Money for 16yr olds in school & college

Fran

fabianne wrote:

My daughter has turned 16 but is still at school doing her GCSE's next year-will this apply to her or is it for A Levels/College/Further Education?

No, they don't get it in the year they do GCSEs, ie. while still in compulsory education.

homealone_2

my son is 16 on march 2nd, when should i apply for ema?

Savvy_Sue

He won't be able to get it unless he stays on into 6th form / college, and wherever he intends to go should have the forms available some time during the summer term. We had letters from DS2 saying that the forms were available and they should have been given them, he never brought any home but I am sure we earn too much ...

bizzy_d

fabwitch wrote:

My daughter is not intitled to anything , it is so unfair we have a big mortgage and can not afford to give her pocket money, her friends at School are getting £30.00 a week and my daughter feels she is being penalised because we have worked hard to get a higher income. I think all children should be inititled. It would have been fairer to give all children £10.00 a week rather than some get £10/20/30 a week whilst others get nothing

Yeah i don't get EMA either and everybody else gets it then spends it on cigs and alcohol (under age), fast food etc i feel left out to.

Sallys_Savings

I'm gutted...I've just learnt that my son could of been receiving £30 when he was at college and I didnt even realise.
We didnt receive any paperwork from school or anything.
Oh well

scotsann69

My son has received the full £30 since he became 16 and entered college. He gets this paid fortnightly and of course if they are on holiday for ie a week then he only gets £30 (one week) in to his bank account. If he is off and doesn't put in a EMA absence form then he loses the whole week EMA. He receives £150 bonus twice a year if he achieves the attendance that the EMA are looking for.

My son receives a bursary for his travel expenses above his EMA and with his Student Card, he receives a Unirider from the bus company which saves him a lot of money. The unirider lasts 13 or 15 weeks so basically he receives two months bursary to himself - which is great for him and myself.

If my son is absent ie illness then I have to fill in an EMA absence form and also a bursary absence form. I didn't find claiming for the above any problem at all and with myself an NHS worker and on the lowest income in admin, I find it a help as otherwise he wouldn't be able to go to college.

Ann

welshcakes

My daughter has recently qualified for EMA (A-level student) however I have mixed feeling about the scheme which may seem hypocritical.

On the one hand, it is a fact of life that my daughter would not have been able to stay in further education without this assistance and she is a A-B level student so she should go on to be a working adult contributing well to the social tax pot.

However there is still a part of me that niggles about whether anyone should be paid to educate themselves beyond 16 yr as they will personally reap benefits from better job prospects. Is it not therefore akin to Uni grants where the student is required to repay the interest free loan once they have attained a job attracting a certain level salary?

bizzy_d

EMA is open to fraud, all the kids have to do is get a sheet signed (i'm at collage and some of the students forge signatures and don't go to lessons) also some of them will go on holiday thus missing collage and just say they were ill and again get the money.
it's so frustrating when i go to practically all my lectures/lessons and i get nothing (apart from the education).:mad:

grahamliza4

When my mother abandoned me at 16 there wasn't anything like this. I couldnt afford to live and pay rent as well as go to college. The social told me I could only be housed free if I had a 'social problem' with alcohol, drugs or i had been in trouble with the police or was pregnant. I never got to go to college. I now know this is not the case, and i was entitled to help, and the mean spirited woman who happened to answer the phone when i rang the social should have been sacked. The £30 per week would have meant that I could have got by on one part time job which meant I could have gone to college. May I remind you at this point that min. wage for a 16yr old now is just £3, back then I think I got £2.44 working for a CERTAIN SUPERMARKET.

Looking back I think it was disgusting how little help I was offered. I had to sleep on friends floors until I got a place sharing a house with some older friends. I had to work two jobs 9-5, 6-10, and it was one long struggle. But I paid my way, learned to drive, bought a car, applied for better jobs, started evening classes... and I'll qualify as a Chartered Accountant in four years. :T

Now I have lovely house, great life, two kids etc but it frightens me to think it could just as easily have gone the other way and I could be god knows where doing any number of unsavory things.

Think the £30 is a good thing, but I think there's a lot of kids out there who need a lot more help to stay at school. Just read a post where a lady said her daughter gets nothing and she is bright and will go on to work and contribute to society etc, and I do think that there are bright kids that get left behind just because they are poor. I'm a member of MENSA with a 140 point IQ, and there was ZERO offered to me so that I might go on and do great things with my intelligence, I've had to do it all myself. Annoys me that I'm paying into the tax pot now out of my own pocket when the so-called welfare state wouldnt come to my aid.

Anyone else got a story like this?

Gemmzie

Hi, I'm really sorry that you got such a bad deal from the Social woman, that's awful. If you can think of dates then I would definitely consider putting in a formal complaint and claiming compensation.

Congratulations for not giving up though and making something of yourself, that takes a lot.

May I ask how old you are? As EMA has only been available Nationwide for two academic years.


This is now what Connexions and other groups are working on, and if the government would cough up a little more funding for the young people and the next generation of this country, it'd all be a little easier. And it is very scary how some young people have to get by just to live.