Funding for the Early Years and Childcare Entitlement

EYPP is for 3 and 4 year olds currently accessing their 15 hour universal entitlement, although they do not need to be accessing their full 15 hours to receive it. It is additional funding for the provision to help support the child in their learning. Providers do not need to apply for EYPP, they are informed which children are eligible following the return of their headcounts.

Eligibility criteria 3 and 4 year olds in receipt of the universal funded entitlement will attract EYPP funding if they meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Their family gets one of the following:
• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Support under part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (provided they’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
• Working Tax Credit run-on, which is paid for 4 weeks after they stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit
• They are currently being looked after by a local authority in England or Wales
• They have left care in England or Wales through:
  • An adoption
  • A special guardianship order
  • A child arrangement order.

4-year-olds in primary school reception classes who already receive the school-age pupil premium are not eligible for EYPP funding.

Early years providers are ultimately responsible for identifying eligible children. With reference to the Model Agreement ‘the provider should ensure that they have identified the disadvantaged children in their setting as part of the process for checking Early Years Pupil Premium eligibility. They will also use EYPP and any locally available funding streams or support to improve the outcomes for this group’. It is advised that providers speak to parents to find out if they think they will be eligible, and providers can use the Parent Declaration Form to gain permission from parents for the local authority to confirm eligibility.  

When will providers know which children are eligible each term?

Bolton Council will send out a list of children who are eligible as near to the beginning of term as possible and the funding for the EYPP children will be paid directly to the setting. You will then need to look at your assessments and tracking of the children on the list.

Please note: there will always be a delay in us providing you with a list of eligible children at the start of each term as we need to import data in to our system and then match them to your headcount forms. We will get this information out to you as soon as possible.

*Once a child is in receipt of EYPP funding, regardless of any parental change in circumstances, funding will continue until the child is of school age. 

At the end of August each year, your list will cease and we will restart eligibility checks. Once we have sent you the new list for the next year, we will continue to ‘top this up’ by checking Revenue & Benefits information each term – this is done so that we can identify any children who have moved up from being a 2 year old to 3 year old, or whose change in circumstances has resulted in them meeting the eligibility criteria since the initial check at the end of August.

In the situation where a provider feels EYPP should be eligible then a ‘manual check’ for EYPP can be carried out.

Manual checks can be carried out at any point of the year once we have issued the start of year list. To do this, providers will need to ask parents for their full name, date of birth and national insurance number. (Please note that if there are two parents in the household, it is more likely that the national system will recognise the person who claims benefits for the household, this does not mean that they will always be eligible, a check still needs to take place). Not all criteria are economic.

The data that we use to provide you with a list of eligible children is generated after a number of checks. It is also auditable and the local authority will take the necessary action against any individuals that are believed to be making fraudulent benefit claims.

At a Glance Flowchart for Early Years Pupil Premium Eligibility

OFSTED requirements with regards to EYPP

During your OFSTED inspection you will be asked by the inspector who your EYPP children are and how you are supporting them. They may want to see how you have tracked the development of these children since admission. You need to be able to demonstrate that you have considered the needs of the children and the interventions that will best support them to make progress in their learning and development. If you have a policy which illustrates your approach to this, then you will be able to talk confidently about what this looks like in practice.

It is also good to record the interventions that you have planned to use for particular groups of children or individual children as well as the planned impact of these. Your tracking of individual children and groups will also be good evidence to support your decisions on how to spend the money as well as evidence of impact. Please remember that you are responsible for demonstrating the impact of this funding for all eligible children that are registered with you.

The local authority only monitors a small number of children, it may be that some settings will not be asked to provide any monitoring for the local authority.

What can the EYPP funding be used for?

Settings are required to discuss with the parents the best way to support the child/children using the EYPP funding.

Examples of support may include:

• Training for staff to increase knowledge
• Resources for parents to use at home
• Speech and language support
• Additional multicultural resources
• Enrichment activities – such as dance sessions for physical development
• Time for staff to work with parents