New Early Years Entitlement resources
Introduction
We have been contacted recently by a member who has been encouraged to include early years entitlement (EYE) relevant resources in her business by her local authority. She has asked us to help by developing some resources to support her with this. It may be that your local authority will not expect you to have this paperwork for you to offer EYE but you may find the resources useful in the management of your childminding practice if you do offer EYE hours.
Can I offer EYE funded hours?
If you are not already offering EYE funded hours you may well be able to. It should be that if you are rated ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ you will be entitled to provide EYE funded hours to eligible 2-year olds. It seems that the eligibility rules for offering EYE funded hours to 3-4 year olds are currently less clear-cut. We therefore suggest you speak to your local authority Childcare Development officer to confirm eligibility in your area.
Our first resource is a practical factsheet that you can give to parents to let them know more about EYE funding, whether their child is eligible, how to access the funding, how it can be used, and what restrictions are placed on its use. This is a general factsheet and you may need to amend it to make it relevant to your specific area.
This resource can be given to parents to inform them that you are able to offer EYE funded hours. It also encourages parents to speak to you to find out whether you are able to offer the specific hours that they may be looking for.
If you are offering EYE funded hours it is good practice to have an EYE charging policy so that you and parents are clear on how the funding will be implemented. Our EYE Charging policy, used in conjunction with our general Fees policy, sets out how you will charge parents, taking into account their early years entitlement. In particular it gives guidance on aspects that are a requirement of offering EYE funded hours:
- How you can only attribute the hours to the child’s early years entitlement if this has been agreed and notified to your local authority within their required timescales and adheres to their rules on early years entitlement provision.
- How you will not ask parents to contribute financially to the hours that are funded through the early years entitlement.
- How you will not insist that parents pay for other charges during your funded hours.
- How you can charge for snacks and meals but that you will also give parents the option of providing food for their own child.
Finally we have developed a sample invoice that includes spaces for EYE funded hours so that parents can clearly see the hours used through EYE funding as well as those that they need to pay for.
Thanks for reading,
Amanda
Source used in the document:
Various .gov.uk websites
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