Providing Early Years Education (EYE) funding

Eligible parents of two year olds can have up to 570 hours of funded early education a year (from the funded period after their child's second birthday). You can offer this as either a term time offer or stretched offer.

• Term time offer - 15 hours a week for 38 weeks a year
• Stretched offer - spread the total number of hours over term time and school holidays by offering fewer hours each week

As well as offering families a childcare place, it also helps parents to take up a college course or go back to work and provides ideas on how to help their child play and learn.

Parents can take up to 10 hours in one session but not before 6am and after 8pm. A child must come for at least two and a half hours at a time.

Offering funded places

To be able to offer funded places, your setting must be one of the following:

• an early years provider registered on the Ofsted Early Years Register
• a childminder registered on the Ofsted Early Years Register
• a childminder registered with a childminder agency which is registered with Ofsted
• an independent school registered with the Department for Education (DfE)
• a nursery school, nursery class or unit funded by the local authority
• an academy

You also need to meet one of the following quality criteria:

• you are a provider, or childminder registered with a childminding agency judged good or outstanding by Ofsted
• you are a new provider registered with Ofsted waiting for your first full Ofsted inspection judgement to be published
• you have an Ofsted inspection judgement of met until your Ofsted quality inspection judgement is published
• you are a provider, or a childminder registered with a childminder agency judged requires improvement and are in an area where there is not sufficient, accessible good or outstanding provision

Your setting be registered on our Directory of Providers. Further information about the directory can be found below.

The government's Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities sets out how childcare providers can offer two year old funding.

All parents of three and four year olds can have up to 570 hours of funded early education a year. You can offer this as either a term time offer or stretched offer.

• Term time offer - 15 hours a week for 38 weeks a year
• Stretched offer - spread the total number of hours over term time and school holidays by offering fewer hours each week

Parents can start using their funded early education from the funded period starting:

• 1 January 2022 (Spring) - for children born between 1 September 2018 to 31 December 2018
• 1 April 2022 (Summer) - for children born between 1 January to 31 March 2019
• 1 September 2022 (Autumn) - for children born between 1 April to 31 August 2019
• Parents can access funding until their child either starts in reception class at a local school or reaches compulsory school age, which is the school term after their fifth birthday.

Offering funded places

To be able to offer funded places, your setting must be one of the following:

• a childcare provider registered on the Ofsted Early Years Register
• an independent school registered with the Department for Education (DfE)
• an academy
• a childminder with an outstanding, good or requires improvement Ofsted outcome

Nannies and home carers are exempt from the requirement to register as a childminder under The Childcare (Exemptions from Registration) Order 2008 if they provide childcare for no more than two families in the parent's homes. They are currently not permitted to register on the Early Years Register and cannot therefore receive early education funding.

Childminders cannot claim for children they are related to.

Your setting be registered on our Directory of Providers. Further information about the directory can be found below.

The government's Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities sets out how childcare providers can offer three and four year old funding.

All three and four year old children attending an early years education setting may be eligible to receive EYPP. Parents/carers must meet specific criteria. You could claim an additional £302 per year for each child to spend on supporting their development, learning and care.

The parent declaration form has all the details you need to make an EYPP claim. When entering your headcount claim you need to include the details for the parent/carer when adding a new child. For an existing child update the existing information. The EYPP supplement claimed will be added to the payment made for any children found to be eligible.

The DAF is for three- and four-year-old children who are taking up funded early education hours and are getting DLA. Four-year-old children in primary school reception classes are not eligible.

Key dates

This will be sent via email as a funding schedule and includes headcount dates, funding periods and estimated payment dates. Information will also be available before each task on the provider portal.

Most working parents of three and four year olds are eligible for an extra 15 hours of funded childcare a week, term time. This is added to their current entitlement of 15 hours. This means that their entitlement will increase to a total of 30 hours a week, term time or 1140 hours over a year. You can offer this as either a term time offer or stretched offer.

• Term time offer - 30 hours a week for 38 weeks a year
• Stretched offer - spread the total number of hours over term time and school holidays by offering fewer hours each week

You do not have to offer the full 30 hours. A few extra may be all that's needed by parents. Or you might choose to make informal links with another childcare provider to offer a joined-up, stretched service.

Offering funded places

To be able to offer 30 hours of funded childcare, your setting must be one of the following:

• a childcare provider registered on the Ofsted Early Years Register
• an independent school registered with the Department for Education (DfE)
• an academy
• a childminder with an outstanding, good or requires improvement Ofsted outcome

Childminders cannot claim for children they are related to.

Your setting be registered on our Directory of Providers. Further information about the directory can be found below.

The government's Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities sets out how childcare providers can offer 30 hours of funded childcare.

We pay all funding directly to you. Once you have applied to become a funded early education provider and are registered on the Directory of Providers, you will be able to make claims through our online provider portal.

Parents/carers will contact you to talk about a funded childcare place. Before you offer them a place, you must ensure you see confirmation that the child is eligible. Parents/carers will have been issued with a funding code proving eligibility.

You must ask the parent/carer to complete a declaration form giving their consent for you to check the code. Once this form is completed you can then check a code in the Provider Portal by:

• going to ‘30 Hrs funded childcare’ on the dashboard or menu bar
• selecting ‘Run a new check' from the drop-down box or the dashboard
• once the details have been completed the portal will give you an immediate result

A child can only take up their extended hours from the term following the date of issue of their 30-hour code (this is usually their validity start date).

Eligibility code results

When you check the code in the portal, if the code is eligible you will get three pieces of information:

• Validity start date - is the date that a parent makes their first successful application for 30 hours funded childcare. This date does not change unless the parent falls out of eligibility and then due to their circumstances changing, successfully reapplies giving them a new validity start date
• Validity end date - is the date when the parent's 30 hours funded childcare will end and the grace period will start. When the parent reconfirms their eligibility, the validity end date moves forward about three months
• Grace period end date - is the date when the 30 hours funded childcare will end if the parent has not successfully reconfirmed their eligibility. This date changes when the parent reconfirms their eligibility

Reconfirming eligibility codes

Parents need to reconfirm that they're still eligible every three months. The Department for Education will send parents a text message or email to remind them to reconfirm four weeks before their validity end date and again two weeks before if they still haven't reconfirmed. The Department for Education will not include a link in their text message or email for parents to click on to reconfirm their code (if parents are sent an email asking them to click on a link to reconfirm it is likely phishing). There should also be a secure message in their childcare service account.

Parents will not get a new eligibility code; they'll just get a new validity end date and grace period end date. You do not need to tell us if a parent has reconfirmed their eligibility code.

The Provider Portal rechecks eligibility codes automatically and will let you know if a parent is no longer eligible for the extended hours along with the date their grace period ends and funding will stop.

If circumstances have changed and they are no longer eligible for the 30 hours funded childcare or they have not reconfirmed their eligibility, they can still get the 15 hours of Early Years Education funding for 3 and 4 year old’s.

Our Directory of Providers is an unpublished list that we are required to keep as a record of providers who are registered to provide funded care in our area. Settings and Childminders wishing to join the Directory of Providers should email eyat@iow.gov.uk for more information.

You are also required to have a privacy notice to tell parents how you share their information.

We'll email you once your registration is complete and we'll tell you your Department for Education Unique Reference Number (DfE URN). We'll also email you details of how to complete the process to log in to our provider portal.

The Early Years terms and conditions explains how you can deliver funded early education. If you have any questions about funded childcare, email eyat@iow.gov.uk.

For parents and carers wanting to find out more information and to see if their family qualifies, visit information for parents.