'peep into pre-school' project

We're delighted to be part of the Sutton Trust & Esme Fairbairn Foundation Parental Engagement Fund project, launched in March 2015.

Our part of the project is Peep into Pre-school - focusing on reaching and engaging local families with young children, to make the most of their funded pre-school place. Research has shown that the two main influences on children's later outcomes are what parents/carers do with their young children at home, and receiving high quality childcare.

Our work will focus on:

• working closely with our local children’s centre to identify eligible families
• carrying out a home visit to all eligible families (introducing them to pre-schools in the area)
• additional home visits if helpful, to spend more time on aspects such as enhancing children's communication and language, and sharing the benefits of pre-school
• supporting families with a smooth transition into pre-school - including the offer of an accredited 10-week Peep into Pre-school Programme for eligible families the term before they start 
• holding a series of events for parents about how they can support early literacy, early numeracy, communication and language, personal, social and emotional development, and health and physical development 
• identifying ‘parent champions’ to promote the value of pre-schools to families within the community.

We will share our experience and findings from the project with other interested organisations, as well as gathering and sharing experiences from practitioners in other areas who use the peep learning together programme in childcare settings. The project will be evaluated by the University of Oxford.