Pupil Equity

Apply for a School Clothing Grant
Aberdeen City Council can, in some circumstances, provide a grant towards the costs of school clothing and footwear if you receive certain benefits.
The current grant is £150 for secondary school pupils. For pupils of statutory school age the grant is paid to parents; for pupils over statutory school age the grant is paid to the student.

You can apply for a school clothing grant if you or your family receive any of these benefits:

• Income Support
• Income-based Job Seeker's Allowance (JSA)
• Any income-related element of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• Child Tax Credit (CTC), but not Working Tax Credit, and your annual income is less than £17,005
• Both maximum Child Tax Credit and maximum Working Tax Credit and your annual income is under £7,920
• Universal Credit, and your monthly earned income is not more than £660
• Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Reduction

If you are an eligible student who receives an Education Maintenance Allowance you can apply for a school clothing grant for yourself. Applications for session 2022/2023 can be made from 1 April 2022.

You can apply for a school clothing grant online. Before you apply online, you will need to set up an account. This is so you can track the progress of your application.

How to Apply
Applications can be made online here.

Education Maintenance Allowance
An EMA is a payment of £30 per week, paid directly into your bank account if you stay on in school after your official school leaving date.
Education Maintenance Allowances (EMAs) are part of the Scottish Government's agenda of encouraging access to, and participation in, further and higher education by young people from low-income families. These allowances are financial support for 16-19 year olds who stay on in full time non-advanced education after their statutory school leaving date (i.e. those continuing in post-compulsory education).

To be eligible for an EMA in 2022/23 the student must:

• have been born between 1st of March, 2003 and 28th of February, 2007
• have a household income of £26,884 or below (for families with more than one dependent child in the household) or,
• have a household income of £24,421 or below (for families with a single dependent child in the household).

Students become eligible for an EMA in August if they turn 16 between the 1st of March and 30th of September and in January if they turn 16 between 1st of October and the end of February. Eligibility is reassessed each academic year.

• The start date of EMA payments is dependent on the date of your sixteenth birthday. If you are 16 on or before 30 September 2022 and we receive your application before 30 September 2022 we will pay your EMA from August 2022.
• If you are 16 between the 1st of October 2022 and 28th of February 2023 and we receive your application before 28th of February 2023 we will pay your EMA from January 2022.
• Applications received after the dates shown above will not be backdated. EMA will be paid from the start of the week we receive your application.
• Please note that the final date for all completed education maintenance allowance application forms is 31st of March, 2023. No application will be accepted or processed after this date.

How to apply
Applications can be made online here.