Early Years Evaluation Partnership

The aim of this ongoing evaluation partnership is to inform the work of the Council’s early years team. Activities have included:

• Evaluation of the Leaders of Early Learning.

This peer support model involves practitioners from leading schools and early years providers offering quality improvement support to other providers within the county. The University offered support during the early stages in defining and refining the programme, including developing of questionnaires/reflective diaries for use during peer-support visits, and telephone interviews with Leaders.

• Evaluation of the ‘Making Every Interaction Count’ (MEIC) professional development programme.

The aim of MEIC was to improve the quality of support for children’s language development, with a focus on narrowing the gap between the most and least disadvantaged. It was based on another project, which aims to use research tools to improve language in the early years, developed by the University of Oxford, UCL and A+ Education Ltd, which uses evidence-based tools and strategies as a framework to support self-evaluation and quality improvement. MEIC was attended by 22 early years practitioners between January and May 2018. Evaluation methods included an online survey and analysis of evaluation forms/reflections completed by practitioners during the professional development. The final report was produced in July 2018.

The evaluation of Making Every Interaction Count was produced in July 2018.