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My youngest was at college doing her A levels but has just dropped out to work at a nursery to gain her Level 3 Childcare Qualification. She is getting paid at minimum wage.
My questions: is the Level 3 Childcare Qualification classed as full time education and if not then can I legitimately stop my child maintenance payments?
My youngest was at college doing her A levels but has just dropped out to work at a nursery to gain her Level 3 Childcare Qualification. She is getting paid at minimum wage.
My questions: is the Level 3 Childcare Qualification classed as full time education and if not then can I legitimately stop my child maintenance payments?
Child maintenance payments will continue while the child remains in approved education, which includes GCSEs, A levels, AS levels, national diplomas and NVQs (up to level 3), as well as apprenticeships or traineeships. If the child / young person leaves school and gets a job, the payments stop (typically the first Monday in September) after they leave school.
The CMS claims payment are linked to when Child Benefit stops; however, there is no published text to show this, so it should (based on the current wording) stop when the child finishes approved education (e.g. in June / July, not September), by that's a separate bone of contention with the CMS.
Approved education should be more than an average of 12 hours per week, supervised study or course-related work experience.
A level 3 childcare qualification is equivalent to a national diploma.
Hi,
I suppose it would depend on course provider. All of these show as full-time course https://www.candi.ac.uk/course-detail/childcare-and-education-early-years-educator-level-3-diploma/10508/
Child benefit office would expect primary carer to keep them updated about what child is doing once leaving school/college.
More info: https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-16-19
If child benefit still in place, then you would be expected to carry on
Paying maintenance.
@bill337 Thanks for the reply.
I followed your link about the course and it looks to me like it is at a college and would be a student? My daughter is employed by the nursery and so my assumption is she is no longer a student and has left full time employment.
Would be interesting to see if ex has informed child benefit of the change.....
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