Validated local practice details
Child Development Programme Pilot, Darlington
Themes this local practice example relates to:
- Early Years
- General resources
Priorities this local practice example relates to:
- Narrowing the gap in outcomes for young children through effective practices in the early years
- Improving children’s attainment through a better quality of family-based support for early learning
Basic details
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Children’s Services, Darlington Borough Council.
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Darlington Local Authority (intervention in Early Years settings).
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The context and rationale
What was your idea?
What did you want to do and why?
What were you trying to achieve?
What evidence and knowledge did you draw on – was this local, national,
research, policy, derived from user views?
The Child Development Programme Pilot is a resource pack designed for parents and carers of children aged three to five, to use in the home with support from Early Years settings.
Our primary aim was to narrow the gap between the low-achieving children and their higher-achieving peer group. As children in part time nursery education spend only 6.5 per cent of their time within the setting and, recognising a parent’s role as their child’s ‘first and most enduring educator’, we felt that a programme that used research evidence on child development, and that would support parents to promote their child’s learning and development, would be key to success and to improving outcomes for children.
The programme offers structured physical activities; targets thinking skills and the development of pre-requisites for literacy and numeracy; and also provides, in the manual, a chapter on healthy eating. It is equally accessible for children of all abilities, whether they are the most gifted or children with significant learning or physical difficulties. It provides the framework for early learning experiences that, according to feedback from the children themselves, their parents and carers and the staff in the settings, are challenging, enjoyable and show measurable achievement.
It contributes to the Every Child Matters (ECM) Framework as shown below.
Darlington local authority (LA) became involved in this programme almost three years ago, and so the initial pilot study has now been extended across the authority.
At the outset, children were assessed using a standardised developmental checklist (Griffiths), to establish a baseline in physical development, thinking and language skills. They were then re-assessed to measure the impact of the programme after six months.
The average chronological age of the children taking part was four years one month, with ages ranging from three years seven months to four years six months.
The initial pilot took place in two Early Years Foundation Stage settings, and Dr. Madeleine Portwood (Hon. Fellow University of Durham) in her role as consultant carried out the majority of assessments. As the programme has been rolled out, the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) advisory teachers or practitioners have assessed the children. [The initial data was included with the original submission (with full explanation), including the EYFS Profile data from the Reception year following the programme, to show improvements were sustained and translated into overall attainment scores and clear improvements in specific areas of learning.]
The practice
What did you do?
Who was involved?
What were the intended measurable outcomes?
Please provide a brief description of the work undertaken. Be sure to include
the set of measures by which you are demonstrating achievements.
The programme is encapsulated within a resource pack, which contains all of the equipment and instruction necessary for implementation. It is supported with a DVD that demonstrates the activities and the approach parents and carers should use with their children. In addition, there are extension activities available on an interactive website.
Dr Portwood provided initial training for parents and practitioners within the Early Years setting. It is a holistic programme with essential information about child development, brain development and the importance of taking into account gender differences in the development of physical, communication, social and perceptual skills. Training also included information on how parents and carers could use the programme, and the support provided by practitioners in the setting and local authority.
Two pilot settings were selected, based on locality, deprivation score and capacity of teams within the setting to implement a new programme. Harrowgate Hill Primary School had 96 part-time places in Nursery with an intake of 75 children into Reception. The EYFS practitioners and senior management team were keen to take part in the pilot, and there was a desire to improve and excel in the Early Years Department. McNay St. Children’s Centre is in the same locality area, and in this pilot setting we also wanted to improve joint working between the day care nursery and the Children’s Centre.
Although the programme is designed for children aged three and above, we wanted to determine whether younger children (aged two) could also benefit. Training and packs were offered to parents recommended by health visitors and Early Years practitioners working with families, and to all parents of children aged two and above from the day care nursery. For the two-year-olds taking part, we added a resource to the pack and removed some of the small shapes.
In both settings, parents and staff were invited to an introductory training session of approximately one hour, and lead practitioners attended a half-day training session.
Weekly drop-in support sessions were provided by the EYFS Advisory Teacher, where computer and internet facilities were made available for parents and carers who could not access the additional extension activities on the website at home.
Based on parental feedback and need, we adapted the support to the settings. For example, the school nursery was supported to set up daily motor skills circuits in their outdoor environment, and teachers attended additional training to encourage children’s use of expressive language using shapes to tell stories, as included in the programme, that refers to the work of the Russian educationalist Galina Dolya (published under the title Key to Learning).
In the Children’s Centre, the resources were incorporated into group activity sessions. We sought support from a Primary Mental Health Worker from CAMHS for advice on managing the groups and suggestions for further activities to support individual children and their families.
The Child Development Programme (£25.00) is boxed and comes complete with:
• training DVD
• manual
• equipment
• access to interactive website for support and extension activities.
The Child Development Programme pack, once completed, can be given to another child/ family. Thus, following the settings’ initial purchase of materials, the programme has minimal continuing expenditure implications.
The annual running costs will therefore be dependent upon the extent of the implementation and related costs of:
• LA support time (approximately one day a week EYFS Advisory Teacher support time for three settings during pilot)
• possible cost to provide training/ venue.
