Leathersellers' Student Grant Application Form 2025-26

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You must make your application for a Leathersellers Undergraduate Student Grant for 2025-26 via this online form. Please read the criteria below carefully to make sure this grant is right for you to apply for. Any questions, please contact us on studentapp@leathersellers.co.uk

Applications close at 5pm on Tuesday 11th March 2025. You will hear from us by 25th April 2025 as to whether you have been invited for an interview.

Do you meet our criteria?

Eligibility Criteria

Your application will only be considered if you:

- are going to be studying an undergraduate degree at a UK university in the year 2025-26 (because you are currently studying, or have an offer to do so)

AND

- are a care leaver*,
OR/AND
- are a current or former student of the Leathersellers' Federation of Schools or Colfe's School.

Please ensure that you meet the criteria before taking time to complete and submit the form.

*Care Leaver definition: For the purposes of this programme, we define a care leaver as someone who has been the subject of a care order/interim care order or a voluntary agreement (commonly known as a Section 20 agreement), at some point between the ages of 0-18 years old. This includes all 'looked after children' irrespective of immigration status. Care orders granted by the Court and voluntary agreements allow the local authority to assume responsibility of a child's care, either temporarily or until the age of 18 years.

If none of the below options applies to you, you will not be eligible, and your application will be rejected.

Please indicate all that apply:

I am a care leaver, (provide details of local authority and dates of order/voluntary agreement below)I am a current or former student of the Leathersellers' Federation of SchoolsI am a current or former student of Colfe's SchoolI am a current or former student of both Colfe's School and the Leathersellers' Federation of Schools

Please select the Local Authority that issued your care order/voluntary agreement:

Please note the dates of your care order/voluntary agreement (these can be years if you do not have the exact dates (e.g. 2015-2017)

The Leathersellers’ Foundation are keen to support you to maximise the support you are able to access at university.

Please tick this box if you consent to us sharing your application and budget with our partners at Become Charity so that their Advice and Support Officer for Higher and Further Education (Becca) can help identify if there may be additional support you can access.

She will get in touch with you directly to let you know you about additional opportunities, and offer 1-1 advice and support if she can help. 1-1 support can be arranged via email, phone or online.

I consent to be contacted by Becca from Become Charity to help me identify additional opportunities for support

I do not consent

Studying in the UK
To be eligible to apply for a Leathersellers' student grant, one of the following must apply to you. Please select:

I am a UK citizen or have indefinite leave to remainI have the right to remain for at least five yearsI have been granted refugee statusI have pre-settled status (EU)

Assessment Criteria

Your application will be assessed on how well it meets our core criteria:

Additional funding from us would support you to make the most of studying your course at university
You don't have access to that money otherwise
You are committed to making a positive impact on society in the future

Ready to begin?

Please read this first:

You can register with us by ticking the "Save My Progress and Resume Later" box at the top of the online form. This will allow you to save your application and return to it when you next login. Your application will not be saved if you do not register your email and create a password. Please note there is no autosave function so you must press save each time you exit the application.

We appreciate this save functionality isn’t the easiest to work with, so have provided:

An offline version of the full form
Application guidance highlighting the key questions you’ll need to spend more time on,
The budget form you will need to complete

We strongly recommend you prepare your longer answers offline and then just copy these into the online form when you are ready to submit.

Submitting your form

Once you have completed your application form and you are ready to submit it, don't forget to click the "Submit" button at the bottom of this form.

After you submit your application, you are no longer able to login to amend your form. You will receive a copy of your application to the email address you provided.

This will come from no-reply@formassembly.com. All communications from the Leathersellers' will come from studentapp@leathersellers.co.uk - please add both of these addresses to your trusted senders list to ensure you receive all future communications from us regarding your application.

If anything changes after you submit the form or you need to update any of the information, please let us know asap.

Guidance on completing the form below

We hope that you find the application form straightforward to complete. If you have any questions when completing the form, please contact us on studentapp@leathersellers.co.uk.

Any questions with an asterisk (*) must be completed, and you will not be able to submit unless you provide an answer to that question.

Unfortunately, we always receive more applications than we can support. To give yourself the best opportunity of receiving a grant please take your time to consider the answers and make sure that you proofread the application to resolve any typos or misunderstandings.

Be as clear as you can, and we look forward to receiving your form.

