EasyPeasy sent game ideas to parents of pre-school children to encourage play-based learning at home. Parents received a weekly text message directly from EasyPeasy which linked to videos of example games that they could play with their child, plus tips and advice about learning through play. The games targeted skills within the Early Years Foundation Stage areas of learning. This project focused on children in nursery classes (aged 3 – 4), whose parents received messages over 20 weeks.
This is a description of the intervention as was evaluated, please note that that the EasyPeasy programme has now changed, please click here to access their website.
There is good evidence that a positive home learning environment in the early years is associated with improved outcomes at school. However, relatively little is known about the best ways of improving it. The EEF funded this project because EasyPeasy offers an innovative way of reaching families, it has evidence of promise from two small scale randomised controlled trials, and the wider evidence on texting parents suggests that it can be a promising, low-cost approach.
This intervention was analysed soon after delivery (main trial) and 12 months later (longitudinal analysis) and the findings of these two analyses differ. The main trial had a three-padlock security rating and did not find evidence that EasyPeasy had an impact on children’s language development at the end of nursery using a summary language score. Impacts on language subscales, and social, emotional and behavioural outcomes were small and mixed. The largest of these effects was on cognitive self-regulation, which is consistent with previous studies, though the effect here is smaller than has been reported previously and should be interpreted with caution.
The longitudinal findings indicated possible impact of the programme, measured against the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP). An addendum report, published in Spring 2023, looked at the impact of EasyPeasy 12-months after the intervention by analysing teacher’s statutory assessments of pupils at the end of Reception using the EYFSP. The report presents interesting findings suggesting that EasyPeasy had some longer-term impacts on children’s ‘Good level of development’ (GLD), as children in EasyPeasy Schools were more likely to achieve this. They also made, on average, the equivalent of one months’ additional progress in Communication and Language and in PSED, compared to children in schools who did not receive EasyPeasy. Exploratory analysis indicates that boys in EasyPeasy schools made, the equivalent of two months’ additional progress, in Communication and Language. This result was not seen among girls who made the equivalent of no months’ additional progress in the same area of learning.
Perceptions of the intervention from the original trial suggest that parents and nurseries viewed the potential of EasyPeasy positively. A group of parents reported significant positive changes to the home learning environment. Securing ongoing engagement from parents was a challenge at the time of the trial.
- Children in schools receiving EasyPeasy did not make any additional months’ progress in language development compared to children in control schools, as measured by a composite, summary language score. This finding has a moderate to high security rating.
- There were small increases in ‘word structure’ and ‘concepts and following directions’ language subscales (equivalent to one month’s additional progress) compared to children in control schools, but no additional months’ progress in ‘sentence structure’ or ‘expressive vocabulary’.
- Mixed results were found for children’s social, emotional, and behavioural outcomes. Children who received EasyPeasy made small increases in sociability, cognitive self-regulation, and emotional self-regulation compared to the control group. However, effects on externalising, internalising, and prosocial behaviour and behavioural self-regulation favoured the control group.
- Parents receiving EasyPeasy reported improvements in the home learning environment. This included large increases in ‘modelling’, ‘responsivity’, and ‘variety of activities and interactions’. These results are less secure than the main findings due to the small number of parents assessed, and should be treated as exploratory.
- Engagement from parents for the continued use of EasyPeasy was considered to be a challenge for nurseries. The most effective ways of encouraging parent participation included integration of the games into the classroom, introducing parents to the games at ‘Stay and Play’ sessions, and parents sharing comments.
- A longitudinal study found some possible longer-term impacts for EasyPeasy. Pupils who participated in EasyPeasy were slightly more likely to achieve a ‘good level of development’ as defined by the EYFSP, equating to two months’ of additional progress, on average, compared to children in other schools.