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Post by xstaceyx on Nov 3, 2008 21:00:07 GMT
£30 a week for students in full-time education.......i sent my form off yonks ago.....i started college 8th september, they owe me over £200, i haven't got a penny of it! i rang them mid-september they said wait for a bit a week after that i contacted the EMA office in my college, they said ring EMA helpline back up and the wait could be up to 8 weeks. NOW, still heard sod all tried ringing them a ridiculus amount of times today and all i got was put on hold for 15 minutes and then cut off and error messages saying there are no availible advisors!!!!! i've had that message nearly everytime i've rang! fucks sake this was different times of the day aswell! EMA YOU BUNCH OF PRICKS!!!! sorry.....i just needed to get that off my chest.
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Post by bigospedros on Nov 3, 2008 22:01:58 GMT
whilst I obviously understand your fustrations, I have to say this ... i wish i'd have been paid for going to school I had to get a job ...
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Post by xstaceyx on Nov 3, 2008 22:21:40 GMT
haha tis ok! on a funny note, i actually work for my college aswell.....and haven't got paid for the work i've done yet i guess i've gotta laugh about it
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Post by jellybean on Nov 3, 2008 23:17:07 GMT
I hate the EMA system. I have no doubt it works in places... but my experience of it is the two schools that make up our community sixth form. Worked out that most of the students were there for the money, so they'd dick around in lessons and generally cause annoyance to everybody else. The students who were actually there for their a-levels usually didn't qualify for EMA, based on being a matter of pennies over the threshold. I didn't qualify based on my parents earning, failing to take into consideration any of the factors which meant I had no money!
Instead I worked through sixth form, usually mon-fri in school all day, sat-sun doing 8-14 hour shifts both days and then working evenings during the week too!
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Post by Stacey on Nov 3, 2008 23:25:11 GMT
I never qualified either...had to work...pah!
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Sam
Polythene
Funky [F4:jet247]
Posts: 282
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Post by Sam on Nov 5, 2008 13:02:23 GMT
The whole EMA system was always rubbish. I learnt to never depend on it and then when i got it was bonus. I wouldn't receive it for three weeks then i'd randomly get paid. Took a while to actually get it started to.
I worked for my school as well and that also took a while to! Silly people.
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Post by Ath on Nov 8, 2008 10:33:13 GMT
whilst I obviously understand your fustrations, I have to say this ... i wish i'd have been paid for going to school I had to get a job ... And so ya should
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Lewis
Yesterday Went Too Soon
If angels tears come flooding down again…
Posts: 648
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Post by Lewis on Nov 8, 2008 21:27:14 GMT
i'm still waiting for mother to fill out the ema forms lol. i just hope they backtrack me to september and take into account i don't need the key skills lessons (which i skip once a week) as i already did them last year... last year ema was good tho... seemed like i got about a grand out of it with the bonuses.
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Post by jellybean on Nov 9, 2008 11:59:52 GMT
Those bonuses are ridiculous. The money is to help you with school equipment/travel etc... so why the hell did idiot junkies at my school get given £200-300 for a two week half term just because they turned up to school.
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Post by xstaceyx on Nov 11, 2008 23:21:01 GMT
1 word = Bribe, probably 60% of college students doing GCSE's and A-level are there for the money, although my college is quite strict, if you aren't there to learn and also lack performance then you get kicked out instantly
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Post by jellybean on Nov 12, 2008 16:34:10 GMT
1 word = Bribe, probably 60% of college students doing GCSE's and A-level are there for the money, although my college is quite strict, if you aren't there to learn and also lack performance then you get kicked out instantly if that system works then sweet... my school had a 'zero tolerance' approach which basically turned in to zero tolerance for those who aren't on EMA and actually want to be in school but be accepting of anybody else despite their behaviour because it makes the school look good. I got sent home a few times for wearing jeans when it was supposed to be 'business dress'. When I pointed out that I couldn't afford to buy more trousers, and that in a house of six (usually about 10) people my stuff didn't always get washed on time, I was told to stop whining and get out. Meanwhile the EMA/Btec 'crew' as they dubbed themselves wore tracksuits, jeans, all sorts and were left alone because the school couldn't be seen to 'offend the poor'. GO AND FUCK YOURSELF. If I hadn't had a definite plan of going to uni I'd have left that school at fifteen and probably tried to burn the fucker down too.
