Early Years Pupil Premium

Guidance for maintained nursery schools and classes

Policy and Planning Team

Childcare Strategy Service

16th March 2015

L: Group/CIS/PolicyandPlanning/NurseryEducationFunding/EYPupilPremium

Contents Page

What is Early Years Pupil Premium?3

Who can claim Early Years Pupil Premium?3

What is the eligibility criteria?3

How much will I be paid?4

What is my role in promoting the Early Years Pupil Premium to parents/carers?4

How do I claim the Early Years Pupil Premium?5

How can I spend the Early Years Pupil Premium?9

What do I need to consider when deciding how to spend the Early Years Pupil Premium?10

Where can I find out more information?10

What is Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP)?

The introduction of the EYPP for 3 and 4 year olds from April 2015 aims to support providers to bridge the gap between the most and least advantaged children and their readiness for school. There will be approximately £300 additional funding for each eligible child. Early years providers have a key opportunity to maximise this additional funding to improve children’s outcomes and to boost disadvantaged children’s achievement.

Recent studies show that there is a 19 month gap in school readiness between the most and least advantaged children. The EYPP has the potential to greatly reduce this inequality.

Who can claim EYPP?

All providers delivering funded early education and childcare places will be eligible to receive the EYPP. This includes private day nurseries, pre-school playgroups, childminders and academy, maintained and independent school nurseries.

What is the eligibility criteria?

The EYPP can be claimed by an early year’sprovider if a child at their setting is accessing free early education and childcare for 3 and 4 year olds and the child’s parent /carer receives one ofthe following benefits:

  • Income Support
  • Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
  • Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
  • Support from NASS (National Asylum Support Service) under part 6 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
  • The guarantee element of State Pension Credit
  • Child Tax Credit (provided the family is not also entitled to Working Tax Credit (WTC) and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190*) (*Current figure at time of printing)
  • Working Tax Credit run-on (paid for 4 weeks after a family stops qualifying for WTC)

Or the child falls into one of the following groups:

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  • Has been looked after by the local authority for at least one day
  • Has been adopted from care
  • Has left care through a special guardianship order
  • Is subject to a child arrangement order (previously known as a residence order)

How much will I be paid?

EYPP is paid at a national rate of 53p for every free early education hour that an eligible child attends a setting. City of York Council passes on the full rate to providers.

Please see the following table for examples of children attending their full 15 hours of free early

education and childcare a week:

Number of children / Amount each year
1 child / £302.10
5 children / £1510.50
10 children / £3021.00
15 children / £4531.50

Children will not need to access the full entitlement to be eligible for the EYPP; providers will be paid on a pro rata basis.

If a child moves provider at half term, the funding will be split between providers on a pro rata basis.

Note: You will continue to receive a deprivation supplement for those children who meet that eligibility criterion therefore if a child is eligible for both the deprivation supplement and the EYPP you will receive an additional 93p for every free early education and childcare hour that an eligible child attends at your setting.

What is my role in promoting the EYPP to parents and carers?

You need to tell all parents about the EYPP, highlight the benefits for their children and encourage eligible parents to let you know who they are. This should be voluntary; some parents will choose not to identify themselves as meeting the eligibility criteria.

To help providers, the Childcare Strategy Service has produced a colourful information leaflet to give to all your parents/carers alongside a poster to advertise the new premium.Alternatively, the Department for Education has also produced a sample letter available at titled ‘Early Years Pupil Premium: Overview letter for parents’.

You can use either of these or use your own method of communicating this information to your

parents/carers. You may want to advertise it on your website, in newsletters or through social media.

How do I claim EYPP?

Step 1

Give the factsheetto parents/carers and encourage them to complete their details on the Early Years Pupil Premium Registration Form on the back of the factsheet or on the back of the Parent Declaration Form. Parents/carers should return the completed form to you.

The amended Parent Declaration Form / Early Years Pupil Premium Registration Form is available under the Free Early Years Education section of the Childcare Strategy web page at or on CYC’s website in the Schools’ Workforce area at

Step 2

A – For families who receive one of the eligible benefits:

The details required by the Childcare Strategy Funding team to check for eligibility for EYPP can be added into Integris in the Student Record. The information can then be exported out of Integris G2, following the instructions below, the file can be sent with one pupil record to be checked or the details of multiple pupils can be included.

  1. Go to Modules, General then Student Details and search for the pupil you want to check for

EYPP eligibility.

2. Click on edit to add the data required into the pupil record.

  1. Find the parent/carer that you have the National Insurance and DOB for in the Family Tab. If

they are not already recorded as a contact they can be added as PG1/2 or Other Contact.

You need to tick the FSM Applicant check box and add the Date of Birth of the applicant (not the child)and the National Insurance number.

4. When this is saved go to Reports, Administration, Exports then FSM Applicants report.

  1. Change the Output to Extended Format and Include “All Students with FSM Applicant”

Select your Nursery Year Groups and click on Download Results.

  1. Once you click on ‘Download results’ a bar will appear on the bottom of your screen, choose to

save the file in a location that you can access from your email. Change the file name to your DFE Number.

