fbpx

Monthly Archives: September 2014

Grants for further Education and Short courses

Call us to enquiry about our soft skills courses

Call us to enquiry about our soft skills courses

Loads of grants and bursaries go unclaimed each year in the UK, so we’ve created this guide so you can bag the cash you’re entitled to.

Further education loans for mature students in England

If you’re 24 or over, you can apply for a 24+ Advanced Learning Loan to help with college or training tuition costs in England.

You’ll need to be studying a Level 3 or 4 course – these include A-levels, Access to Higher Education Diplomas and many apprenticeships You can take a loan for each A-level, but you can’t take them all at once. You must also have lived anywhere in the UK for the last three years.

There’s no credit check to get the loan, and it doesn’t depend on your household income. How much you get depends on what you’re studying and what your college charges in tuition fees. The minimum loan is £300. The loan will be paid directly to the college.

There’s also a 24+ Advanced Learning Loans Bursary Fund, which you can apply to if you need learning help, or to cover childcare or residential costs.

If you’re studying an Access to Higher Education diploma, then go on to complete a higher education course, your 24+ Advanced Learning Loan is written off.

You start paying the loan back when you earn £21,000 a year or more. Interest is charged at RPI+3% while you’re studying, then at RPI.

Who can apply? Anyone over the age of 24 studying a Level 3 or 4 course.
What’s the maximum award? £300 upwards. What does it cover? Tuition fees/training costs.

Free short courses

Fee-free tuition for Scottish students

If you live in Scotland and decide to study at a university in Scotland, you won’t have to pay anything towards tuition fees, you’ll be guaranteed to get a maintenance loan and may be eligible for a bursary. But if you live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, you’ll still have to pay up to £9,000 a year to study in Scotland.

The Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) offers the Young Students’ Bursary, which covers day-to-day living costs if your family’s household income is less than £34,000 a year. Those on an income of less than £17,000 will get the full bursary of £1,750.

Anyone who applies through SAAS will be eligible for a loan of at least £4,750 if their household income is £34,000 or above, while others will receive £5,750.

There’s also an Independent Students’ Bursary and student loan for those who are 25 or over, are married or living with a partner, or responsible for a child. Here, you’ll get a bursary of £750 if your household income is under £17,000.

Loans work in the same way for mature students – you’ll get at least £4,750 if your household income is over £34,000, while those with an income under £17,000 can borrow up to £6,750.

Who can apply? Loans: Everyone. Bursary: Households earning under £34,000 a year.
What’s the maximum award? £300 upwards. What does it cover? Living or studying costs.

Why Study With Us Unemployed PosterIndividual Learning Accounts for Scottish adults

If you live in Scotland and earn less than £22,000 a year, you could get some funding from ILA Scotland.

This provides a grant of £200 towards the cost of learning something new at any approved provider, including learning centres, colleges, universities and private training companies.

Who can apply? Adults in Scotland. What’s the maximum award? £200. What does it cover? Learning costs.

Discretionary Learner Support

You can apply for Discretionary Learner Support from your education provider if you’re 19 or over, studying for a further education course, and facing financial hardship. This money can go towards childcare, accommodation, travel or course materials & equipment.

Your school or college decides how much you’ll get, and which scheme you’ll be put on, ie it could be a direct payment (you don’t have to pay it back), a loan, or paid directly to your landlord.

Who can apply? Anyone over 19. How much can you get? Varies. What does it cover? Any costs associated with studying

Care to Learn

There is help for those who have to bear the cost of course fees and childcare through the Government’s Care to Learn scheme. You must be 20 years or over at the start of your course to be eligible for the scheme, and be the main carer for your child. This is not suitable for those studying a higher education course at university.

The sum covers childcare, deposit and registration fees, travel costs for taking your child to the provider, and keeping your childcare place over the holidays. Childcare providers must be registered with Ofsted.

Payments of £160 per child per week (£175 if you live in London) will stop if you stop studying, you finish the course, or your child stops attending childcare.

Who can apply? Aged 20 or over, studying publicly-funded course in England. How much can you get? £160 or £175 per child per week. What does it cover? Childcare costs.

Professional and Career Development Loans

If you think grants and loans are only for university students, think again. These loans are offered at a reduced interest rate, which the Government pays while you’re studying, and are there to help those who want to top up their training.

To be eligible, you need to be over 18 and must have been living in anywhere in the UK for at least three years before the start of your course. Your course must last two years, or up to three years with a year of work experience.

The snag is that the course must be provided by an organisation on the Professional Career and Development Loan Register, so you’ll need to check.