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Post by xstaceyx on Nov 12, 2008 16:45:00 GMT
god thats terrible! yeah a lot of students at my college has been kicked out already (my tutor is the one that kicks them out as she's one of the heads of my college so she tells me about the thugs ) my ICT teacher has the best approach.....if a student is noisy, constantly talking or 15 mins late for the lesson he'll tell them to piss off and then kicks them out the class and marks them as absent so they don't get their EMA
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Post by xstaceyx on Nov 18, 2008 19:58:38 GMT
HAHA after 20-25 minutes of holding the line i finally got through and the woman like a twit, said oh! yes your application has been here for a while now! SO WHY THE HELL DIDN'T THEY SEND MY NOTICE OF ENTITLEMENT TO ME? so now i gots to wait around 2 weeks for that to come, for me to get my college to sign it and then for me to send it back BEFORE any trace of any money! fa-gawds-sake!
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Post by jellybean on Nov 18, 2008 22:54:52 GMT
my ICT teacher has the best approach.....if a student is noisy, constantly talking or 15 mins late for the lesson he'll tell them to piss off and then kicks them out the class and marks them as absent so they don't get their EMA That approach might have worked at my school... if it wasn't for the fact that a teacher who stood up to these people could safely assume their car windows would get smashed, tyres slashed, paint work fucked. Teachers have been assaulted at that school and fuck all has been done about it. A guy in my form broke in one summer and smashed every single window on the site. tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage, all covered by money which was supposed to go in to underfunded departments. Serious lols.
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Post by jellybean on Nov 18, 2008 23:00:36 GMT
on an interesting note, i just found this!
'averagely' and 6/13 are key things to look at, when compared with 37% of students got 5 A-C's. A) that's just over one in three B) it's half the national average.
lolz.
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Post by Rach on Nov 19, 2008 9:05:25 GMT
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Post by jellybean on Nov 19, 2008 14:23:14 GMT
I'm just thinking that when the back pay hits, some students are going to get around £360, + a bonus which I beleive can be up to £200 in one go! Where is all that money going to go? Not on 'educational supplies' I bet
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Post by xstaceyx on Nov 19, 2008 19:07:16 GMT
i hate the fact they put this:
'The allowances are paid to about 600,000 teenagers from low-income families as an incentive to keep them from dropping out of education.'
arggggh!!! I am not some fucking chav-education-drop out!!!!! the only reason my family is low income is because: A. my dad pissed off years ago B. my mom is a full time carer for my nan and the government pays her a lousy wage, and thats actually less than job-seekers allowence!! C. my mom is actually semi-disabled herself (she needs knee and hip replacements!)
I HATE getting grouped with people who are the drop-outs that are going for the money, i'm going to college for my future (i want to become a teacher/lecturer) and i'm going to do something with my life!!!! ,the money is a treat in my opinion for all my hard work, my grade average is between A*- B, plus i have no time at all to have a job with my college, the hours i have free are lousy!!
sorry i just had to rant over that one!
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Post by jellybean on Nov 19, 2008 19:10:47 GMT
Aye but for the sake of a short news article they can't include all of that so it's just "low income families."
Also the raison d'etre for the EMA is as they say, to provide incentive for 'low income families' which is just their nicer way of saying "keeping the poor kids in school and off the streets."
There are people in your position though who do benefit greatly from EMA, and who it really can help even if, as you say, you'd be in school anyway. In those cases it is a shame that the contractors have fucked up so miserably.
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Lewis
Yesterday Went Too Soon
If angels tears come flooding down again…
Posts: 648
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Post by Lewis on Dec 3, 2008 16:04:05 GMT
Well I finally got my EMA form in yesterday! Hopefully they'll backtrack me to September as I had EMA last year and there's a chance they might backtrack me to the beginning of the college yr, not last month..
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