Impact and community engagement
Improving outcomes for disadvantaged children in schools and settings, nationally:
Our evaluations have evidenced positive speech, language and communication and numeracy outcomes for children, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds. For example, Concept Cat involved 1,040 children across 89 settings. The results of the efficacy trial showed that children in Concept Cat settings demonstrated, on average, two months’ additional progress in their early numeracy development, compared to children in other settings. Children Eligible for Eary Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) also made an additional three months progress. Some settings have continued implementation resulting in a wider number of children impacted and the EEF have designated Concept Cat as a ‘Promising Programme’.
Improving programmes to ensure they are feasible and acceptable within school and setting contexts:
Concept Cat Implementation Process Evaluation (led by University of Leeds) suggested changes in the intervention to make it more effective, especially for focus children (those with higher language needs). These changes have been incorporated into the latest Concept Cat published book (2025), which includes access to downloadable resources.
Following the pilot study of Communication Friendly Home-based Settings (CFHBS) we produced a reflective report on our experiences of working with childminders. This has been published by the Education Endowment Foundation to support other researchers working with the childminding population.
Project Marigold is a mental health support service aimed at teachers and children. Our work with the developers showed how the support given to staff helped to influence how they dealt with children's behaviour in the classroom. We are currently working with the developers to enhance the programme further to support children's mental wellbeing and will assess the feasibility of this programme in local schools.
Working with Local Authorities to improve programmes implemented in a local context:
Our evaluation of the City of York Councils Early Talk For York (ETFY) supported the council to understand how the WellComm toolkit was being used across early years settings in York. The research supported the council to make strategic decisions on how to best support settings to use the toolkit to improve children's speech and language outcomes.
We are currently working with Bristol City Council to support them to understand what changes are needed to support the implementation of Bristol Early Language (BEL) including the feasibility of the programme and how systems change has supported implementation.
Improving the evidence base for policy-makers and practitioners:
The reports for our EEF funded evaluations are available on the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) website and contribute to the EEF Early Years Evidence database. According to their website: The EEF website has been accessed by 434,000 users each year. Additionally, their resources were downloaded over 1.3 million times in 2024.’
We have produced a Policy Briefing (through Policy Leeds) ‘Delivering the Best Start in Life strategy: Planning and data for local context’ targeted at LAs in the light of recent government reforms based on our work with EEF, City of York Council and Bristol City Council.
We have produced a blog ‘Considerations for Local Authorities on selecting evidence-based parenting interventions’ which reflects on a list of evidence-based parenting and home learning interventions as part of a government strategy designed to boost children’s life chances.
We have worked with the University of Leeds Business School to produce a report for the West Yorkshire Combined Authority to understand how they can use use use their policy leavers to make positive changes in the region. This work resulted in an Early Years workforce strategy.