1. Contact: Kirstie Cooper Email: psp880@bangor.ac.uk Tel: 01248 382673psp880@bangor.ac.uk The School Readiness Programme What is School Readiness? The Incredible Years School Readiness Programme is a universal parenting programme, offered to all parents as their children start school. This two-part programme is supplemental to the BASIC Parent Programme and consists of four weekly sessions delivered to parents through schools. The ultimate aims of the programme are to: 1. improve children’s school readiness, 2. prevent children from developing later conduct problems and academic underachievement, and, 3. enhance home-school relationships. 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 School Readiness is a multi-dimensional concept, thought to be based on 4 key dimensions: 1.Emotional self-regulation e.g. attention, problem-solving, managing anger 2. Social competence e.g. sharing, helping, friendship 3.Teacher-parent involvement e.g. calls, newsletters 4.Absence of conduct problems e.g. complying to rules, low verbal and physical aggression (Raver & Zigler, 1997) RANDOMISATION Randomised Control Trial – schools will be randomly allocated 1:1 to intervention and control conditions. SAMPLE 12 schools will run the group with 12 parents of 4-5 year old children, N = 144 (72 intervention and 72 control). RECRUITMENT Participating schools will give information to all families of 4-5 year old children starting school in September 2010. Parents will be invited to attend the course and participate in the evaluation. A researcher will conduct an initial home visit to distribute information sheets and discuss the evaluation. Groups will run between baseline and 6 months for intervention and after 6 months for control. DATA COLLECTION Data will be collected though home visits and from the school at three time points: baseline, six, and twelve months post-baseline. Visit our website: www.incredibleyearswales.co.uk The Evaluation Proposed Methods There are increasing numbers of children arriving in school without the necessary social and self- regulatory skills. A lack of these skills can predict low academic achievement and poor relationships, leading to conduct problems. Although many Incredible Years (IY) Parenting Programmes have been found to reduce the occurrence of conduct problems, no programme addresses specifically the dimensions of school readiness. The IY School Readiness Programme was designed for this purpose but it’s effectiveness has never been researched. Demographics - housing, income, health Parent reports - child social and emotional competence, home-school involvement, parenting style and competency Teacher reports - child social and emotional competence, home-school involvement Direct observation - child-directed play and interactive reading C A R E Proposed Measures