Published: 28/11/2025 · Last Updated: 28/11/2025

Bulletin for November 2025

EMA applications for academic year 2025/26

Please remind your learners that they can still apply for their EMA funding for academic year 2025/26.

We’ll backdate payments to the approximate date that we receive their application form.

Learners can download the application form and guidance from nidirect.

EMA Agreement Form Part 2 completion - January bonus confirmation

Please remind your students that they need to sign their EMA Learning Agreement Part 2 to be eligible for a bonus payment. You must update completed agreements to the LC Portal by 2 December. Students who have not signed their agreement by then will not be eligible for January bonus.

If a student has met their objectives, you should allocate their bonus on the Confirm Bonus tab of the portal. You may want to arrange a meeting with the student to talk through progress and future goals, but please allocate the bonus as soon as you can.

You should also make a submission for students who have not achieved their objectives.

You can find more information about bonus allocation in the Bonus Quick Guide on the Learning Centre Services website.

Application distribution for academic year 2026/27

We're beginning the ordering process for academic year 2026/27 applications, but first we need to make sure we have your correct distribution details.

You can see the details we hold on the Maintain Profiles tab on the Learning Centre Portal. This is also where you can update them if they're incorrect.

Please check that your contact details are up to date by 5 December.

Learning Centre Portal opening early

We're opening the Learning Centre Portal early for entries for the week ending 19 December. This means you can submit attendances from 18 December so the allocations are in place before you break for the holidays.

Please mark the following weeks as holidays:

all weeks your Learning Centre is closed for holidays
all weeks your Learning Centre is only open for one day

This will automatically mark all students as on holiday, ensuring the portal is up to date.

Please also check the Unconfirmed weeks section of the portal to administer any outstanding student payments.

EMA support desk

Our support desk team is available to answer any day to day operational questions you have. This includes queries about individual students, application processing, payments and the Learning Centre Portal.

As we approach our peak processing period, it is important you use all available resources. You should only escalate these types of queries to the Account Management team in exceptional circumstances.

You can contact the support desk on 0300 200 7089 option 5 or email emainfo@slc.co.uk.