NEW funding entitlements webpage and academic calendar 2023/2024

NEW funding entitlements webpage

We have set up a webpage which will be regularly updated with information regarding the new Funding Entitlements as they are implemented. Please visit Early Years Entitlement Funding and click on ‘NEW Funding Entitlements’ for more information. You may wish to ‘favourite’ or ‘bookmark’ this page for reference.

Academic calendar 2023-2024

The academic calendar 2023/2024, which includes Headcount weeks and task deadlines, is available on our website.

If you are a term-time provider you may be looking at your opening dates alongside a school, if you are a childminder you may be taking holidays at various times across the year, or if you are a setting open all year you may be planning a Christmas closedown.

The academic calendar 2023/2024 is to assist providers, but you are able to choose when you are open and offer funding across the year and whether this is as a termly or stretched model. We ask that you communicate this to parents and if you are open for more than 38 weeks, consider which dates may need to be charged if a child goes over their available hours.

Whilst children have 38 weeks of funding, a setting may not be open for 38 complete weeks and these part weeks can mean that some children run out of funding before the end of the Academic Year. The entitlement is also pro-rata for children who become eligible in the Spring or Summer Term so their entitlement may fit differently to a child who is eligible from the start of the academic year.

As per our Provider Agreement Bank Holidays are NOT funded if the setting is NOT open.  Any hours that would normally be attended can be used in the bank holiday week or at another time, as long as the child’s attendance does not exceed 15/30 hours in any week.

For children that are starting school in September, their funding will end on 31st August so any hours attended from 1st September will need to be paid for. School funding is allocated for these children and therefore they cannot access any of the Early Years Entitlements.

Early Years Funding Team