Early Years Pupil Premium was introduced in April 2015 meaning that pre-schools, nurseries, schools, childminders and other childcare providers who are delivering funding entitlement for 3 and 4 year olds are able to claim extra funding to support disadvantaged children who meet the eligibility criteria.
The aim of the Early Years Pupil Premium is to close the gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and other children by providing additional funding to settings such as ours, therefore ensuring that these children have the best possible start to their education.
National data and research tells that children eligible for free school meals tend to do less well, for example 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. Evidence shows that children from less advantaged backgrounds can start school 19 months behind their peers, but that good quality childcare can reduce this gap and have a significant benefit in terms of a child’s development and the Early Years Pupil Premium provides us with extra funding to close this gap, diminishing the difference.
The Early Years Pupil Premium provides an extra 53 pence per hour for three and four year old children whose parents are in receipt of certain benefits or who were formally in local authority care but who left care because they were adopted or were subject to a special guardianship or child arrangements order. This means an extra £302 a year for each child taking up the full 570 hours funded entitlement to early education. This additional money makes a significant difference to us and in order to be able to claim this funding we require parents to sign the funding agreement which asks for details of parent’s date of birth and National Insurance number.
How this funding could be spent?
We can use the extra funding in whatever way we choose to improve the quality of the early years education that we provide for your child. This could include:
further training for staff in relevant areas e.g. communication and language
purchasing additional resources
providing additional staff to work specifically with children
buying in services to support with areas of learning/training or to provide experiences or opportunities
paying for trips/visits
Our commitment to diminishing the difference between our disadvantaged children and their peers is strong. Our focus always remains on the child's needs and the staff, leaders and committee work tirelessly to ensure that through rigorous monitoring and reviewing, no time is wasted, interventions are purposeful, and progress is rapid.