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Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP)

This page is for childcare professionals who want to find out more about Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP).
If you are a parent or carer please visit the EYPP parents page to find out how EYPP can help your child.

What is the Early Years Pupil Premium?

The EYPP gives providers additional funding to support disadvantaged children.
It is designed to give children from the poorest families the support they need to develop and learn and ensure they are ‘school ready’.

It is very important that you can demonstrate the EYPP funding is making a difference and it must raise the quality of your early years education offer. This is something Ofsted will ask about during inspections.

Who can claim the Early Years Pupil Premium?

Early Years Providers can claim the EYPP for the children who receive the universal 15 hours entitlement and meet the eligibility criteria.
The EYPP is payable only on the universal 15 hours entitlement and not on the additional 15 hours entitlement for working parents.
Children don't need to access the full 15 hour entitlement to be eligible for the EYPP, providers will be paid on a pro rata basis.

What is the eligibility criteria?

To be eligible for the EYPP the family should receive 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 four weeks after they stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
  • Universal Credit (provided they have an annual net earned income equivalent to and not exceeding £7,400, assessed on up to three of the parent’s most recent Universal Credit assessment periods.).
Funding may also be available if a child falls into one of the following groups:
  • adopted from care
  • has left care through a special guardianship arrangement
  • has left care and is subject to a child arrangement order (previously known as a residence order).

How much will I be paid?

The EYPP is paid at a national rate of £1 per hour for every free early education hour that an eligible child attends their setting. For example, if children are attending their full 15 hours of free early education a week this would be as follows:
1 child - £570 each year
5 children - £2850 each year
10 Children - £5700 each year
15 Children - £8550 each year

What is my role in promoting the Early Years Pupil Premium to parents and carers?

Identify children who may be eligible at the earliest opportunity. The easiest way to promote and inform parents, is to do this at the point when a parent registers at your setting.

Ensure that all staff are confident in talking face to face with parents about the benefits of the EYPP and checking their eligibility.

Consider making displays to show parents how the funding has been spent to encourage parents to share relevant information.
There is a sample letter available if you would like to use it, you don't have to post this if you don't want to, an email is fine.

You can also look at putting this EYPP link for parents information page on your website, in electronic newsletters or on social media pages. You can include how you have spent the funding and the impact it has had on the children.

How can I spend the EYPP funding?

You can choose how you spend the EYPP but it must be based on the needs of eligible children at your setting. This could be through:

  • pooling the EYPP to purchase shared services such as a Speech and Language Therapist
  • joining with other settings to access training / resources
  • improving staff member's qualifications
  • accessing training or providing additional staff to implement specific strategies
  • additional staffing to access research documents / strategies
  • additional quality time and interaction for staff to spend with children eligible for EYPP
  • enrichment opportunities / activities
  • purchasing resources
  • visits to home / school / external professionals
  • additional space

How do I claim the Early Years Pupil Premium?

You make a claim for the EYPP at the same time as your main funding claim and / or adjustment claim.

You need to ensure the parent has included the required information on their Parent Declaration Form i.e., parent surname/s, parent/s date of birth and parent/s National Insurance number or National Asylum Seeker number.

If you have not already gathered this information from the parent on the Parent Declaration Form at registration, you could use the Early Years Pupil Premium Declaration Form to do this.

You will then need to log on to the Provider Portal. To find information on making a claim, please refer to the Main claim funding / adjustment guidance which can be found in the Early Years Online Provider Portal Guidance.

Please ensure the parent details and information is accurate and in full. If you do not provide all of the information required or there are any spelling errors or wrong dates, the families’ eligibility cannot be checked and no funding will be allocated.
Please note, you must tick the EYPP consent box.
EYPP consent box
You will need to see a copy of the parents or carers court order if they have indicated on the declaration form that their child belongs to one of the following groups:

  • has been adopted from care
  • has left care through a special guardianship arrangement
  • has left care and is subject to a child arrangement order.

We will be able to check the eligibility of any children that have been identified as being looked after by the local authority. Please use the notes section to inform us of a looked after child (LAC).

What happens next?

An eligibility check will be carried out once you have submitted your main or adjustment claim and the results will show up in the ‘Child Weightings’ column as EYPP.

After the Provider Portal has been updated, you will receive an email that informs you that your EYPP claim has been processed. You can then inform the parent or carer of the outcome of their application and how the funding will be spent. If the parent disagrees with the decision, please email Early Years and Childcare and the details can be re-checked.

You will be paid separately from your main claim payment for children that are eligible for the EYPP later in the term.

EYPP Child Weightings

Useful links and resources