Effective Pre-school and Primary Education 3-11 Project (EPPE 3-11): Influences on Children’s Attainment and Progress in Key Stage 2: Cognitive Outcomes in Year 5
Year: 2007
Type: book
Abstract: Earlier results for this sample in Year 5 identified the size and nature of the equity gap in achievement and how it changes at different points in children"s pre-school and school careers.This informed the Government"s Equalities Review (EPPE 3-11 Team., 2007), a broad ranging enquiry into the nature and influences that shape social inequality in Britain, and highlighted the importance of children"s educational and early years experiences.Parents" (especially mothers") highest qualification levels, although weaker in Year 6, is a key predictor of attainment, as is low birth weight, need for support with English as an additional language (EAL), early developmental problems (as reported by parents at the start of the study), socio-economic status (SES) and father"s qualification level.The Early years home learning environment (HLE) remains one of the most important background factors relating to a child"s attainment in English and Mathematics.Key Stage 1 HLE shows some predictive power: high levels of one-to-one childparent interaction have a negative impact on attainment in both English and Mathematics, while high levels of home computing has a negative impact on English.In both cases the child"s activities may effectively be being replaced, e.g.being read to rather than reading; playing computer games rather than reading.Neighbourhood: there was no evidence of the neighbourhood exerting an independent influence on attainment or progress, but a moderate association was found between poor attainment in Mathematics and parental perceptions of an "unsafe" neighbourhood, which is likely to be an expression of social disadvantage. Pre-school effectsIn general attending a pre-school compared with not attending (the "home" children) has a positive effect on children"s outcomes in English and Mathematics at the end of Year 6. Attainment in both English and Mathematics in Year 6 was enhanced by pre-school quality.In both cases the higher the level of quality, the greater the level of attainment.Similarly, pre-school effectiveness (defined in terms of promoting young children"s outcomes in Early number concepts) again showed a positive influence on later attainment, and was particularly influential for outcomes in Mathematics.Those children who attended low quality pre-schools no longer show a significant cognitive benefit in attainment after six years in primary school, i.e. their scores are not significantly different from those of the "home" children.The same is true for those who attended medium quality pre-schools, but only in the case of English.This is a change from previous findings, reported at age 5 years, which showed that all pre-school experience had positive effects, regardless of the quality.
Authors: Pam Sammons, Κathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Iram Siraj‐Blatchford, Brenda Taggart, Yvonne Grabbe, Sofka Barreau
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2043053404