At Aughton Early Years Centre, we have high expectations and are ambitious for all children so that their outcomes can be improved. The Centre receives additional funding in the form of Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) for those children who are eligible.

Eligibility
Children are eligible for EYPP if they receive at least one hour of free early years entitlements provision and their parent or carer receives one or more of the following benefits:

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Support under part 6 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The guaranteed element of  Pension Credit
• Universal Credit, if the parent or carer’s annual net household income is less than £7,400, not including any benefits.

If the child was formerly looked after by a local authority in England or Wales through adoption, a special guardianship order or a child arrangements order, they are also eligible.
- 9 month olds to 2-year olds: Payable on the working parent entitlement

- 2 year olds: Payable on either the entitlement for families in receipt of additional support or the working parent entitlement. Should be paid against the former first, if the child is eligible

- 3 and 4 year olds: Payable on the universal 15 hours’ entitlement only

For children who meet the income eligibility criteria, EYPP is paid per hour of early education entitlement they receive.

A child who is currently being looked after by a local authority in England or Wales and receives at least one hour of free early years entitlement provision is also eligible for EYPP. For these children, local authorities are required to pay EYPP for the full 570 hours per year, regardless of the number of hours of free early years entitlements the child receives.

Long Term Strategy
We maximize the use of the EYPP grant to ensure that disadvantaged children’s’ attainment will be sustained and improved by;

• Assigning senior leaders with overall responsibility for children in receipt of funding in their base who analyse data for groups and individuals in order to facilitate and target action for improvement, with a focus on closing the gap
• Swiftly identifying and effectively addressing barriers to education and development that result from socio-economic disadvantage
• Assessing the individual provisions required for each child in a ‘Provision Map’
• Ensuring all key persons champion the needs of children who qualify for the funding
• Consulting with base leaders, governors, staff and parents/carer’s when deciding how funds are spent.

We focus on approaches that;

• Are strategic, evidence-based (constantly reflect on practice to see what makes a real difference to outcomes), ambitious and built on an ethos of quality first teaching for all
• Are individually tailored to the needs of each child
• Are consistent, but also flexible and responsive
• Are focused on clear short-term goals providing opportunities for children to experience success
• Include regular high-quality feedback from staff
• Engage parents/carers in feedback
• Support children’s transition both within centre and on to primary school (fund additional visits with a key person, home visits)
• Raise aspirations through high-quality educational experiences
• Promote children’s awareness of their own thought process and help them to develop problem solving strategies.

We choose approaches that emphasise;

• Relationship-building, both between adults and peers
• An age-appropriate approach to the setting of clear behaviour boundaries
• Increasing children’s understanding of their own emotions and identity
• Positive reinforcement
• Building self-esteem
• Building on children’s interests so success matters to them
• A joined-up approach; involving Early Help or any other relevant professionals.

A Tiered Approach to Spending the EYPP Funding
1. Teaching - provide high quality training that is designed to up-skill practitioners and improve practice will impact positively on outcomes for children and especially this group of children. There will also be a longer term impact as the developments become embedded into everyday practice. It could also benefit those children who do not attract EYPP funding but have similar needs. All staff who engage in training disseminate to the whole centre team.

Staff Training;
- Based on needs of children, including data etc
- May involve co-coaching and modelling
- Utilise training provided by LA, EY Service, DfE, Foundation Years, EEF, Early Education, Health
- Consultancy support – LA School Improvement, Early Excellence, NLE/LLE
- Collaborate with local settings with differing strengths – Maintained Nursery Schools Partnership, learning community, PVI sector
- Recruitment to enhance staffing

2. Targeted Support - structured interventions and support, including one-to-one and small group work with experienced staff to address specific knowledge gaps, challenge the highly- able, and particularly targeting those who need additional support to reach age-related expectations.
- Nurture groups to develop good PSED
- Communication groups for children with delayed speech, language and communication skills
- Buying in expertise to support PD; sports coaching
- Purchasing of specific resources to enhance the provision
- Information and resources for parents to support learning at home, including meetings with key persons
- Displays to illustrate the learning process
- Lending libraries

3. Wider Strategies – children and families can sometimes have limited life experiences due to a range of factors such as poverty, limited knowledge or lack of transport etc. Our key person system enables us to find out about the breadth of each family’s world. By extending these experiences a broader horizon opens up for these children and families and provides greater opportunities for children to learn and develop.
- Breakfast and tea club
- Holiday daycare
- Provide meals
- Provide clothing/footwear
- Enrichment activities/experiences
- Providing help and information for parents to ensure regular attendance

Our Aspirations
We want our disadvantaged children to:

• Attend regularly
• Attain at least in line with their non-disadvantaged peers
• Access a broad, balanced and well-structured curriculum
• Develop high levels of language and communication skills, literacy and numeracy
• Be supported and nurtured at home by parents who understand and are confident in addressing their child’s needs
• Learn from rich core learning experiences; meeting a firefighter, understand lifecycles, environmental walk, cook on the fire-pit etc
• Demonstrate excellent levels of Personal, Social, Emotional Development
• Build their cultural capital.

Measuring the Impact of EYPP Funding
- Track the individual progress of children
- Track the progress of cohorts of children
- Tracking elements of practice (before and after intervention, parental awareness for example)
- Tools to track progress (Early Talk Boost)
- Comments from children, staff, parents/carers, other professionals
- Reports from outside professionals

Accountability
Ofsted will report whether the EYPP funding has been spent wisely and with maximum impact. Inspectors will select a child eligible for EYPP as part of their case sampling, and hold discussions with the key person and leaders. Factors to support these conversations include;

• All staff have a sound knowledge of children and families
• Tracking progress systems
• Monitoring of practice
• Information from outside professionals, including notes from conversations and reports
• Training evaluations
• Centre Development Plans
• Appraisals
• EYPP Provision Maps
• Attendance reports.

- All staff and parents will be involved in the decision making process of how EYPP will be spent
- Individual targets are set for all children and progress towards these is analysed at the end of interventions
- The progress of children in receipt of funding is regularly discussed by all base staff
- The strategy for using the EYPP is published on the Centre website

Signed: Andrea Smith
Dated: January 2026

EYPP Summer 2026

[pdf 492KB]