1. Evaluating the Incredible Years School Readiness Parenting Programme Supervised by Dr Tracey Bywater Incredible Years Wales School of Psychology Kirstie Cooper

2. Presentation Content What is “school readiness”? The School Readiness Programme The evaluation Aims Method Progress to date

3. What is ‘School Readiness’? No concrete definition Preacademic knowledge e.g. numbers, letters, colours predict school readiness. (Forget-Dubois et al., 2007, Lemelin et al., 2007) Cognitive skills, such as executive functions and memory, are better predictors of school readiness (Blair, 2006)

4. Multi-dimensional construct: –Children’s engagement in learning –Emotion regulation –Communication and language skills –Social competence –Pre-literacy skills –Physical well-being –Academic knowledge and cognition What is ‘School Readiness’?

5. The IY School Readiness Programme More children arrive in school without social and self-regulatory skills Low academic achievement and poor relationships The IY School Readiness Programme was developed to address risk factors associated with children’s lack of academic readiness and poor home-school connections (Webster-Stratton, 2004)

6. 6 6 Teacher Programme 6 full day sessions held monthly Child Dinosaur treatment 18 – 22 sessions 6 children Child Dinosaur Classroom 2 sessions per wk 30 weeks Fully revised ADVANCED 9 sessions helping adults communicate & problem solve Fully revised School Aged BASIC 12 sessions 6 - 12 years Fully revised Pre-School BASIC 18 sessions 3 - 6 years School Readiness 4 sessions 2 - 5 years Infant 8 sessions 0 - 12 months Toddler 13 sessions 1 - 2 years The Incredible Years Programmes

7. 4 sessions delivered to parents through schools Designed to help parents with their child’s transition to full-time school Universal programme The ultimate aims are to: 1. Improve children’s school readiness 2. Prevent conduct problems and academic underachievement 3. Enhance home-school links The School Readiness Programme

8. Child-directed play: Strengthening children’s social, emotional, and cognitive skills Emotion coaching to build emotional expression  Building children’s self-esteem and creativity  Teaching children to problem-solve  Building children’s language skills Part 1

9. Part 2 Encouraging social, emotional, academic and problem solving skills through interactive reading Building children’s self-esteem and self-confidence in their reading ability  Having fun with books  Letting the child be the storyteller  Using the Reading With CARE building blocks

10. Commenting and describing Asking open-ended questions Responding with encouragement Expanding on what the child says Reading with CARE building blocks C A R E

11. The IY Basic Parent & TCM Programmes have been successfully delivered and researched across Wales These programmes do not specifically address the dimensions of school readiness The IY School Readiness Programme has never been researched The evaluation

12. To establish: A battery of effective measures to assess children’s school readiness The effectiveness of the new Programme in improving children’s school readiness Any difficulties or barriers in implementing the programme Aims

13. 1. Does the programme benefit all children and parents? 2. For which children and families is the intervention most effective? 3. What are the environmental/contextual circumstances that improve the likelihood of success? 4. When is the best time to run the programme? Research Questions

14. Phase 1 5 schools in Gwynedd (4 intervention, 1 control*) Schools recommended by Gwynedd Education Recruited  26 parents Phase 2 7 schools in Gwynedd (5 intervention, 2 control*) Currently recruiting parents  Aim 46 parents *Waiting-list control Method (i) Participants

15. Inclusion criteria for recruiting parents: Parent has child aged 3 - 4 starting nursery class in Sept 2010 The parent targeted must be the primary caregiver Parents able to attend parenting programme for 4 weeks (2 hrs / week) Parent agree to be visited by research team and complete measures Method (i) Participants

16. Pre-test Post-test Nonequivalent Group design Intervention and control groups compared Groups assigned by cluster on a ‘first come first serve’ basis rather than by randomisation First 4 schools to sign up allocated to intervention Cross-over design, control become intervention Method (ii) Design

17. Two members of staff at each school trained to deliver the programme (1 full day training) Recruitment of parents: Participating schools give posters / info sheets to all families of 3 - 4 year old nursery class children Parents invited to attend the course and participate in the evaluation A researcher to conduct an initial home visit Method (iii) Procedure

18. Programme delivery: Phase 1 Phase 2 Intervention schoolsSept 2010 March 2011 Control schoolsMarch 2011 Sept 2011 2 hours per week for 4 weeks 2 school staff to run the programme while children are in class Group leaders receive weekly supervision

19. Data Collection: Home visits to families Phase 1Phase 2 Baseline visitAug/Sept 2010Feb 2011 Follow-up 1Jan/Feb 2011June 2011 Follow-up 2May/Jun 2011October 2011 1 hour: Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, direct observation Family given a book for their child as thank you Method (iii) Procedure

20. Semi-structured interview Demographics (PDHQ) Questionnaires Child Behaviour (SDQ, ECBI) Parent Competency (PSOC) Direct Observation (PAROT) Home Measures

21. Direct Observation Play and Reading Observation Tool (PAROT) Part 1 – Child-directed play 15 mins of unstructured play between parent and child Part 2 – Interactive Reading 15 mins of parent and child reading One of three bilingual books used at each time point

23. Home-School Relationship Qualitative/Quantitative Data Focus group e.g. “What effect do you feel this programme has had on the relationship between the parents and your school?” Group Leader Evaluation / Parent Evaluation Self-report questionnaire, rate on 5/6point Likert scale Parent Semi-structured Interview e.g. “Has the programme had an effect on the relationship between you as a parent and the school?”

24. Progress to Date: School AreaGroupNo. parents recruited No. attended ≥ 1 session BethesdaIntervention87 Blaenau FfestiniogIntervention55 Blaenau FfestiniogIntervention55 CaernarfonIntervention43 BangorControl4N/A Total2620 Phase 1: Final sample: 20 Intervention 6 Control Phase 2: Target sample: 28 Intervention 18 Control

25. Thank you for listening Diolch am wrando