Developed as part of the EEF’s work supporting the Department for Education’s Stronger Practice Hubs, the Evidence Store takes a comprehensive look at priority areas for early years learning and development. Co-developed by researchers and educators, it identifies approaches early years staff can use to support learning and development. The store provides a summary of the best available evidence for the approaches and illustrates how they could be put into practice with children in all types of early years settings.
The new theme on early mathematics summarises five approaches, including teaching problem solving skills for maths and supporting maths language, to give early years professionals guidance and pointers on how to implement them to boost learning and development.
Each approach is accompanied by videos of it in action, and further written examples to illustrate how it could be put into practice. For the approach for teaching association between number and quantity, the Evidence Store shows Honey, a childminder, following a mud pie recipe during play with a group of two- to three-year-olds. She uses words and gestures to illustrate how much of each ingredient the children need and then labels the amount after counting the ingredients.
According to the EEF’s Early Years Toolkit, a high-level research summary designed to help early years staff make decisions about how to improve outcomes, approaches to support early numeracy can boost young children’s progress by as much as seven months.
The second new Evidence Store theme published today, looks at early literacy, which according to the Toolkit can boost progress by as much as four months. This theme includes guidance on approaches such as interactive reading, where the adult engages children purposefully during shared reading to encourage them to be an active participant in ‘reading’ the book.
The release of the new themes in the Evidence Store are part of the EEF’s increased focus on early years education, in recognition of the crucial role that early years provision plays in combatting education inequality.
According to recent estimates by the Education Policy Institute, the attainment gap between socio-economically disadvantaged five-year-olds and their classmates was around 4.8 months in 2022. Research by the EEF found that there were, on average, three more children per class, not reaching the expected levels of development by the end of reception class in 2021, when compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Since its launch in February of this year, the Evidence Store has been accessed over 50,000 times. New themes will be added in 2024. The DfE’s Stronger Practice Hubs, a network of early years settings across the country promoting evidence-informed practice, will support those working with young children to use the Evidence Store to enhance their practice.
Professor Becky Francis CBE, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, said:
Rob Newton, Associate Strategic Director at Huntington Research School, said:
Emma Whelam-Tate, Director of the Northern Lights Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs, said:
Case Study
Read how childminder Becky has used approaches in the Evidence Store to support children’s language development: EEF blog: The Power of Story in the early years | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)