mature student and childcare

alwaysonthego_2

I am doing a full time course at University in Educational studies (I am in my first year). I am only in for lectures for two full days.

I have two young children, who need nursery care. I put them in nursery monday to friday, full time. I only qualify for 60% of my nursery fees paid because my dh works. He only earns £13,300 per year. Obviously the majority of my loan and grants are taken up in paying nursery fees.

I am applying to the Access learning Fund to help me out. I have just had my interview and they were wanting to know why I needed full time care if I am in for uni for two days. I explained we were adviced that we needed to do independent study which works out to be 40 hours including contact time. I can not study/research with two young children and need the children in nursery to enable me to be able to study.

I am going to ask my year co-ordinater to write me a letter to support my application. I was wondering if I was being realistic with the amount of time I need to study

dmg24

I assume you are doing an undergraduate degree? If so, I would be very surprised if you have to study for 40 hours a week. I would say closer to 25 hours (or in some cases, even less!) x

welf_man

If you're really keen it might be 40 hours - but you can do 2 hours a night and 4 or 5 extra over the weekend.

I used to be an Access Fund administrator, and for childcare costs we allowed the number of (half-day) sessions the student was at college, plus 50%. This would mean 3 full days' childcare in your case. I think it's unlikely your ALF Fund would think 5 days necessary.

Mel.

alwaysonthego_2

Any extra money will be a bonus! Thankfully I am good at budgeting lol