How star jumps can boost nursery children’s learning

Research published by the Sutton Trust today looked at the impact of informal hands-on workshops for parents on young children’s learning.

Staff at nine schools in the North West were trained by the Manchester-based Parental Engagement Network on how to run the workshops, which covered ideas on educational activities that parents and children could do together – such as fishing ducks out of the bath or counting star jumps.

Parents were invited to up to four workshops a term and were also given resources to take home, such as finger puppets, tambourines and books. The impact of the workshops was measured by comparing those who took part with parents in another nine schools, through a randomised controlled trial carried out by Fiona Jelley and Kathy Sylva of the University of Oxford’s department of education.

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