Further Education Award Repayment?

GBO2011

I enrolled in a college in the UK in September and was given a further education award of around £1500 pounds, however, I only receive payments of £500 at a time, every four months or so.

I bought myself some desperately needed clothes with my first payment, and paid my bus fares and lunches, got my books and tried to make it last as long as I could. However about a month ago I ran out of money. Since then I've missed a lot of days because I didn't have the money to go in, my attendance stands at around sixty percent.

My course requires individuals to have a lot of planning, creativity and natural ability. Every time I go in it's utterly stressful. The people are quite counter productive. They are a lot younger than me so I think that might be why, I did leave it a little late. But it drives me insane. We, as a group of six, had a deadline for this week and in normal fashion, people didn't do their bit, and we hadn't got even fifty percent of the work done. I took a large portion of it home with me and took it upon myself to get it done, because nobody else seemed to bother much. When I brought it back finished I was accused of trying to boss everyone around. That is what I get every day.

But I am utterly fed up with the negativity, and having insufficient money to be consistent in my attendance is just making the whole thing a nightmare. I'm afraid that I might be kicked off the course and have to pay the whole grant back as well. Will I? I've only had one payment so far at the beginning of September.

I could have gotten into the higher level course this year, however my presentation (a part of the criteria for being accepted), fell to bits with nerves. I am much more confident, now, and I am in love with the area of study, just not so much with my current situation and the people I have to work with.

Can I cancel my Further Education award, so to speak, and go for the higher level course next year without having to pay anything back?

What would you do?