Children’s University – second trial

CU Trust
Implementation costThe cost estimates in the Toolkits are based on the average cost of delivering the intervention.
Evidence strengthThis rating provides an overall estimate of the robustness of the evidence, to help support professional decision-making in schools.
Impact (months)The impact measure shows the number of additional months of progress made, on average, by children and young people who received the intervention, compared to similar children and young people who did not.
-1
months
Project info

Independent Evaluator

NFER logo
NFER
Encouraging participation in learning activities beyond the normal school day to improve aspirations and attainment of primary pupils.
Pupils: 3000 Schools: 150 Grant: £570,798
Key Stage: 2 Duration: 3 year(s) 9 month(s) Type of Trial: Effectiveness level evidence
Completed July 2023

The Children’s University programme aims to improve the aspirations, attainment. and love of learning forYear 5 and 6 pupils. The programme encourages, tracks and celebrates participation in extracurricular structured learning activities such as after school clubs, enrichment, and online activities, which must be validated by either a Children’s University manager or school coordinator. Participation in these activities is intended to impact on pupils’ learning and attainment, as well as a range of wider non-attainment outcomes including by developing pupils’ character, self-esteem, resilience, motivation to learn, and life skills beyond the school curriculum, which are hypothesised to influence attainment in the longer term.

Local Children’s University teams support schools to provide a range of learning opportunities, such as after-school clubs, projects and enrichment activities, and visits to libraries, sports clubs, historic centres, museums, or anywhere that offer structured learning activities for children. They also provide training and support to participating schools, and work with schools to validate in-school activities. Pupils use a ​‘Passport to Learning’ to record activities and hours, and these are rewarded by the collection of credits, certificates and graduations. Hours of participation are logged on the Children’s University Online (CUO) digital platform.

This page covers the effectiveness trial of Children’s University, which tested the programme in a larger number of schools in circumstances that are as close as possible to everyday conditions. To read about the first (efficacy) trial of the programme – click here.

EEF Summary

Children’s University has been tested through a previous EEF efficacy trial. This trial found positive impacts on Key Stage 2 maths and reading results equivalent to about 2 months’ additional progress. Small improvements were also seen for a range of non-cognitive outcomes, such as teamwork, social responsibility, and aspirations. These results had moderate-low security and provided initial evidence that well-supported enrichment activities can improve children’s academic and non-cognitive outcomes.

For this reason, EEF commissioned a further effectiveness trial, involving a larger number of schools which aims to enable us to understand if the Children’s University programme has a positive impact on non-cognitive outcomes and on children’s learning (i.e., on attainment), including whether non-cognitive outcomes may lead to raised attainment.

The trial was initially scheduled to run from 2020 to 2022 but was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with programme delivery taking place between January 2022 and July 2023, when schools were still facing some disruption and partial school closures. The recruitment window was extended, and programme delivery was reduced from the usual six academic terms to five, which it was anticipated would not unduly affect pupils’ participation in the programme, or the potential for outcomes to be achieved.

Volunteer pupils in Children’s University schools made, on average one month less progress in maths than those in the control groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the control group continue with their usual practices and help provide a comparison to measure the intervention’s impact. They are usually offered a monetary compensation as thanks for their contribution. equivalent. As with any study, there is always some uncertainty around the result. Volunteer pupils in Children’s University schools made, on average one month less progress in reading than those in the control groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the control group continue with their usual practices and help provide a comparison to measure the intervention’s impact. They are usually offered a monetary compensation as thanks for their contribution. equivalent. The evaluator cannot conclude that the effects are non-zero. These results have a high security rating. The evaluation did not find evidence to support impact on the non-cognitive outcomes which are posited by the logic model to lead to improved attainment.

There was no evidence in this trial of specific impact of the programme for pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) compared to non-FSM pupils. Whilst this trial was not originally powered to look at whether CU activities made a difference to FSM-pupils’ outcomes, 30% of pupils participating in the trial were from FSM backgrounds.

Several additional findings indicate that the Children’s University programme was not fully delivered as intended during this trial. There were fewer graduations and fewer took place in civic venues or universities than usual, a limited number of out-of-school validated local destination activities, challenges with recording activities on Children’s University Online, limited additional support to specifically engage disadvantaged pupils and perceptions of limited parental engagement.

The wider Covid-19 recovery and cost-of-living crisis contexts may have increased challenges for schools and in part contributed to limiting the extra-curricular activities being offered and graduation events (a key feature of the programme and experienced positively by pupils), with fewer taking place, or taking place in schools, rather than civic buildings. These implementation features that make the programme distinct from business-as-usual may have been partly affected by the challenging context in schools and may have affected the potential of the programme to achieve its intended outcomes.

The Children’s University programme has been developed and continues to develop since this evaluation.

Were the schools in the trial similar to my school?

  • There were 165 schools involved in the trial, reaching a total of 5,588 children
  • State-funded maintained primary schools from the selected Children’s University Trust localities were eligible to take part. These were: Bexley, Cheshire, Cornwall & Devon, East London, Essex & Suffolk, Lancashire, Peterborough, Rotherham, Wakefield, Warrington, Westminster, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and Wolverhampton.
  • CU schools in this trial had a slightly higher average proportion of FSM pupils attending the school (intervention mean 29.1%, control mean 27.1%), and the proportion of FSM pupils amongst trial volunteers is also slightly higher for the intervention (31.0% versus 29.3%).
  • KS1 attainment was slightly higher amongst pupils in the control groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the control group continue with their usual practices and help provide a comparison to measure the intervention’s impact. They are usually offered a monetary compensation as thanks for their contribution. for both subjects, although this was accounted for within the analysis.
  • Year 5 pupils and their parents expressed interest in participating in Children’s University style activities before randomisation through forms and surveys, creating the eligible volunteer group for the trial. Thus, the intervention was not being delivered to every pupil in a cohort in intervention schools.

Could I implement this in my school?

  • The programme relies on pupils having access to a range of extra-curricular activities offered by their school and/​or by external providers (known as ​‘learning destinations’) that they can participate in. Activities can take place in-school, beyond the school day, or out of school.
  • Local CU teams also offer activities, both in-person and online and Children’s University Trust provides pupils with activities which they can complete at home during school holidays.
  • Activities must be validated by either the local CU Manager or school CU Coordinator for a pupil to record hours against it. Only activities that offer some kind of structured learning opportunity should be validated. This may include sports and physical activities, arts, culture and music, environmental, practical life skills activities etc.
  • Schools received half-a-day’s training on intervention management, monitoring and delivery provided by local CU areas /​Managers. In addition, Children’s University Trust provide schools with online training on using the CUO platform to validate activities and track pupil participation.
  • The majority of schools reported that CU activities took the same amount of time to run as other extracurricular activities. However, maintaining CUO records took around 46.4 hours of staff time (i.e. the school CU Coordinator’s time) each year (equivalent to 6.6 days per year or 2.2 days per academic term).
  • The programme is available and is provided by Children’s University Trust.

How much does it cost?

  • The average cost to schools in this evaluation was £1,139.40 per school. This works out at a cost of £25.90 per upper Key Stage 2 pupil per year averaged over three years, which is ​‘very low’ as per EEF cost rating. In addition to this, there is a cost of £5 per pupil for the Children’s University passport.

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