A new research partnership between The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and the Nuffield Foundation aims to build evidence of the most effective interventions that will help close the attainment gap between children from the disadvantaged backgrounds and their better-off peers.
At the start of school, children from the poorest families are estimated to be 19 months behind those from the wealthiest of the same age in their vocabulary.
The new partnership aims to provide ‘a pipeline’ for applications from not-for-profit organisations to enable them to develop their early years intervention ideas.
It is open to applications from a range of organisations, including an individual nursery, an academy trust, or a charity, for example, as long as there is some evidence that their idea has a positive impact on learning outcomes.
The EEF has so far committed funding for seven trials in the early years reaching around 9,000 nurseries and schools. Though this will add significantly to the existing evidence base, the EEF is keen to receive more high-quality applications for early years interventions, which it says have historically been of a lower quality than proposals for school-age pupils
While there is some high-quality evidence about which educational approaches work more generally in the early years – such as the EEF’s Early Years Toolkit, which covers 12 topics and summarises more than 1,600 studies – there is very little evidence available to indicate which specific interventions are most effective in improving children’s learning and development.
The new partnership aims to address this research gap so that early years leaders and practitioners will be able to access well-evidenced programmes.
Sir Kevan Collins, chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, said, ‘There is extensive research demonstrating an attainment gap in the early years, the impact of this gap on later educational outcomes, and the value of high-quality early years provision for disadvantaged pupils.
‘We also know a fair amount about the strategies which are most effective for young children, notably improving communications and language, parental engagement, and self-regulation. However, there is less strong evidence to indicate which specific interventions are most effective in improving children’s learning and development.
‘The EEF has made a good start in commissioning trials in the early years, but we know there are lots of good ideas out there which need some development support first. Our new partnership with the Nuffield Foundation aims to create just such a pipeline, to build the evidence base of what works’ in the early years. It will enable organisations with innovative ideas to test and learn, giving them the support they need to put together strong applications for EEF trial funding.’
The Nuffield Foundation will fund the development and early evaluation of early years interventions that seek to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children, but that currently have a limited evidence base. The aim is that they will develop the evidence to a sufficient level to make the projects strong candidates for future EEF funding.
Josh Hillman, director of education at the Nuffield Foundation said, ‘The Nuffield Foundation has a strong track record in funding the development and initial evaluation of promising early years interventions. Projects such as the Nuffield Early Language Intervention are able to qualify for large-scale evaluation by the EEF because of initial investment and continued engagement from the Nuffield Foundation.’
‘This partnership with the EEF will enable us to capitalise on that success by creating a pipeline for early years interventions from development stage to large-scale trials. Ultimately, this will mean that more children benefit from approaches that have been proven to improve outcomes during this critical period of children’s development just before they enter primary education.’
The deadline for funding applications is 4 September 2017.
- For more information visit www.nuffieldfoundation.org/earlyyears.