Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP)

Children receiving early education funding are eligible for 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 if a parent is entitled to Universal Credit they must 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.
• they are currently being looked after by a local authority in England or Wales
• they have left care in England or Wales under an adoption, special guardianship or child arrangement order .

Children must receive Early Education Funding in order to attract EYPP funding. They do not have to take up the full 570 hours of early education they are entitled to in order to get EYPP.

Early education providers and schools are ultimately responsible for identifying eligible children.

 A model letter has been provided which you can adapt to meet your needs. This letter prompts all parents to complete some additional information on the parental declaration form, which in turn will be used to check which children are eligible for the benefits related criteria. (see appendix one).

In particular, you should speak to the parents of children who took up the Early Education Entitlement for disadvantaged 2yr olds, as most of these children are likely to be eligible for EYPP.

The Virtual School Head should be involved in order to identify and fund EYPP for looked after children in your area. For further information please contact the Virtual Head Teacher on 0121 704 8616.

The Local Authority will carry out eligibility checks for all children, whose parents have supplied all four of the eligibility checking details on the provider portal as follows:

• Parent First Name
• Parent Surname
• Parent Date of Birth
• Parent National Insurance No (or NASS No if appropriate).

Please Note: Eligibility checks cannot be carried out for children after their early education funded hours have been paid for that term. It is therefore essential that details provided on the provider portal are complete and accurate. The EYPP consent box MUST be ticked on the provider portal to enable the system to carry out a check.

The Local Authority will advise the setting / school of the outcome of this check, who in turn must inform the child’s parents or legal carers. Nobody else should be advised of the outcome.

If a child has been found to be eligible for EYPP, this status will remain until the child ceases to access early education funding.

Once a child is found to be eligible for EYPP the provider portal will be marked as EYPP for 2 year olds and EYPP_Deprivation for 3&4 year olds in the weightings column on the actuals table.

Please note EYPP checks are carried immediately prior to headcount payment therefore when a term is first created the only children with EYPP_Deprivation will be those found to be eligible in previous terms. That terms EYPP checks will not be carried out until later.

You will receive deprivation for all 2 year old funded children who are approved via the disadvantaged funding scheme. This weighting will be automatically added to your headcount claims and will be visable on the weighting column as DEP.

The Local Authority uses the national Eligibility Checking System (ECS) to check children's eligiblity for EYPP, Free School Meals and the 2 year old entitlement.

There will be a separate process for identifying and checking the EYPP eligibility of children who:

• have been adopted from local-authority care
• have left care through a special guardianship order
• are subject to a child arrangement order

The Local Authority won’t be able to check these children’s eligibility through ECS. Instead, the parents, adoptive parents or guardians of these children will have to present evidence of the court order that proves that the child was formally in local authority care in either England or Wales to their chosen childcare provider or school.

It will be the Virtual School Headteacher’s responsibility to identify the children who are currently in local authority care.

Funding will be at the national rate of 68p per funded hour per eligible pupil. This means that in the financial year, the setting will receive £387.60 for each eligible child who takes up the full 570 hours of Early Education Funding they are entitled to.

Funding will be allocated to early years providers based on:

• how many eligible pupils they have
• how many universal  hours of state-funded early years education these children take up

Conditions cannot be placed on the funding.

This means that EYPP funding should follow the eligible child rather than the provider. If a child moves to a different provider part way through the year, they should not lose any of their funding because EYPP will be calculated using the amount of universal hours taken up.

In cases where a child lives in Solihull but receives their early education at a provider based in a different local authority, the provider’s local authority is responsible for:

• funding the EYPP for the child
• checking the child’s eligibility

All early years providers who are eligible to receive Early Education Funding are also eligible to receive the EYPP.

Childminders who are registered with a childminder agency can receive their funding through that agency. If they do then the Local Authority will pay the childminder’s EYPP to the agency and they will pass it on to the childminder.

The DfE will not impose restrictions on how providers spend the Early Years Pupil Premium, however, Ofsted will hold providers to account for how they’ve used the EYPP to support their disadvantaged children through the regular inspection process.

Providers may pool their Early Years Pupil Premium if desired.

To assist you with deciding on the most effective way to spend your Pupil Premium, please follow the below link to view the Early Years Toolkit, which is a guide to best practice.

http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/