Money for 16yr olds in school & college

amandathepanda

Sorry I am confused after reading this thread. When I am trying to work out what figure I use for entitlement to ema do I work out our annual salary and then take off the amount of any pension contributions that we make?

Tallyho_2

Is this backdateable ?
I have only just heard of this scheme after reading about it in the press . We struggled sending our daughter to college 25 miles away for 2 years never knowing anything of this scheme & £30 would have helped her with fares , food , books etc .

gem4

Hi,
The form that you have to fill in explains everything. You also have to send your current tax credit award or P60 to prove your annual earnings for the previous year so I imagine its the gross figure they go on. The form has to be filled in by both the student and the parent. The student also has to send proof of bank account, either headed letter from bank/bsoc confirming opening of the account or in the case of my daughters old passbook account, a stamped and signed computer print out of her account details.

As far as I can see there aren't as many students entitled to it at my daughters college as I imagined and, of those who are, many either cant be bothered to fill in the declaration form every friday, or forget to. If they forget they can get it in before 10am on the Monday morning. My daughter had one sick day which I had to phone in before 10am and then provide a letter of explanation which had to be attached to her weekly declaration. She did not lose EMA for that week as it was then deemed as authorised.

I dont think it is backdatable as they made a point of telling us to get the applications in well before the Sept term was due to start. As a guide, my daughter applied in May while she was still at school. She gets the full £30 as I only work 16hrs and get tax credits.

Savvy_Sue

Tallyho wrote:

Is this backdateable ?
I have only just heard of this scheme after reading about it in the press . We struggled sending our daughter to college 25 miles away for 2 years never knowing anything of this scheme & £30 would have helped her with fares , food , books etc .

I don't think it's backdateable because the scheme only started just over a year ago. So my son, now at Uni, was a year too early for it, and I would think your daughter was too ...

But if your daughter is now in equivalent of year 13, then it may not be too late to claim.

Savvy_Sue

gem4 wrote:

You also have to send your current tax credit award or P60 to prove your annual earnings for the previous year so I imagine its the gross figure they go on. The form has to be filled in by both the student and the parent.

I believe the form would allow you to state what pension contributions you'd made. The reason for requiring the P60 is to verify what your gross earnings are, so that you can't claim only to have earned £10,000 when in fact you earned £50,000, for example.

I can't say what's allowed under EMA, but I know for student grant / loan applications you can say what pension contributions you made, and also there are some other things you can deduct. But I don't think you can deduct donations made to charities under the Gift Aid scheme, although of course these CAN come off your gross income for 'normal' tax credits ...

loopylass

My son gets ema but i only thinks its backdated for those what are in college as its a new scheme
My son got his from the start but his mate didnt and applied 4 months later and got it all backdated

Tallyho wrote:

Is this backdateable ?
I have only just heard of this scheme after reading about it in the press . We struggled sending our daughter to college 25 miles away for 2 years never knowing anything of this scheme & £30 would have helped her with fares , food , books etc .

chaos5678

My daughter is 16 now but won't know if she can stay on at school untill she gets her GCSE results.
Can she claim now, does anyone know

loopylass

My son claimed as soon as possible before his results(i think it was about this time last year)
I got the form off the web site and he filled in his part we filled in ours
I also rang up child benefit and they said they will put it down on your files that his hoping to do a 1 year course and if he cant because of results just ring us up and we will stop it as his hoping to do a 2year course after ive got to ring them up again to extend it by another 2 years
When he got his results and was in his course the ema had all his details and when he first went into college there is an adviser that sorts it out
Also if you receive ctc or wtc you can inform them before hand
It is best to get it all sorted before hand because they dont give you a lot of time after they recieve the results ( my son got his results in august guidence day in college the week after to make sure his in they start 2nd week in sept) that leaves 2 weeks
The college told me about ema and i said i dont know whether his going to get in or not she said claim anyway you can always cancel if he doesnt

they have open days at college before results so you go to see what course etc
Im sure that will be the same if they want to stay on at school because they are both further education

loopylass

ema is based on your annual salary
it doesnt include child benefit ot ctc or wtc
If you have 1 or 2 jobs its just the total of that
and they will work out how much ema you will get it could be £10,£20 or £30
If you apply for the forms it will tell you more on them
It also doesnt count any money the child who is claiming ema gets like part time work
my son works p/time so he gets extra money for himself and thats not counted

amandathepanda wrote:

Sorry I am confused after reading this thread. When I am trying to work out what figure I use for entitlement to ema do I work out our annual salary and then take off the amount of any pension contributions that we make?

janiemumoffive

I have heard of this benefit, however because my almost 16 year (next week) wants to leave the local Grammar school to attend 6th form college, her school have not been very helpful if providing all the info we need. You have done all this and more - THANK YOU. I followed your links and have now applied online for the EMA application pack.

Fran wrote:

A 16 (and over) year old in school or college (non-advanced education) they may be able to receive up to £30 paid into their bank or building society. This is part of the governments plan to encourage 16 yr. olds to stay in education.

Forms should be available now for the next academic year.

Wales - EMA

England - EMA

Northern Ireland - EMA

Scotland - EMA