New Support: Early Years Education for Young Service Children
The Early Years programme is back for 2025 and we’re excited to share that applications are now open!
Part of the MOD’s Armed Forces Families Fund (AF3), The Early Years Programme will award grants between £5,000 and £80,000 towards projects that enable early childhood education and childcare settings to meet specific needs of young service children.
What’s the programme all about?
The Early Years programme is designed to help Armed Forces families access good quality early childhood education and childcare provision close to where they live or serve.
It will address barriers that service families may experience in accessing good quality childcare for their preschool aged children and will support projects lasting up to two years that can meet one of the four outcomes.
• Expanded capacity in early years settings, allowing more service children to attend.
• Enhanced learning environments that better support the educational development of service children.
• Improved staff skills and knowledge through targeted training and professional development.
• Establishing collaborative networks and shared resources through clusters to effectively address the needs of service children.
New for this round is the theme of ‘Establishing collaborative networks and shared resources through clusters to effectively address the needs of service children’. This focuses on building strong support networks and sharing best practices to better meet the needs of service children.
Who can apply?
Applications are now open for early childhood education and childcare providers serving armed forces families near where they live or work.
To be eligible, your setting will need to offer group based childcare where children from armed forces families comprise at least 50% of the children on roll.
Have a smaller number of service children than this? We are also offering the chance for settings with less than 50% service children on roll to form ‘clusters’ of three or more settings. As a cluster, you can apply for funding for:
- staff training with an armed forces focus
- funding for a shared resource, such as a roving armed forces Early Years Support Worker.
Local authorities can also apply, there is more detail available in the programme guidance document.
Thinking of applying?
There will be two deadlines for applications this financial year:
• Round one applications will close midday, 4 June 2025 and you’ll receive a decision by the end of August 2025.
• Round two applications will close midday, 8 October 2025 and you’ll receive a decision by the end of December 2025.
Want to know more?
There is more information on our Early Years Programme Page on our website.
Programme guidance and funding priorities have altered compared to previous rounds of the programme. Make sure you read the guidance and get up to date with the latest eligibility rules and funding themes.
Why not join us for our upcoming ‘Early Years’ webinar!
After the success of last year’s webinar for the Early Years Programme, we invite you to join us again for this round. You’ll gain a deeper insight into the 2025/26 programme, learn about the application process, and have the opportunity to meet the team.
The webinar will take place: Monday 17 March 12pm – 1pm.
Sign up here to the Early Years Lunch and Learn webinar.
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