Grant News
The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, a grant-giving charity supporting projects that help improve the lives of Armed Forces families, has announced that it is offering grants of between £5,000 and £80,000 to support early years education for children from Armed Forces families. The funding is being made available through the Armed Forces Families Fund: Early Years Programme.
Projects can run for up to 2 years.
Applications are invited from:
- Early childhood education and childcare providers operating where armed forces families live or work and must offer group-based childcare and have at least 50% of service children on roll (unless under a cluster, see below).
- Local authorities who wish to supply specific training to early childhood education and childcare providers supporting service children aged 0-5 years and provide a shared resource working across multiple settings.
- Setting that have less than 50% service children on roll, could still apply as a cluster. This means submitting a group bid on behalf of two or more setting with smaller numbers of service children.
The grants can be used to:
- Increase capacity at the setting to allow more service children to attend
- Provide better learning environments for service children
- Provide appropriate training and development of staff to support service children
The closing date for applications is 12 noon on the 8th October 2025.
Previous projects supported include:
Aldershot Garrison Pre, which received funding for its 360° Early Years Development Project, enabling the expansion of services, introduction of parenting classes, and creation of sensory and outdoor forest school areas to promote holistic development and resilience in service children.
Peter Pan Pre-school in Pirbright was also awarded a grant for a sustainability project, allowing the recruitment of two full-time staff members to increase available places for military families and enhance support during children’s formative years.
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