Early Years Expanded Entitlements 2024

We are currently carrying out some supply and demand mapping to support the ‘Expanded Entitlements’ roll out in 2024 and need to gather some information from Gloucestershire providers to enable the Early Years Service to support you as these additional entitlements are introduced from April 2024.

We would like to ask you to spend just a very few minutes of your time to answer some questions, this should take no more than five minutes and questions will be filtered appropriately depending on responses. 

Many thanks for you input which will enable us to support the Early Years Sector in Gloucestershire to introduce these new entitlements.

We are currently carrying out some supply and demand mapping to support the ‘Expanded Entitlements’ roll out in 2024 and need to gather some information from Gloucestershire providers to enable the Early Years Service to support you as these additional entitlements are introduced from April 2024.

We would like to ask you to spend just a very few minutes of your time to answer some questions, this should take no more than five minutes and questions will be filtered appropriately depending on responses. 

Many thanks for you input which will enable us to support the Early Years Sector in Gloucestershire to introduce these new entitlements.

Childcare Places, After School Club Provision and School Holiday Childcare Places

You may be aware that the government are aiming to ensure that all local authorities and schools have adequate wrap around options from September 2024 onwards. While schools await further guidance on the finer detail, leadership teams and governing bodies of infant and junior schools are keen to be proactive in finding out about the need for childcare places that parents pay for.

Whether or not you require additional places for childcare based within our school community, we ask that everyone completes this short survey below, to support future decision making in the area of childcare provision in our community, by 6pm on Friday 23rd February 2024. We only need one survey return per family please.

We are aware that parents and carers utilise different providers and arrangements to support their own childcare needs and this may well already meet the needs of our community. Leaders and governors of both schools will analyse all available information and communicate any changes to our provision that are made as a result. You may wish to visit the Government’s Childcare Choices website to support you in answering survey questions and to find out more about help for childcare costs.

Please rest assured, none of the existing provision is changing and normal service will continue. Thank you in anticipation of your help with the survey and spending the time to reflect upon your personal childcare needs.

To be clear, this survey is about childcare that parents and carers pay for.

You will be asked to insert your postcode only so that we can use this to analyse childcare sufficiency and any gaps in specific parts of the county.

Many thanks.

All childcare providers including infant, junior, primary, including special schools are required to complete the survey and identify the out of school provision accessed by families in the county.  Similarly, we need to ask Out of School providers about the service they offer.

This is so we can gain accurate information regarding the out of school childcare that is on offer across Gloucestershire, so that we may identify any potential gaps in the service offer. This includes information about breakfast clubs, after school clubs and any holiday provision linked to your school.

The return captures details about your operating model, such as whether you currently provide school-run out of school provision, whether there is out of school provision run by an external provider on the school site, or whether there is no out of school provision linked to the school. For school-run provisions it also collects information regarding available places and prices.

If you do not operate any out of school provision, we request that you still complete the form, so we have full information.

We may be in contact if we need to follow up on this information.

Depending on what your school has on offer, this may take up to 20 minutes to complete. We request that this is completed by 6pm on Friday 23rd February 2024.

If you have any questions, please contact us on eyservice@gloucestershire.gov.uk 

All childcare providers including infant, junior, primary, including special schools are required to complete the survey and identify the out of school provision accessed by families in the county.

This is so we can gain accurate information regarding the out of school childcare that is on offer across Gloucestershire, so that we may identify any potential gaps in the service offer. This includes information about breakfast clubs, after school clubs and any holiday provision linked to your school.

The return captures details about your operating model, such as whether you currently provide school-run out of school provision, whether there is out of school provision run by an external provider on the school site, or whether there is no out of school provision linked to the school. For school-run provisions it also collects information regarding available places and prices.

If you do not operate any out of school provision, we request that you still complete the form, so we have full information.

We may be in contact if we need to follow up on this information.

Depending on what your school has on offer, this may take up to 20 minutes to complete. We request that this is completed by 6pm on Friday 23rd February 2024.

If you have any questions, please contact us on eyservice@gloucestershire.gov.uk 

In November 2023, DfE confirmed local authorities hourly funding rates for 2024/25.  Each LA must then determine their own funding formulae and consult with its school’s forum group and early years providers before the rates for the financial year are set and this is a statutory requirement.

The first meeting of Gloucestershire’s Schools Forum group that the formulae could be presented to was 11 January 2024.  The group agreed with the 2 options presented and we are now able to consult with the Early Years sector.

This consultation is your opportunity to tell us which of these options is your preference.  Once we have analysed all responses, we will adopt the option preferred by the majority of providers that responded to this consultation.  We will communicate a decision to all providers by end of February 2024.

Consultation Closing date is 31st January.