Early Years support and childcare

Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) provides additional funding to early years providers to support the learning and development of disadvantaged children. This page explains who is eligible – including children accessing funded early education places and whose families meet certain economic or care-related criteria – and outlines how childcare providers apply for the funding through the appropriate checks and local authority processes.

Eligibility for Early Years Pupil Premium

Children could be eligible if they are accessing a government funded free entitlement place:

• 15 hour working families entitlement for ages 9 months to 2 years
• 15 hour entitlement for families of 2 year olds receiving government support
• 15 hour universal free entitlement for 3 and 4 year olds

Families must also meet one of the following:

Economic criteria

• Income Support
• income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• support under part six of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• the guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (provided you are 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 you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit - your household income must be less than £7,400 a year after tax not including any benefits you get

Non-economic criteria

In addition, a child could be eligible if they are looked after by the local authority or has left care through:

• adoption
• special guardianship order
• a child arrangement order

How to apply

Childcare providers will identify families who could be eligible against the economic criteria. Providers claiming funded hours for eligible children will add the carers details on their claims on the Early Years Provider Portal. This will allow the system to electronically run an EYPP check using the carer's surname, national insurance number and date of birth.

For non-economic claims, forms are completed and sent to the Local Authority for a manual check.