Thanks to collaborations with the Stronger Practice Hubs and in support of DfE’sBest Start in Life strategy, we’ve been funding evaluations of several professional development programmesA programme is a package of support, including professional development, that helps early years educators to improve particular areas of practice and children’s outcomes. – designed to boost educator knowledge and support children’s early language and maths skills.
We’ve used what we already know from the evidence – including our Early Years Evidence Store- to commission research of programmes with strong theoretical foundations, robust design, and built-in support for implementation.
We’ve also targeted gaps in the evidence. One example is our growing focus on the childminding sector, which has historically lacked robust research.
Now, the first wave of results is in. We’ve published seven new evaluation reports focused on building on the evidence base in early language and numeracy.
What have we learnt so far?
Language: supporting quality talk
In early language, we know that the approach of increasing the quantity of quality interactions and teaching and modelling vocabulary can have a positive effect on early years children’s language and communication. The findings from these studies highlight effective professional development programmesA programme is a package of support, including professional development, that helps early years educators to improve particular areas of practice and children’s outcomes. for supporting educators to implement this approach.
- Concept Cat, which supports educators to teach abstract vocabulary (e.g. before, early, tall) through stories and play, showed promising results – two months’ additional progress, with an even higher impact for children eligible for Early Years Pupil Premium.
- A pilot study of Talking with Tales for Children (TWiTCH), a professional development programmeA programme is a package of support, including professional development, that helps early years educators to improve particular areas of practice and children’s outcomes. that enhanced educator’s interactive reading and collaborative talk with pupils, showed early signs of improving children’s skills.
- In Communication Friendly Home-Based Settings, we ran our first pilot of a programme designed for childminders, which aims to improve the quantity and quality of interactions between childminders and children to build children’s language and communication skills. It’s tailored to the unique environment and training needs of childminders – a big step forward in an under-researched area.
Maths: embedding rich mathematical language
In early maths, we know that facilitating mathematical language – intentionally modelling and encouraging the use of mathematical vocabulary – can improve children’s outcomes, especially when integrated with other approaches.
- We funded a pilot of Maths Through Picture Books, which supports educators to embed this approach. The programme aims to bring maths to life through storytime – embedding vocabulary and concepts within engaging narratives. Our pilot found that the approach led to positive changes in teacher and teaching assistant understanding and children’s reported enjoyment and engagement with conversations about numbers.
- This approach is also reflected in other projects we’ve supported, such as Counting Collections, which integrates mathematical talk into hands-on counting routines, which also showed positive impact in an efficacy trial, and Concept Cat, which also showed a positive impact on the development of mathematical language.
What’s next?
These evaluations mark an important milestone – but we’re just getting started.
We’re continuing to build the pipeline of high-quality programmes available to educators in the early years by
- Investing in more research of promising approaches – and scaling up those that work. For example, Maths Champions (a proven early maths programme) is now being offered to 2,600 settings with funding by the Department for Education.
- Developing programmes from the ground up, where the evidence is strong but practitioner-ready solutions are missing. Our early-stage development work is helping to design and test new interventions with potential to improve practice and outcomes.
This is a long-term commitment to building a stronger foundation for early years education – and giving educators the tools they need to help every child thrive. Crucially, these new evaluations also highlight the sector’s strong appetite to engage with research. Over 500 early years settings took part, each one playing a vital role in building the evidence base.