Be careful of imposters – only Barclays and Co-op currently offer these loans. For more information, take a look at our Career Development Loans guide.

Who can apply? Anyone over 18. How much can you get? Between £300 and £10,000. What does it cover? Any tuition costs associated with developing your career.

Mobile Learning, Mobile Earning

Mobile Learning, Mobile Earning

Local council grants

Your local council may offer grants to advance your education. As councils can assign funding to different areas, search for local training providers using the Gov.uk website.

Quick Stats: Who can apply? Varies. What’s the maximum award? Varies. What does it cover? Depends on the type of grant available.

Setting up your own business

Over 50 and interested in setting up your own business?

The Prince’s Initiative, a charity that supports people who are out of work or facing redundancy, offers a Preparing to Run Your Own Business Course for the over-50s. It’s free but requires an £80 deposit, reduced to £25 if you’re claiming an employment-related benefit, which is refunded when you’ve finished the course.

The course runs all over the UK and includes areas such as marketing and finance. For more information, or to book a place, see the Prime website or call 0845 862 2023.

Who can apply? Over-50s. What’s the maximum award? N/A. What does it cover? 6-7 week course with 3 training days and coursework.

Want to improve your maths and English skills?

A simple maths equationIf you’ve ever wanted to improve your maths and English skills, virtually every college in the country offers free courses to help you from basic literacy and numeracy up to GCSE level. Check on the National Careers Service website or call 0800 100 900 for classes in your area.

Try this online quiz from Move On and the BBC SkillsWise site to see if you could improve your skills.

Who can apply? Anyone What’s the maximum award? n/a What does it cover? Free daytime and evening classes in maths and English (reading, writing)

 

How mobile hair extension technician could rent a salon chair

How hair extensions are sourced, treated and graded by Diane Shawe 2014Renting a chair has become so popular that it is estimated around 70% of the salons are following this business model. What made the salon chair rental so popular and why it is rapidly expanding. It use to be looked down on, but this negative profile has been changed as more and more salons are taking advantage of this opportunity.

article by Diane Shawe M.Ed

Obviously, there are benefits to starting your own salon chair rental service over the traditional method of doing business. Here are some of them listed.

1. When you rent a chair in your salon, you become the landlord of that chair rather than an employer consequently, all you’re concerned with is collecting your rent each month. Similarly, if you decide to sell your salon chair rental, the buyer only has to be consumed with the same task… collecting rent! They wont be worried about transferring all of your employees’ entitlements.

2. Your salon chair renters will govern their own business. No longer will you have to arrange lunch breaks for your stylists. Whatever the stylist decide, they have to pay you the for renting that chair at the end of the month.

3. You do not have to worry about paying your stylists for working over time. In this rent a chair model, the stylists can choose to work for as long as they want or as little as they want. They can even choose to come only when they have an appointment scheduled with their client. Nothing makes a difference as long as you receive the salon rent at the end of each month whether the stylist does business or not.

4. Your record keeping pertaining to your employees such as the wage records, time sheets, pay slips and other records will not have to be maintained. That itself will eliminate a lot of clutter from your office or wherever you keep them. A great weight lifted from your shoulder because the salon chair renter is responsible for all her own records.

5. There can be a lot of red tape and procedures to be followed with employees and apprentices. With renting a chair to other stylist you do not have to worry about a variety of rules and regulations apart from insurance and your salon security.

Those traditionally operated salons use to look down upon the renting a chair model. But with benefits such as these, and the high turnover of staff and increased running cost (minimum way bills)and naturally making money, I don’t think we’re ever going see a decline in the industry. In fact, this is turning out to be a blessing in disguise for many hairdressing business who have seen a decline in revenue streams due to the recession.

Equally there are benefits to why you should consider renting a chair in a salon.

1. This can give you credibility if you are able to establish yourself in a reputable salon

2) You can tend to more customers in one day as appose to the travel time allocated to traffic problems.

3) Other staff in the salon could support you in other areas you are weak in.

4) Clients could feel much more confident in using your service because you have an established and reachable business address.

5) You could benefit from joint advertising and promotional campaigns.

If your thinking of setting up in business or expanding your business during these economically challenging time, a couple of publication may be of benefit to your business.
Getting started in the hair extension business by Diane Shawe

However there are certain things potential renters should also look out for in order to evaluate the financial commitment when renting a chair.

 

1) How long has the salon been established

2) What type of customer base do they attract and are they similar to the client base you want.