About you and your course

First name:

Surname:

Nationality / Citizenship

Contact email (please do not use a school/college/university email address):

This email address will be our primary way to contact you during the application process.

Contact telephone:

Your LinkedIn Profile (if applicable):

Supporting link (if applicable):

Video, website etc. Please add one link only.

Current home address

Postcode

How did you hear about us?

If 'Other', or you know the name of the person/organisation who referred you, please specify here:

Current enrolment status:

University/College(if your institution is not listed, please contact us at studentapp@leathersellers.co.uk):

University of the Arts London college:

Course name:

Qualification type:

If 'Other' qualification type, please specify here:

Course category:
Before selecting the course category please refer to this link for guidance. Please right click to open link in a new tab as you may lose your progress on the form otherwise.

If 'Other' course category, please specify here:

If you are yet to start your course and have conditional offers to study at a university, please list the conditions of the offer for your preferred university, as well as the name of the university and requirements of any other conditional offers you hold, below:

2000 character limit

Course start date

This is the start date for your entire course, not the year you are in currently.

Course end date

This is the date you will graduate.

Where will you live whilst at university?

Please select all that apply (hold ctrl to select multiple options)

If 'Other' or you can provide more detail please specify here:

Term time address:

If this is unconfirmed at the time of application please write "to be confirmed", or if the same as above please write "same as home address"

Do you have any dependents?

NoYes - 1Yes - 2Yes - 3Yes - 4+

Personal Statement

Why did you choose to enroll onto this course and this university?

2000 character limit

How would you see your career/studies developing after you complete this course? What are your hopes for the future and how do you think you will be able to contribute to society in the future?

2000 character limit

Is there anything else you would like to tell us about why you are looking for support from the Leathersellers? Are there any particular reasons you are in financial need or feel that your circumstances may prevent you reaching your full potential without additional help? And is there anything that this funding would help you to do at university (or not do) that won’t be possible otherwise?

2000 character limit

We are always keen to know more about you as a person. Aside from your studies, what are your hobbies, interests and commitments? Please include any charitable, sporting or community work you are involved with and hope to continue to enjoy whilst studying.

2000 character limit

Academic or Professional Reference

Please provide an academic/professional reference from an individual who knows you from school, university, a mentoring or access programme, a social worker or personal advisor, or from a job or volunteering role. We are not looking for a personal reference from a relative or friend.

Your reference should be a separate document - if from a school, university or local authority it should be on headed paper - and should contain a brief statement (max 1 page) explaining:
- how long they have known you
- in what capacity they know you
- why they think the Leathersellers' should consider supporting you with a student grant
- who they are (an email signature can be useful here)

Why do we ask for this?

We are looking for a reference that adds something extra to your application, so please consider who is best to ask for this.

Supporting Reference

Name of referee:

Contact email of referee:

We will only contact a small number of referees each year to verify the reference and will delete this contact information after your application has been processed. We will never share the name or email address with any other party.

Education Details

Please tell us about your education to date, any schools, colleges, and universities you have attended, the qualifications you obtained including the subject and the date.

Final secondary school:

School/College attended for sixth form or equivalent

Highest Level of Qualifications achieved at Secondary School / College

Please only include the highest level of qualifications you received e.g. A levels, Scottish Highers or Advanced Highers, International Baccalaureate etc.

Type of School

StateGrammarIndependent

School or College Region

(e.g. North East, London, South West, International)

We are piloting a partnership with the Jack Petchey Foundation this year to increase the number of students we can support. The below is for our records only and will not impact the assessment of your application.

Have you ever received a Jack Petchey Award or been involved in a Jack Petchey Programme (e.g. Speak Out)? If so, please provide some details about your involvement and when it took place.

Max. 1000characters.

College - if relevant and what were the highest qualifications your received (for what subjects and the dates):

University - if relevant and what were the highest qualifications your received (for what subjects and the dates):

Finances

Please complete your budget on the Excel template, available here and upload when complete. Please note, if your budget does not show a shortfall, (that you will need more money than you have available in the coming year), you are unlikely to reach the interview stage. You must use this template to submit your budget.

Please do not upload a .numbers file as we will not be able to access this. There are various tools available online to convert a .numbers file to an Excel file.

Your completed budget will show you what your annual projected shortfall is for 2024-25. Please add that number here:

Please enter numbers only - do not use £ signs or commas

How much of this shortfall are you asking Leathersellers' to fund? (max £5,000)