Early Years Pupil Premium

From April 2015, nurseries, schools, childminders and other childcare providers have been able to claim extra funding through the Early Years Pupil Premium to support children’s development, learning and care.

National data and research tell us that children eligible for free school meals tend to do less well, e.g. in 2014, 45% of children eligible for free school meals achieved the expected level at the end of the early years foundation stage compared with 64% of other children. The Early Years Pupil Premium will make available to us extra funding to help close that gap.

We can use the extra funding in any we choose to progress the quality of the early years education that we provide for your child. This could consist of, for example, additional training for our staff on early language, resources to support home learning, investing in a partnership working with our colleagues in the area to further our expertise or supporting our staff in working on specialised areas such as speech and language.

The money is paid directly to the provider by the Local Authority.

We  can give you the number of the Local Authority so that you can check your eligibility.

Families may be eligible if they are receiving any of the following:

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseekers Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Support from NASS (National Asylum Support Service) under Part 6of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The Guarantee Element of State Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (with no Working Tax Credit) with an annual income of no more than £16,190
• Working Tax Credit run-on
• Universal Credit

For more information, see: www.childcarechoices.gov.uk