  1. Email this saved file to the Childcare Strategy Funding team at CS&. Please

ensure that you use a secure email address when sending this file. All ‘york.gov.uk’ email addresses are secure.

Step 2

B- For families where the parent/carer has indicated that their child belongs to one of the following groups:

  • Has been adopted from care
  • Has left care through a special guardianship arrangement
  • Is subject to a child arrangement order

1.You will need to see a copy of the parent/carers court order to check this is correct and record this on the Early Years Pupil Premium Registration Form and then email the funding team with the child’s details confirming that you have seen the required documents.

Note: You DO NOT need to enter the details onto Integris.

2.The funding team will be able to check the eligibility of any children that have been identified as being looked after by the local authority.

What is the process for looked-after children (LAC)?

1.Each term the Childcare Strategy funding team will run a report to identify LAC within the eligible Date of Birth range.

2.The funding team will update this report with the provider name and the current hours attended by the child and send this to the Virtual Head for LAC.

3.A letter will then be sent by the LAC Virtual Head to each provider at which a LAC child is attending, detailing what is required of them.

4.When it has been confirmed that the conditions of the letter have been met, the LAC Virtual Head will authorise the Childcare Strategy funding team tomake the appropriate EYPP payment to the Early Year’s provider.

5.The funding team will add 2 new columns to the school funding calculation spreadsheet, EYPP and EYPP LAC and enter the amount to be paid and send to the Schools Finance team in the usual way.

What about out of area looked-after children?

The Local Authority (LA) can only pay EYPP for Looked After Children who lives in York, so if a child is looked after by another LA and attends a York setting the provider will need to invoice the original LA for the EYPP ( City of York Council will continue to pay for the free early education and childcare hours).

Step 3

1.The funding team will then check the family’s eligibility through the Eligibility Checking System.

2.We will inform parent/carers of the outcome of the check via the email address submitted on the registration form. If a parent/carer does not have an email address they will need to give us their postal address on this form.

3.Schools will receive notification through secure email of the children at their setting who are eligible for the EYPP in that term.

4.An EYPP payment will then be paid to each school at the end of each term along with the final early years funding payment.

5.The eligibility of children receiving the funding will be automatically checked again at the beginning of the academic year when the child is taking up their 4 year old entitlement.

Step 4

1.On receivingan email from the funding team confirmingthe children eligible for the EYPP, go onto Integris and untick the ‘fsm applicant’ box for all parent/carers of eligible children. (This will prevent these families’ details being resubmitted for checking in following terms).

Note: You DO NOT need to re submit the parent/carer details each term that a child is taking up anearly education and childcare place. Details need only be submitted in the first term a child accesses a funded place, unless a parent/carers circumstances have changed which may now make them eligible for the EYPP.

How can I spend the EYPP?

Although the government is not specifying how this should be used, settings need to be aware of how many children they have received EYPP for and be able to clearly demonstrate to Ofsted how the money is being spent to support these children and help close the gap between the attainment of the most disadvantaged children and their peers.This could be through:

  • Pooling the EYPP to purchase shared services such as an Early Years Graduate or Speech and Language Therapist or providing additional staff to implement strategies such as the Early Years Language Programme formally known as the Every Child a Talker programme
  • Buying training from external agencies/consultants E.g. Katherine Finkill, Sue Overton, Early Excellence, Scrap Stuff, teaching school alliances etc.
  • Buying services from external agencies E.g. Music Movement Groups, Story Tellers, Art and Craft projects etc.
  • Visiting outstanding provision E.g. Wingate Day Nursery
  • Improving staff member’s qualifications or accessing specific training such as Elklan, ECERS, ITERS and ASQ3training

What do I need to consider when deciding how to spend the EYPP?

What specifically will raise the quality of the early years education offer in my setting?

•Have you made contact with your local Children’s Centre for partnership working and early intervention including supporting the child in their home?

•If the child attends term time only, what provision have you put in place for the holidays? E.g. Support from your Local Children’s Centres and provision

•Who will be leading the spending and impact of the EYPP?

•How will the EYPP improve the quality of provision for early language and literacy?

•How will it improve the quality of teaching and learning?

•How could it contribute to practitioners CPD and how would the impact be measured?

•How can you encourage a professional dialogue and debate to learn from other settings?

•How could this improve the quality of the physical environment and “resources”?

•How can you improve parent’s involvement and engagement in their child’s learning?

•How could you effect and impact on a child’s home learning environment? Could you work in partnership with Children’s Centres to achieve this?

•How are you identifying children’s needs?

•How are you measuring progress and impact of the EYPP? -Evidence about what works should be evident when making decisions about how to spend the EYPP.

•Have you considered pooling EYPP funding to purchase shared services and/or use the EYPP to buy in services?

•Are you considering the evidence that shows that having a graduate in a setting helps to improve the quality of practice and that graduates made the biggest difference in settings in disadvantaged areas when spending the EYPP?

Where can I find out more information?

To find out more you can go to or visit our web page at

The Education Endowment Foundation currently provides a teaching and learning toolkit, which is a summary of educational strategies and research to help teachers and schools decide how to use their resources to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children.

This toolkit is to be extended for early years providers to assist them in identifying how best to

spend the EYPP and can be found at

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