Refused childcare grant

sarahbeth1984

Hi,
I am a mature student with children and will be graduating this summer. From September I am giving up my full time job to do my pgce.
At the moment I have one child in school who goes to a before and after school club and a 1 year old in nursery 5 days a week, this childcare will have to continue as I will be based full time in a school.
My total childcare a week is £250 and I was hoping that I would finally be entitled to some childcare as I haven't been for the past 3 years as our household income was too high but I will have no wage from September therefore our household income will go down to £35k. However SFE have said that we are over the household income threshold as they no longer take other financial commitments such as mortgages, home improvement loans etc. into account.
If this is true then I will not be able to afford to do my PGCE.
Does anybody know if this is true or if it would be worth me appealing to see if I am entitled to anything?
Thank you
Sarah

abby1234519

sarahbeth1984 wrote: »

Hi,
I am a mature student with children and will be graduating this summer. From September I am giving up my full time job to do my pgce.
At the moment I have one child in school who goes to a before and after school club and a 1 year old in nursery 5 days a week, this childcare will have to continue as I will be based full time in a school.
My total childcare a week is £250 and I was hoping that I would finally be entitled to some childcare as I haven't been for the past 3 years as our household income was too high but I will have no wage from September therefore our household income will go down to £35k. However SFE have said that we are over the household income threshold as they no longer take other financial commitments such as mortgages, home improvement loans etc. into account.
If this is true then I will not be able to afford to do my PGCE.
Does anybody know if this is true or if it would be worth me appealing to see if I am entitled to anything?
Thank you
Sarah

I earn 21k and we are not entitled to any childcare grant, the threshold is quite low

Maggie.Moo_2

I'm assuming the £35k household income is from a partner, are they able to get childcare vouchers/salary sacrifice scheme to help with childcare costs?

If not then it may worth considering doing your PGCE part-time or through distance learning so you can try to fit in part-time work to offset the childcare costs or at least fit study in when you're able to. I know you probably have a place already but postgrad applications are usually accepted right up until the course starts or you may be able to ask to switch ti part-time/distance learning if that's something your uni offers

missbiggles1

sarahbeth1984 wrote: »

Hi,
I am a mature student with children and will be graduating this summer. From September I am giving up my full time job to do my pgce.
At the moment I have one child in school who goes to a before and after school club and a 1 year old in nursery 5 days a week, this childcare will have to continue as I will be based full time in a school.
My total childcare a week is £250 and I was hoping that I would finally be entitled to some childcare as I haven't been for the past 3 years as our household income was too high but I will have no wage from September therefore our household income will go down to £35k. However SFE have said that we are over the household income threshold as they no longer take other financial commitments such as mortgages, home improvement loans etc. into account.
If this is true then I will not be able to afford to do my PGCE.
Does anybody know if this is true or if it would be worth me appealing to see if I am entitled to anything?
Thank you
Sarah

Neither benefits nor student funding is available to help people make debt repayments.

tinkerbellkirst

We have been refused too. I asked them criteria on the phone and she explained it to me.
She said they calculate your entitlement to childcare, then look at your household income and take away the entitlement. If what is left is higher than the entitlement then u won't get any help. It's as simple as that. Means we are also not entitled.

For example
Entitlement 7000
Household income 25k
25-7 = 18
18k left is higher than the 7k entitlement so no childcare grant.

Hope that makes it a bit clearer. So many people are going to be screwed by this!

I'm still going ahead with my degree and just begging friends and family to help and paying the little childcare we can afford ourselves.

jaxjax123

When I asked I was told we would have to earn around £16K so we just had to cut back and make sure we only used childcare when it was 100% necessary. It was hard work but we got through it.