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.
The programme is designed to 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’ to focus 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 two 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 for:
• To support settings with staff training
• A shared resource, such as an Early Years worker to work across multiple settings.
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, so do have a read to make sure you’re up to date with the latest eligibility rules and funding themes.
Are you on the mailing list?
Did you know we have a newsletter dedicated to the AF3 programmes? Get the latest updates and news straight to your inbox Sign up here.