3) What level of footfall do they have each day

4) Does their opening time work with your client base

5) What level of support would you be getting e.g appointment book, telephone answering, availability of working space and facilities

6) How many rent a chair clients have they had in the past and how long have they stayed

7) Do they do any advertising?

8) Are they in financial trouble hence why they are renting a chair?

9) Who would you be reporting too and could you get on

10) How much money would you have to pay up front and what are the guarantees.

It is estimated that the hairdressing sector is set to grown over the next 3 years by 15% especially specialist areas such as hair extensions, hair enhancement and specialist technicians and consultants.

Training is now available to assist anyone wanting to expand into this market and then take the opportunity to rent a chair in many of these salons today.

Visit http://www.hairextensiontraining.academy

become a hair extension technician

Is crowdfunding all that it’s cracked up to be?

Kick starting your business with crowd sourcing 1 day course

Crowdfunding is the newest way to raise money for startups who need capital. But not all crowdfunding is alike. Learn how to determine which crowdfunding platform is the best one for your business.

article by Diane Shawe M.Ed

All kinds of projects such as Businesses, nonprofits, artists, and entrepreneurs have all succeeded in raising some startup or expansion funds by presenting their campaigns on one of the many crowd funding platforms that have sprung up in recent years mainly due to the failure of banks to champion real business growth that requires an element of risk.

But as it becomes even more popular, the organisers are now wanting to ensure that their investors get a return on their often small investments. Crowdfunding isn’t a simply process of signing up for a service and listing your financial needs. The first step is finding the platform that is just right for your business and one other thing to take into consideration is the crowdfunding body assessing if your right for them.

Listed below is a brief Introduction to Various Types of Crowdfunding Sites and their links.

Like many other things, crowdfunding sites come in a lot of different shapes and sizes. There are crowdfunding sites for nonprofits and social causes: crowdfunding the peer to peer piggy bank

These are just a few. There are plenty more.

Crowdfunding sites for independent artists and people spearheading creative projects include:

If you want to start a business or find investors for your million dollar project, then perhaps one of these crowdfunding sites will be more your speed:crowd funding Growing_Fund by

LendInvest is a marketplace lending platform for residential and commercial mortgages. All loans on the LendInvest platform are secured by a registered legal charge against property in the UK.

Mortagage Peer to Peer Lending

Crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter, Fundable and Indiegogo are responsible for some of the coolest projects coming out right now. The sky’s the limit when it comes to these projects. Everything from a music label deal to food companies, there is something for everyone.

Just check out the coolest top ten successes listed by Matthew Toren,
Serial Entrepreneur, Mentor and co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com
whiteboard schema : crowdfunding cs5

Diane Shawe launches online mentoring call preparation form for business startups

mentoring by diane shaweDiane Shawe’s passion for turning dreams into realities has been launching her clients beyond their limitations and into the lives they truly deserve since 2003.

She provides the benefits of mentoring through a number of career planning workshops and online mentor programs globally accredited by IAO

Because we are all busy people, once again Diane believes that technology can help bring about a better lever of convenience and speed to getting constructive assistance.  You can visit www.get.mentoring.dianeshawe.info to start the process or you can click here to complete your Call preparation and request form.

Since establishing her business through AVPT Diane has been committed to offering the benefits of mentoring to individuals and organisations and helping them overcome the range of challenges they face. By continually adding to her vast scope of knowledge, qualifications and experience her clients have been able to enjoy the workable tools she offers that lead to their desired personal and professional success.

Get mentoring with diane shawe business start up loans
Whether you’re looking to add structure to your career planning, provide your workers with professional training in areas such as conflict resolution, time management, and leadership skills you’ll appreciate the confidential, professional and friendly way all her materials are delivered. Diane’s holistic approach to making a positive difference has seen her broadening her scope of influence while giving back to philanthropic organisations such as the Kensington Chelsea and Business Club, Pink Shoe and Nexters.

Diane’s membership to some of the more prestigious bodies such as the Institute of Directors, Chartered Management Institute, Solicitors Regulation Authority and International Accreditation Organisation offers you the utmost peace of mind. As they’re member regulated by lawyers, CEOs and directors both in the private and public sectors you can rest assured that you’ll be enjoying approaches that have been proven to bring about success.

Over the year Diane has been passionate about supporting individuals around the world to become independant.

She is now proud to show you all how she have been able to support all types of people around the world via Kiva to help start or expand their business.

I have now supported over 96 loans in 37 countries and you can see them all by clicking here.

View copy Diane Shawe Draft-Mentoring-Contract

%d