The Nuffield-funded efficacy randomised control trial was carried out in schools across the UK by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) with Queen’s University Belfast and Save the Children UK.
Families Connect works with the parents of children aged 4-6 years old, living in disadvantaged areas providing them with the skills and confidence to engage in their children’s learning. The programme uses play as a vehicle for learning and focuses on three key areas: literacy and language development, mathematics and numeracy, and social and emotional skills. At present, the programme is delivered to 182 schools in the UK.
The evaluation did not demonstrate influence of the programme on the primary outcome of children’s receptive language or on numeracy outcomes immediately or six-months after programme delivery. Additionally, no difference in impact was evident in children’s receptive vocabulary between children based on their socio-economic background or the extent of parental engagement with the programme.
However, the findings indicate that the programme supports parents to strengthen the home learning environment (a secondary outcome investigated in the trial), through developing parental skills and confidence to engage in their child’s learning at school and in activities undertaken at home. The evaluation also indicates that the programme supports longer term improvements in children’s social and emotional behaviour – demonstrated by teacher reports of pro-social attitudes and behaviours towards others and towards learning at school six months after the programme delivery.
The evaluation involved qualitative interviews with parents, senior school leaders, community practitioners, and programme designers, to explore the key features and conditions required for the programme to be most effective and challenges likely to be involved in scaling the programme up.
The key recommendations from the trial relate to sustaining the immediate impact of Families Connect on improvements to the home learning environment and parental confidence, to increase the likelihood of impact on children’s learning outcomes.
The report also suggests building on the results related to children’s social and emotional outcomes to develop a better understanding of how these can be sustained to support children in their future learning. The key recommendation from the trial for wider research into early years programmes is to develop a better understanding of how to sustain changes within the home learning environment that will lead to measurable attainment outcomes for children, particular those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Eleanor Ireland, Education Programme Head at the Nuffield Foundation said:
“We know that parents have a huge impact on children’s life chances. Given that Covid is likely to have widened the gap between disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers it is more vital than ever that we have high quality evidence about programmes like Families Connect that aim to support lower income parents to help children with their learning.”
