How to claim Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) funding

About Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP)

Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) is additional funding for providers to support children who:

• come from families claiming out of work benefits
• are looked after or have left the care of the Local Authority through adoption or special guardianship

Any eligible child in receipt of Early Years Free Entitlements (EYFE) hours can receive EYPP funding, for 3 and 4 year olds it is applied to universal EYFE hours only. 

Find out more about the EYPP eligibility criteria on GOV.UK.

This funding should be used to enhance the quality of the child’s early years’ experience by improving the provision and resources, with the aim of impacting positively on their progress and development.

We have produced an Early Years Pupil Premium sample letter for providers to give to parents, telling them about EYPP. This is to encourage parents to give providers the information needed to check eligibility.

How to claim EYPP funding

We use the Synergy on-line Provider Portal for providers to submit all information required to claim EYFE funding, including EYPP.

Providers should use the Early Years Free Entitlements Parental Declaration Form to collect the required information from families, Section 3 of the form specifically refers to EYPP.

To claim under income-based criteria providers must have the parents:

• full name
• date of birth
• National Insurance (NI) or National Asylum Support Service (NASS) number

To claim under non-economic criteria, providers must have confirmed evidence from the parent/guardian of the child’s status. Parents will need show a copy of the adoption certificate or a copy of the special guardianship/residence order if they have left care under these circumstances.

Children who are in local authority care (LAC) are also eligible for the EYPP. If you have a child attending with you, who you know is looked after by the local authority please ensure you inform us.

Providers should follow the termly guidance issued by the Early Years Finance team regarding submission of headcount details, which includes how to submit parental EYPP information. Eligibility for EYPP can only be checked by us if all the information from the parent/guardian is submitted.

Once the headcount details have been submitted through the Synergy Portal, we will check eligibility for EYPP via the government’s Eligibility Checking System (the ECS) and update the child’s record in Synergy. Eligible children will have ‘EYPP’ indicated in their headcount record.

EYPP funding is paid with the termly post headcount balancing payment.