free.

She has worked solidly every night/weekend since she started college. When she isn't working, she is sleeping or trying to help me with housework.

Before she even gets the EMA, she had to pay £120 - a 'contribution' towards college facilities and as a deposit towards the issuing of an ID card, computer access permissions, a library ticket and allowing her to be issued with any text books. Until this was paid, the college said she was not allowed to use their facilities. She then has to pay a materials contribution of £25 for each practical subject (£75). She has to buy a specific camera. She has to buy stationery and further materials. She has to eat. She was told she has to have a computer, as all work and resources are accessed via the college's moodle. Her work has to be printed out. She has to have a memory stick to back her work up and an MP3 player for her music assignments.

All this has happened and she still hasn't received her EMA. At the same time, the Child Tax Credit was suspended for 3 weeks in the change from school pupil to student. I didn't get a back payment, they just add a bit of it onto each remaining week in the year. Income Support decided to switch to fortnightly payments, so nothing coming in from there until this week.

At the same time as all this, DD2 needs clothes, shoes, (she's still growing) her music lessons paid for, as well as her Year 6 school educational trip deposit and everything else that comes up.

Now, I'm going to use my DLA to pay for all of this because education is their ticket out of my rubbish life, but I know DD1 feels guilty and loses sleep before she presents me with yet another demand for money. DD2 even takes letters out from her school bag with a 'It's going to cost £xxx' or 'Don't worry, it's free' rather than a 'I want'. My buffer zone of savings went by the second week in September.


I am sure that there are people out there that resent the fact that I get any income at all - after all, every benefit claimant is faking it, the Daily Mail says so - but the fact is that EMA is going to ease some of this pressure on us. I hate knowing that people think of my family in such a contemptuous manner, but they only know what the papers and politicians tell them, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the other students are trying to overcompensate as a result of hearing/reading about how much they are hated by the [STRIKE]expenses thieves[/STRIKE] politicians scrabbling around for votes.

From my point of view, anything that distracts her from her studies has to be a bad thing. If she were to be searching for, or working in a McJob in order to pay for college materials, this would be taking away time that would be best put to studying.

I will not apologise for my DD getting EMA (hopefully soon). I just hope that the benefit bashers posting never actually get ill and find out exactly what it is like to live on this side of the divide.

I truely feel for DD1! I had a similar predicerment at school and used to leave home at 6.30am every morning just to arrive on time at 8:50am. I would rarely get home before 6pm at night. Because I lived in a different town to college, they refused a free bus pass. I therefore had extortionate bus pass fares to pay out, as well as contributions, books ec.

If it is any constellation, it gets better later. I did it without EMA and god I wish I'd had it because it would have made life so much easier. Never apologise for her getting EMA as truely she deserves it!

Oldernotwiser

ultimatedingbat wrote: »

On the subject of 'soft courses' I hate this debate. For one Media Studies is not a soft subject. I say that from personal experience as I took media studies at A level, alongside English Language and English Literature. I was in college every day for at least 6 hours per day. I had at least 2 hours of homework per subject per week so that was 6 hours homework, and I also had personal study time and reading time tog et through.
.

The amount of time you spend on a subject is no indication of its academic rigour.

Do you really mean "2 hours of homework per subject per week "? Surely you mean per night?

bestpud

bumpoowee wrote: »

Maybe it would be a good idea for EMA to work the same way as a student loan.. ie repayable once you get a job as an additional tax. Can't see why college 'funding' should be treated any differently to University funding.

So it's unfair for children from low income families to receive an incentive to go to college but it's not unfair to make them take a loan for something wealthier families will provide anyway?

Many say they cannot afford to give their child £30 a week, and I'm sure that is correct, but they will be providing a lot that lower income families cannot. It may not be in the form of cash, of course, but on the whole they will lead an advantaged life in comparison to the families EMA targets.

Forgetful wrote: »

in this light i would like to point out my child tax credit has been reduced by about £40 a week now my sons at 6th form....and he gets the £30 a week ema...so we still have less money each week!!

plus his bus ticket has now trebled each week cos hes over 16....
and my son is wanting to go to uni...ema or no ema... i would have done my best to finance him!!!

You need to check that out as your CTC should not decrease purely because a child moves into FE.

To you and the other person who said this has happened, I urge you to check your awards as it is incorrect.

If your award has dropped then it should only be due to a change in income, which of course is only right.

Absinthe_Fairy

I feel for your DD too, Jojo!

I was in pretty much the same situation - had to get up at 5.30 am every day (and the bus got in 50 mins before classes started - the later bus would have got there too late), and got in around 6 pm at night. I also had a Saturday job, so was working 6 days a week plus around 3 hours of homework every night. EMA wasn't around at that time but I was lucky enough to get a free bus pass which helped enormously, plus bonuses at the end of the year.

I was constantly tired, it was the hardest two years of my life - much more exhausting than uni and the various full-time jobs I've had since!

I think it's disgraceful your daughter has to pay all those fees to the college, as well as get a computer. Some colleges must be living on cloud nine. At least I only needed pen and paper for my college courses!

mumps

My DD and DS just missed out on EMA, my husband is disabled but my income took us over the limit. I think the idea of EMA is excellent, one or two problems, kids with very wealthy father who was giving mom lots of maintenance but childred still getting EMA as parents divorced and mom not working was an irritation to me! However, on balance I would rather needy kids got it even if a few get it who don't really need it.

As to kids working with A level study, my DD did 6 A levels, maths, further maths, physics, psychology, history and general studies. She got A's in all of them and she worked quite long hours in a cinema, probably averaged about 24 hrs per week, some weeks that would have been over 30 hours. Never seemed to cause her any problems. Her brother is doing A levels now and he worked long hours in a care home but loves it.

looby75

mumps wrote: »

As to kids working with A level study, my DD did 6 A levels, maths, further maths, physics, psychology, history and general studies. She got A's in all of them and she worked quite long hours in a cinema, probably averaged about 24 hrs per week, some weeks that would have been over 30 hours. Never seemed to cause her any problems. Her brother is doing A levels now and he worked long hours in a care home but loves it.

Flipping heck is your daughter super girl or something??? Taking 6 A-levels is unusual enough and would create massive amounts of course/homework but being able to fit a 24 hour a week job in with them all too is amazing. Did she ever sleep??? lol

mumps

looby75 wrote: »

My daughter has been REALLY trying since she turned 16 in March and there is very little opportunity for inexperienced school leavers right now. DD even went to the charity shops to try and volunteer to gain experience but they either didn't need anyone or wouldn't take her as she was under 18 (something to do with insurance) She's a polite, well dressed, intelligent young woman (from her last school report so not just my bias ) but that doesn't help when there aren't very many pt jobs out there.

My son couldn't get a job and as a final resort tried care work, he gets lots of hours and the bonus is he absolutely loves it. He is rethinking his university plans and is looking at social work which he had never thought of. Might be worth suggesting to her?