Early Education Funding

Two Year Olds Early Education Funding

A child may be able to access 15 hours funded early education for 38 weeks per year from the term after their second birthday if they meet certain criteria. More information on eligibility criteria at Free early education for 2-year-olds – Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council.

Before a child starts in their free place you should ensure a child is eligible for the funding:

• Working families – will present you with an 11 digit code that can be validated using the eligibility checker on the provider portal.
• Families in receipt of some forms of government support – will present you with an eligibility letter (only Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council’s should be accepted).
• The base rate for children accessing a 2 year old place is £7.67 per hour.

Three and Four Year Old Early Education Funding

All children are able to access 15 hours of universal early education funding per week for 38 weeks per year from the term after their third birthday.

The base rate paid to providers for a 3 and 4 year old early education place is £5.14 per hour.

A deprivation supplement is calculated based on the Index of Multiple Deprivation score (based on postcode of children accessing setting).  A provider’s deprivation supplement is reviewed and calculated annually. The deprivation supplement rate is an additional 10 pence per hour.

A provider’s total hourly rate for funded 3 and 4 year olds in that setting is the base rate plus any deprivation supplement and Early Years Pupil Premium.

Further Information

Detailed information about delivering early education funding is available in the Early Education Funding Agreement.

Working Families

Working parents of 3 and 4 year olds can apply to HMRC for 15 extended funded hours per week (30 hours in total for 38 weeks per year) and from September 2025 this will extend to  children aged from 9 months

More information about the 30 hours extended entitlement, the eligibility criteria and how to apply is available at www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Foster Carers may also be eligible for 30 hours free childcare for any 3 & 4 year old looked after children in their care if they are also in paid work outside of their fostering role. For more information please contact the Families Information Service on 0800 0730230 or 01709 822429 for more information and how to apply.

Hourly rate

The hourly rate for the extended hours for working parents of 3 & 4 year olds is £5.14 plus any deprivation supplement. For details of the deprivation supplements please see the 3 & 4 year old universal entitlement section above.

Early Years Pupil Premium is only paid on the universal 15 hours for eligible children not on the extended 15 hours for working parents.

Working Families Eligibility Codes

Working families should apply for their entitlement at www.childcarechoice.gov.uk

Working families who are eligible will be given an 11 digit code and will need to renew their eligibility every 3 months through their childcare account (Sign in to your childcare account - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)) in order to not lose their funded entitlement.

Ensure you obtain the working families eligibility code from parents the term before the child will access their entitlement. This should be collected using the Parent Declaration form (link to Parent Declaration 2024-25.docx) to ensure the parent has signed the correct permissions for the eligibility code to be checked.

Use the Provider Portal eligibility checker to check the eligibility dates of the code.

Each code has a start date, an end date and a grace period end date. The period between the end date and the grace period end date is known as the ‘Grace Period’.

Before a child starts their working families funded place you should check:

• The start date of the code is before the start of the term the child will access their funding
• The end date is after the start of the term that the child will access their funding (i.e a child cannot start a new place in their grace period)

When a child is accessing their 30 hours free childcare:

The Early Years and Childcare Service will contact you twice each term to notify you if any of your working families funded children are about to fall out of eligibility for the next term. Please contact these parents to ensure they are aware they need to renew their eligibility in order to keep their funding.

Check the Provider Portal for any children with a red or yellow exclamation mark, these children’s working families eligibility codes have gone past their end date without renewal and the parent needs to renew their eligibility.

If you do not check working families code eligibility dates before a child starts in their free place and monitor this via the provider portal on an ongoing basis, you risk providing a funded place to a child who you cannot claim funding for.

Please refer parents to their childcare account (Sign in to your childcare account - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)) to renew their eligibility or the Childcare Choices helpline 0300 1234097

If a parent starts new paid employment or commences a self employed business mid-term they can apply to use their working families eligibility code within the same term.

Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP)

Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) gives early education providers extra funding to support eligible funded children in their setting.

Early Education providers will be entitled to an additional 68p per hour per eligible child, which equates to £387.60 annually for a child attending for their full universal entitlement.

The funding is payable to the childcare provider to enable them to work towards making a difference to the child’s progress over time and support readiness for school.

Eligibility

Early Years Pupil Premium eligibility criteria is available in Schedule 4 of the Early Education Funding Agreement.

How to apply

Childcare providers must apply for EYPP for children in their setting for the funding to be awarded.

Parent/carer’s details and consent for an EYPP eligibility check are collected via the Parent Declaration form.

Childcare providers should use the Provider Portal to apply for EYPP, further instructions are available in the Provider Portal User Guide.

Disability Access Fund

Disability Access Funding (DAF) is to support children with a disability to access their funded entitlement. A payment of £910 is available each financial year to childcare providers for each eligible child in a funded early education place at their setting.

Disability Access Fund provides additional funding to support the setting make reasonable adjustments and/or help with building capacity to enable children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) access their funded early education place.

Eligibility

To be eligible for Disability Access Fund a child must be accessing their funded early education place and be in receipt of Disability Living Allowance. Further information is available in Schedule 5 of the Early Education Funding Agreement

How to apply

Childcare providers should send a copy of the completed Parent Declaration Form and a copy of the child’s Disability Living Allowance award to the Early Years and Childcare Service, 2nd Floor Wing C, Riverside House, Main Street, Rotherham S60 1AE