Evaluating the Incredible Years
School Readiness
Parenting Programme
Kirstie Cooper
The IY School Readiness
Programme
• Address risk factors associated with children’s lack
of readiness and poor home-school connections
• 4 sessions, 2 hours per week
• Universal, delivered to parents through schools
• Aims:
1. Improve children’s school readiness
2. Prevent conduct problems
3. Prevent academic underachievement
4. Enhance home-school links
Part 1
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 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
Reading with CARE
building blocks
C
A
R
E
Commenting and describing
Asking open-ended questions
Responding with encouragement
Expanding on what the child says
The Evaluation
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
Recruitment
• 10 schools in North Wales
• Schools allocated to Intervention and waiting-list
Control on a ‘first come first serve’ basis
• Two staff at each school received training
• Teachers recruited groups of up to 12 parents
with children aged 3-5 years
• Intervention = 37
Control = 16
Group delivery &
data collection
• Groups run during school time (AM/PM)
• 2 hours per week for 4 weeks
• Weekly supervision session with Prof. Hutchings
• Three home visits to families (1 hour each)
• Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, direct
observation, focus group
Demographics
Personal Data and Health Questionnaire
(PDHQ; Hutchings, 1996)
Mean
Child age
46 months
Primary caregiver age
33 years
Primary caregivers age when
first child born
25 years
Primary caregivers age
leaving school
17 years
Demographics
%
Child gender
52% boys
Caregiver gender
98% females
Biological parent
100%
Married / living together
81%
Very low income
36%
State benefits
25%
Child Behaviour
Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
(SDQ; Goodman, 1997)
• Parent report questionnaire
• 5 scales: emotional symptoms, conduct problems,
hyperactivity/inattention, peer relationship problems,
and prosocial behaviour
• Scores for each scale, total difficulties and impact
SDQ
Total impact
Child Behaviour
Eyberg Child Behaviour Inventory
(ECBI; Eyberg & Ross, 1978; Eyberg, 1980)
• 36-item parent report measure
• 7-point Intensity, measuring frequency of behaviours
• Yes-No Problem, identifies whether parent perceives the
behaviour to be a problem.
ECBI
Total problems
Play and Reading Observation Tool
(PAROT)
• Direct Observation – 30 minutes
• Part 1 – Child-directed play
15 minutes of observing the unstructured play between
the primary caregiver and child.
• Part 2 – Interactive Reading
15 minutes of observing the primary caregiver and child
reading together.
• One of three bilingual books used at each time point
PAROT - play
Parent emotion coaching
PAROT - play
Parent labelled praise
PAROT – play
Child positive behaviours
PAROT – play
Parent critical statements
PAROT – reading
Parent open-ended questions
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?”
Attendance & Feedback
• Mean number of sessions attended = 3
• 50% of parents attended all 4 sessions
• 90% of parents attended at least 2 sessions
• How likely are you to run the programme
again at your school in the future?
Very likely = 4 Likely = 3
Costs / Time
• Supply cover for teacher (£80 - £300 pw)
• Refreshments etc. (£4 per week)
• Room preparation time = 15/30/60 mins
• Session preparation time = 30/60/90 mins
• Group time = 2 hrs, supervision = 2 hrs
• Catch-up sessions = 0/30/60 mins
• Telephone calls = 20/30 mins
Diolch am wrando
Thanks for listening
[email protected]