attainment gap through investment in staff.
One in four children now grows up in poverty. The majority of children in poverty are less ready for school than their peers, creating the 'attainment gap'. One of the Government's remedies for this is Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP). Applied for by parents, it amounts to an extra 53p per child per hour for disadvantaged three- and four-year-olds who are receiving the free entitlement to early education. Children who would be eligible for free school meals in Year 2 are also eligible. Like the Pupil Premium in schools, it is not ringfenced, so settings can spend it on resources that benefit all children. But managers must be able to demonstrate to Ofsted inspectors how effective the spend is in making a difference to disadvantaged children.
An obvious area to begin is staff. In Kent, where 326 settings have made claims for the EYPP, providers at local authority-organised workshops came up with a list of ways in which they hoped to spend the EYPP.
These included:
- training targeted to specific needs - working with children with English as an additional language, child development and running a forest school
- buying in professional services - educational psychologists, a family liaison officer, speech and language therapists, health visitors, and play therapists
- employing additional lower-level staff to free up key people and Early Years Teachers to do one-to-one work with targeted children, or to free managers or special educational needs co-ordinators for in-depth planning.
The Government's consultation on the introduction of the EYPP encouraged early years providers to use the funding to make their settings 'teacher-led'. However, the funding per child only equates to up to £302.10 per year, while its availability depends on eligible children continually being present - so not ideal for paying salaries.
Buying in expertise from outside is a more flexible way of spending the money, and the nursery is not liable for employment costs such as redundancy payments. If taking this approach, Michael Freeston, director of quality improvement at the Pre-School Learning Alliance, warns providers to check whether a professional's fee includes VAT. He recommends training all staff instead of a single person, to prevent the investment being lost if the trained staff member leaves.
One setting adopting this approach is Cherubs Community Playgroup in Coventry, which is training its eight staff members in autism and speech and language development. Twenty per cent of the playgroup's children are below the average stage of development for their age and four have a diagnosis of autism.
'As a manager, I was finding that staff were finding reasons for children not developing rather than seeing a gap in their own skills,' says manager Sharon Roberts. 'When I looked at their qualifications and the length of time since they had gained them, I could see there were gaps.' She contacted the The National Autistic Society. 'It cost more than the EYPP money and we had to use some of our training budget as well,' says Ms Roberts.
Measurement is a key part of the EYPP. This is partly because it will come under the scrutiny of Ofsted, and also because it is pro- ven to be an important part of the process. According to research carried out in schools, by the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services, 'schools that are successfully closing attainment gaps work hard to ensure that resources are targe- ted at the children who need them most. They rigorously monitor pupil progress ... and use this data to inform targets, direct deployment of resources and monitor impact of interventions.'
Some local authorities have developed tracking tools to help. Cherubs will use Coventry City Council's summative development tool. At Kent County Council, EYPP has been added to the Kent Progress Tracker tool, used by a high proportion of local settings, says Susan Smith, equality and inclusion manager at the council.
The tool allows settings to create graphs showing children's starting points, which can then be measured seasonally to show how the attainment gap has narrowed.
Arranging training with other providers can be a good way of bringing down costs. A group of settings in Kent, led by Halstead Nursery, are pooling their money to provide communication and language training.
CASE STUDY: KNOWLE WEST CHILDREN'S CENTRE AND NURSERY SCHOOL
This Bristol-based setting is spending its EYPP on employing two members of staff, only one of whom is human. Play therapist Jenny Coates supports the most vulnerable children in the nursery, while Jake the therapy dog is seen as a full-time member of staff with a packed timetable.
Some 24 of the 186 children in the setting are currently claiming EYPP. Head Sarah Salmon adds, 'We operate in an area of high deprivation, so about 80 per cent of our children should be eligible. We are working at the moment to make sure all children entitled to the funding are getting it.'
The setting had previously won a year's worth of funding to employ a play therapist to work with children affected by domestic violence. The EYPP was used to continue the work. To make EYPP spend more cost-effective, Ms Coates is now mainly working with groups of three or four children. She works with those 'in the most need', and the majority of these are EYPP-eligible.
Six group sessions cost a total of £270, while individual sessions cost £30 to £35 an hour.
One challenge is that the amount of money can fluctuate year on year. 'Luckily, Jenny is happy to be quite flexible in the way she is working with us,' says Ms Salmon. 'She is employed by us but is not a permanent member of staff. I imagine if you are a smaller setting the unpredictability is more difficult.'
The setting is measuring the impact of Ms Coates' work on the EYPP children, using an assessment scale developed as part of the Accounting Early for Life Long Learning (AcE) programme at Birmingham's Centre for Research in Early Childhood. The AcE programme has been developed to help practitioners gather data in the three prime areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and use this to generate innovative practice.
Another chunk of EYPP money goes on Jake the therapy dog. Jake, who trained to be a hearing dog but failed one of the requirements, was purchased for a donation of £300, and costs about £1,000 a year to keep. He lives with deputy head Matt Caldwell but comes into work every day, and was bought after a visit from a vet with a dog. 'One emotionally vulnerable child responded well to his visit, so we decided to apply for a dog ourselves,' says Mr Caldwell. 'Children can take him for a walk or sit in a room and just be with him. Having a dog will benefit the whole setting but can be used one-on-one with children who will most benefit.'
Further information
- EYPP guide for local authorities
- Funding toolkit for early years
- Learning Together About Learning shares best practice on EYPP spend
The setting also tracks children who are taking up the two-year-old early education entitlement, looking in advance at what their needs might be. 'We will keep Jake, but I imagine the way we spend the EYPP may change,' says Ms Salmon. 'We work in a group of five children's centres and we will work together to identify and share good practice, which makes a big difference, as we can all think together about the best ways of spending the money.'