You must currently be working and have been working in education for at least TWO continuous years (in a school/college/university or a training provider offering courses to students who are 16+) in one of the following roles:

• Teacher
• Teaching Assistant
• Headteachers
• Deputy Head
• SEN staff
• Lecturers
• Supply Teachers (please see below)
• Supply Teaching Assistants (please see below)
• Learning Support
• Professors
• Academic Administrators
• Researchers

We will need confirmation of your employment; a P60 or a payslip (either can be used but one from each of the 2 year period is required). See question three regarding essential documents.

Supply Teachers/Supply Teaching Assistants; we understand at times you will be in between contracts at time of applying, if this is the case, please forward confirmation that you are actively registered with at least one agency.

We cannot consider your application without this information.

You cannot apply if:

• If you have access to funds/savings of more than £2,500, we are not able to consider an application.
• You have applied for a grant from us in the past two years.

We are able to offer two types of grants. You can only apply for one grant, and are unable to re-apply for another grant within two years, regardless of what grant type you receive. 

Food & travel to work grant: This is maximum of £250, as a one off payment, to go towards food or travel to work costs (public transport costs or petrol) 

General Living cost grant: We will award a grant up to £600, as a one off payment. You may not receive £600, as this is the maximum grant award. We will assess your application to decide the award amount.  This grant is for essential household items or utility costs, where you are not in a position to afford them. The essential household items we provide grants for are: fridge freezers, cookers, washing machines and beds.   

The utility costs that provide grants for are: heating, gas, electric, water, phones/mobile phone and internet costs. 

These grants do not need to re-paid at any point.

Food & travel to work grant:

You need to supply the following as part of your application:

• A P60 and a payslip (either are fine, but we need one from the past two years you have been employed)
• Your most recent bank statement on your main account (where your salary is credited and essential household bills are paid from). Please ensure these statements are in full, showing the covering page showing your name and address. 

General living cost grant:

• A P60 and a payslip (either are fine, but we need one from the past two years you have been employed)
• Your most recent two months bank statement on your main account (where your salary is credited and essential household bills are paid from). Please ensure these statements are in full, showing the covering page showing your name and address.
• Universal Credit statement (most recent and in full)
• Confirmation of utility arrears (if you are applying for help with arrears) 

Please see how to download my bank statement as a pdf under question 8.  We prefer bank statements as pdfs however can use photos but these need to be very clear.

First you need to complete the eligibility check. You will then need to go to the application form for either the food and travel grant or general living cost grant. 

Please have your supporting documents ready to upload, as you cannot submit the application without them. 

The online form does not need to be completed all at once. You will be asked for your email address and asked to create a password, this will allow you to save your progress and resume the application at a later stage.  

If you plan to complete the form in more than one sitting, it is important that you save your progress as details entered will not be saved without doing this. Upon saving your progress, you will receive an email confirming your progress and a date quoted as to when the form must be submitted. You will have a one month to do this, after this period any details provided will be deleted. 

If you complete the form in one sitting, you will receive an email confirming receipt of your application with a reference number beginning with the letter A. This should be received within minutes of placing the application so do check your spam/junk inbox if not the case. 

If you are unable to submit a form online, we can forward a paper version, please email Grants.Caseworker@edsupport.org.uk, providing us with your name and address details. Please note, we will take longer to process your application if done via post. 

We aim to process applications as quickly as possible however we are a small team and are continuing to receive a high volume of applications so at times it may take us longer than we would like. 

Please ensure you have uploaded the supporting documents we require to process your application. 

Food & travel to work grant: this will be paid via a bank transfer and or e-vouchers. 

General living cost grant: this will be paid via e-vouchers, where assistance is awarded for essential household items (we use Argos, Currys, Ikea, etc) and a bank transfer for utility costs, either direct to utility suppliers where assistance is towards arrears or to applicants if assistance is for utility payments.

When you create an application, you will be asked for your email address and a password, please use this information to log back into your application

There are a number of ways to do this; we would recommend that you look at this website, as they have instructions on how to do this for all UK banks. You can also use Google Chrome to create PDF’s if your bank is not listed. You can find instructions here.

Food and travel to work grant: each grant is £250. 

General living cost grant; Maximum amount is £600. The grants team will make the final decision on how much is awarded, based on your application.

We can only consider one application within a 2-year period, regardless of which grant you have applied for. For example, if you apply for a food grant you are unable to apply for this or for our cost of living grant and vice versa within the next two years.

Funeral costs:

We can offer a maximum grant of £500 towards funeral costs. This is offered towards a funeral for the applicant’s immediate family member, spouse/partner and child. 

The grant will be paid directly to the funeral directors and we require a copy of their invoice. 

Bankruptcy fee of £680:

Please forward the formal recommendations from the money advice service you have been working with, confirming they have recommended this course of action.  Please note we will not award the fee without this document and the fee will be paid directly to the Insolvency Services.

A list of organisation is available here.