Making a difference to children, young people and families
What now happens differently for children, young people and their families as
a result of your actions?
What were the outcomes? This might refer to national indicators
for example
Through the programme, we have ‘narrowed the gap’ for some of our most vulnerable children, whilst extending the capabilities of our most able children. We have also achieved a high level of parental involvement that exceeded anything that we’d tried before.
Early Years Foundation Stage Advisory Teachers and Childcare Development Officers are recommending the advantages of the Child Development Programme to their settings and are able to signpost practitioners to examples of success.
What now happens differently for the services involved?
Evidence of the Child Development Programme’s impact was presented to the Lead Officer for Early Years, the Early Years Partnerships Manager and the LA Early Years team. As a result, the decision was made to roll out the programme to all Children’s Centres and offer universal training, with the view that the wider Early Years team would support implementation in settings.
Jaci Stroud, EYFS Advisory Teacher, led the initiative with ten days’ support commissioned from the nursery teacher from one pilot setting. Two hundred packs were purchased by the LA. Support from Dr. Madeleine Portwood included bi-annual training sessions and assessments that practitioners and the Early Years team are able to use and score.
Which of the changes will you maintain to sustain your achievements and how will
you do this?
We continue to extend the use of the programme. We currently have seven settings implementing the programme, with three more due to commence in September 2010.
The programme is being successfully used by Children’s Centres in Darlington to engage vulnerable and ‘hard to reach’ families by Early Years Practitioners working individually with parents in their home.
It is also being used for ‘Intensive Family Programmes’ both as part of the courses delivered and for individual use with families.
If you are not yet sure what difference has been made, what new measures could be
introduced, or what could be improved, to allow you to determine the difference
made?
Evaluation
How have you evaluated progress against outcome measures?
How have you evaluated the improvement in outcomes for children, young people
and/or families?
Do you have any information on the cost of your programme? This
would be really useful information for other areas who might wish to implement a
similar programme.
Please provide evidence of the learning that has occurred, of how systems have changed
as a result of the practice being implemented, and of how outcomes have improved.
We are interested to hear about how you have evaluated the practice and how you
have encouraged feedback from children, young people and their families. The results
of this feedback and evaluation can include external evaluation reports, internal
reviews, children, youth or parent feedback surveys, other surveys/data, anecdotal
evidence, budgetary and/or statistical information, and plans/timelines.
What ‘hot tips’ do you have from your experience for others?
We are particularly interested in any barriers you encountered and how you overcame
these and in your views regarding the potential for replicability of your practice
example.
The results from the pilot were extremely positive and were validated by independent developmental assessments, as well as evidenced by Darlington LA data.
Harrowgate Hill Primary has now been implementing the programme for two-and-a-half years in their Nursery. On analysis of the EYFS Profile results at the end of Reception for 2009, the school has a disadvantage score of 51.8, and 20 out of 74 children in the cohort are from the Super Output Area’s most economically and socially disadvantaged 30 per cent. The school is narrowing the gap between the 30 per cent SOA group and the remaining 70 per cent. Fifty per cent of the lower 30 per cent of children are achieving 6+ scores PSED/ CLL and 78 points. The school’s EYFS Profile PSED/ CLL scores are above their statistical neighbours.
Evaluation forms were completed by parents and carers. One hundred and five early years practitioners, including teachers, teaching assistants, health visitors and managers, have accessed half-day training sessions, and four whole-school/setting training sessions have been provided. All practitioners who accessed training completed evaluation forms, and their feedback was extremely positive. The settings currently taking part in the programme will also complete a survey.
Tips for others
• Feedback from parents was essential to inform future practice, and the variety of activities meant that every parent could find at least one aspect of the programme that really engaged them and their child.
• Practitioners’ enthusiasm and adaptability are essential. Best practice was achieved when a practitioner actively talked to parents and EYFS Advisory Teacher to share and gather information about a child, and then adapted their practice or environment to be responsive to the child’s needs.
• Hold regular, planned drop-in support for parents and review sessions with lead practitioner and EYFS Advisory Teacher.
• Provide a highly motivated and inspirational trainer for both parents and practitioners. When a pack or programme was given to settings without the training, there has been no uptake. When parents had received training and had listened to messages about child development, even when unable to continue using the programme, there was still some improvement in children’s outcomes, perhaps due to interventions in settings.
• Use the programme with children of an appropriate developmental age (three- to five-year-olds). The pilot with two-year-olds showed that this was not the optimum age. We currently have an inclusion trial with older children from Beaumont Hill Special School, who are ‘developmentally’ age-appropriate in at least one area of learning.
• The lead practitioner must be reflective and self-motivated, rather than instructed to take part by the Manager or Headteacher. Hence, it is best to provide universal training rather than just target settings.
Key elements for the success of the programme are:
• regular time for parents/carers to discuss their child’s learning and development
• support from Headteacher or Manager to implement the programme
• LA support in the form of EYFS Advisory Teacher time
• time for practitioner/LA support to complete individual baseline and final assessments and interim support reviews.
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