Help with 17 year old

Becles

I'm a single Mam of three working full time. I'm claiming child benefit, child tax credits and working tax credits.

My eldest is 17 and started full time A-Levels last September. Due to a period of ill health he's fallen quite behind. We've had discussions with school and decided it would be best for him to give the courses up.

What happens now with child benefit and tax credits? Had planned on losing the tax credits next August, so I'll have to redo my budget and stuff if they stop now.

He knows doing nothing is not an option and is looking around for something else. At the moment he doesn't know if he wants to either repeat the same courses in September, do different courses, do an apprenticeship or find a job! He's going to do more research tomorrow and Friday and we can have a good look at things next week as I've got time off work with it being half term.

princessdon

Get him into connections to discuss his future for a continuance of tax credits.

mikey_bach

Under 18s who leave education or training - extension of Child Tax Credit

If your child leaves education or training before they're 18, you could get an extra period of Child Tax Credit for them.
The extra period is up to 20 weeks. It starts from the date your child left education or training that counted for Child Tax Credit.
To qualify for these extra weeks, your child needs to be aged 16 or 17 and be registered with any of the following:

• in England - the local careers service, Connexions or local authority support service
• in Scotland or Wales - the local careers service

specialboy

Can he not get onto any courses in college?

Becles

specialboy wrote: »

Can he not get onto any courses in college?

Probably, but he needs to have a look around and see what's available first, then decide what he thinks is best.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Becles wrote: »

Probably, but he needs to have a look around and see what's available first, then decide what he thinks is best.

is there nothing the school can help him with in terms of catch up classes? after school clubs etc?

perhaps home tutor in the classes he's taking for an hour or two per week after school to help him catch up.

id have ametting with the headmaster to see what can be done to assist rather than thinking the road has ended in this endevour and he drops out.

call the school and see what can be done i would.

CKhalvashi

Atrixblue has the nail on the head here.

I was a teacher in a former life, and there would be the option to re-take next year if all fails.

Make sure he's registered with Connexions if the worse comes to the worst (which I was sure wasn't still operating, but a quick Google suggests it is) for the 20 weeks inbetween.

CK

Becles

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

is there nothing the school can help him with in terms of catch up classes? after school clubs etc?

perhaps home tutor in the classes he's taking for an hour or two per week after school to help him catch up.

id have ametting with the headmaster to see what can be done to assist rather than thinking the road has ended in this endevour and he drops out.

call the school and see what can be done i would.

Been through it all already with school and he's too far behind to catch up before the exams in May. They could give him extra classes and extra work to do at home, but he'd be under immense pressure to get it done, and we have to think of his health first as we don't want him back to where he was before Christmas.