How your EYPP is spent will determine the difference it makes

This additional funding should be used creatively to make a real difference to your most eligible children. Remember you will be accountable to Ofsted for how the money has been spent and the impact it has had on your eligible children. Take time to think about which options will most benefit your eligible children.

Funding must be spent on a projects, resources and opportunities that will benefit eligible children. It may be spent on several small projects, but settings will need to consider how any spend will benefit the child and the positive impact it will have on their development.

Using the information from the Education Endowment Foundation Toolkit will support your research and provide sample case studies of previous projects. The initial page from the link below shows what the potential impact may be; cost is compared to impact on progress.

Ideas for using EYPP

Access to learning opportunities:

• Provide high quality transitions for the child and family into the setting, within the setting and when leaving to attend another setting / school.
• Promote early engagement with families  and build relationships with children, for example, make home visits before children start at the setting and at other points in the year.
• Provide key resources for children to most effectively access the opportunities offered in the setting, for example, puddle suits, wellies or lunch boxes.

Enriching learning experiences:

• Work to raise children’s aspirations e.g. talking about what they could be when they grow up and arranging visits from people in the community and beyond.
• Using the expertise of other professionals; buying additional services such as:
  • Sports professionals to develop children’s physicality
  • Musicians - African drumming to develop a sense of rhythm, important for later literacy skills
  • Activities to support mindfulness and relaxation
  • Artists to support children to explore different creative media, supporting fine motor development and children’s use of a variety of tools
  • Purchasing resources such as caterpillar nets and living eggs to provide broader first-hand experiences of the natural world
  • Funding trips to enable children to access new experiences or enhance their interests

Enriching the enabling environment:

The environment is fundamental to supporting the learning and development of all young children. Consider what changes or additions would more effectively support children to engage with different areas of provision, for example:

• revamp the outdoor area to provide more opportunities to develop imaginative play
• create a mud kitchen to support the development of early mathematical vocabulary
• enhance the mark making resources in the outdoors to promote large scale and small scale opportunities
• develop a forest school environment to enrich opportunities for teamwork and risk taking

Parental engagement and home learning:

Research clearly shows how the home learning environment impacts upon the future success of all children. Plan opportunities that encourage parents to support children’s learning at home and to participate in activities within the setting.

• Consider how families can be supported directly to further enhance their skills to meet the needs of their child, for example, developing high quality interactions to support early speech and language.
• Provide parent/carer coffee/breakfast mornings enabling parents to develop relationships with others and understand ways they can support their child’s learning and development. For example, providing healthy lunch boxes, promoting physical play or mathematical vocabulary.
• Provide resources for children to explore with parents at home as in the setting, such as story books, props, puppets or resources for physical play such as balls, quoits, bean bags, ribbons etc.
• Set up a setting library to include books for all the family to encourage reading in the home.

Staff development:

• Identifying the needs of children eligible for EYPP and researching professional development which would enhance the skills and knowledge of practitioners to support children’s learning and development more effectively for example using the EEF toolkit.
• Pool EYPP budget across settings e.g. cluster of settings, buying in a speech and language therapist or play therapist.
• Providing whole staff training to support specific groups of children, for example Makaton, child development, early phonological skills and high quality interactions.