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ELPP - a boost for early learning

Playing, singing or reading to a young child may seem like an obvious thing to do, but for some parents it is not – and that's why the Early Learning Partnership Project has been so vital for many families across the country. Read more about the ELPP.

What's new

Supporting parents to engage in their child's early learning

This new (updated) DCSF paper provides evidence showing why programmes supporting parental engagement in their young children's learning and development should be prioritised. Essential reading for local authority Early Years Leads and National Strategies Foundation Advisers, commissioners of parenting and children's services, Directors of Children's Services, children's services advisers and more.

Download the supporting parents document 

ELPP conference 25 June 08

Local authorities must work with voluntary and community sector organisations to boost children's early learning – because they have the specific skills that councils don't.
That was one of the crucial issues highlighted by Beverley Hughes, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families, at a conference in London on Wednesday June 25.
The conference also saw the launch of the DCSF research evaluation report on the ELPP project.

Read our press release

Beverly Hughes speech 

Supporting Parents in Promoting Early Learning:The Evaluation of the Early Learning Partnership Project.

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More on the ELPP

Coordinated by the Family and Parenting Institute, the project which is now coming to an end, involved a total of seven charities and their partners working together to see how best early learning for one to three years olds can be encouraged in the home.

A total of twelve different programmes were tried in different places across the country by voluntary organisations. And it is hoped that the programmes which have now been evaluated by Oxford University will be used by local authorities when they are commissioning services as well as by early years providers themselves.

In many cases it was a questions of testing what worked for whom, where.

For instance, a universal service was offered to rural parents, while more targeted interventions were appropriate in big cities.

But the kinds of services also differed according to local need and what existed already on the ground: ContinYou worked with Thurrock Community Mothers who used experienced mothers to 'buddy up' an inexperienced mum – offering practical advice to aid learning and encouraging parents to be part of the community through children's centres.

The Family Welfare Association teamed up with Home-Start and Parents as First Teachers (PAFT) to help mothers in Sheffield, Norfolk and Suffolk engage in learning-play with their children.

And there were activities and courses specifically to help dads get more involved, such as one in the North Solihull which was delivered by NCH.
The Early Learning Partnership Project was funded through a Treasury Settlement Letter in April 2005 and a total of £6 million was earmarked for project activities to directly benefit families. It came about as an initiative by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown who was determined to try and narrow the gap between children who started school with all the advantages of being read to and played with and those who started school far less prepared and found themselves at a disadvantage even before they started formal education.

Kendra Massey, Grants Officer at the Family and Parenting Institute said: "ELPP has made a big difference to many parents - opening their eyes to how the small things, like chatting to their children over breakfast and encouraging them to repeat back things mum and dad have said, can boost their children's learning."

But with the ending of the project, a lot of knowledge has been gained and staff trained.

Home-Start trained its staff in the Bookstart technique which involves giving books to babies and guidance materials to parents and carers.

Free training for practitioners involving parents in their children's early learning was also rolled out through NCB and Parenting UK – the emphasis has been on a model called PEAL – Parents Early Years and Learning.

The target is now to capitalise on these pilots and make sure that statutory and voluntary services across the country recognise how successful this kind of early involvement in learning can be so that they will commission or adopt recognised good practice.

In some areas this is happening already. The Pre-school Learning Alliance used a number of techniques to offer isolated families help with communication and learning support and hopefully this will be absorbed into the general activities of the area's children's centres.

The Home-Start/Bookstart/1+1 partnership proved so successful that, as a result of ELPP, Home-Start incorporated the technique into its staff training manual.