Saas funding for a different HNC

Peanuckle

MY eldest son has just finished a HNC computing course and failed by one credit. We had a lot of problems throughout with support as the college took over 6 months to admit he has eye sight problems and Asperger's. The college "learning support" refused to allow in class support even though his DSA budgeted for it and he failed two assessments worth 3 credits because he couldn't answer the questions in the format they were given. He answered them all perfectly when the waffle was removed from the question which the tutor agreed a support assistant could have done IF he had one. The original plan was this would lead onto a HND and Uni.

Anyway, his college tutor has suggested he take a different HNC course (also IT based) this year to get him back on track. I've had a look at the SaaS site and it appears they won't fund a second course at the same level, although it's just the fees they won't cover, but they would fund a higher level such as HND or university. It doesn't seem to be a good plan to force him into doing a higher level if he didn't manage to pass this course albeit for a valid reason.

My question therefore is, can anyone confirm if I'm reading it right and they don't usually fund a different HNC course and if this is so, is there any form of appeal for special circumstances?

I tried emailing them for clarification but had no reply in 3 weeks.
Thanks for any help

GlasweJen

SAAS will only fund 1 HNC. If your son manages to get onto an HND course he can apply for fees funding for first and second year of the HND even though he will effectively be resitting the HNC as first year HND (if that makes sense).

The pitfall with this would be if he wants to go onto uni he would need to get direct entry to 3rd year as he would have used up his "false start" credit, if the uni he applies to doesn't recognise the HND as being good enough for direct entry to 3rd year then he will need to pay for 2nd year and SAAS will cover 3rd and 4th year. My friend did similar and had to pay £1600 in fees, there was also no bursary or loan during that year as one of the conditions of getting the bursary/loan package is being entitled to SAAS fees funding.

Peanuckle

Thank you, I now have something to go to the college with in order to try to get this sorted for him. The local college have a link to the university and completion of the HND guarantees a place direct into the 3rd year so the loss of the "false start" hopefully won't be an issue.

GlasweJen

Just keep on top of that link with the uni. My sister has just finished a course that was advertised as having direct entry to uni and alas, it doesn't! She's now doing an HNC (at a different college, first mob were a shambles) and will hopefully get to uni using that.