Introduction
EPPE 3-11 is a large-scale longitudinal study funded by the Department for Education and Skills
(DfES) with the aim of investigating what kinds of early childhood provision are most ‘effective’ in
promoting young children’s progress and development during their time at pre-school, and to
explore whether any pre-school effects continue to influence children after they start primary
school. The first phase of the research followed children to the end of Key Stage 1 (KS1) of
primary school (age 7 plus years). Measures of the quality of pre-school settings (pre-school
centres) were collected from observations by trained researchers using the Early Childhood
Rating Scale (ECERS) and Caregiver Interaction Scale (CIS) instrument (see Sylva et al., 1999a;
1999b; 2003). In total, 141 pre-school centres drawn from five regions across England formed
the focus of the EPPE pre-school research. Centres were drawn from six types of provision;
nursery classes, playgroups, local authority day nurseries, private day nurseries, nursery schools
and integrated centres (i.e. combined centres that integrate education and care). For details of
the study of pre-school influences see Sammons et al., (2002; 2003; 2004b). Results of
analyses of children’s outcomes in Key Stage 1 are reported by Sammons et al., (2004 a & b).1
The second phase of the study is following children’s development to the end of Key Stage 2
(age 11 plus years). This extension to the original research is designed to explore continuing
pre-school influences as well as to investigate the effects of primary school attended. EPPE was
the first study of pre-schools in Europe to adopt an educational effectiveness design based on
sampling children in a range of different pre-school settings (centres) and uses statistical
approaches (multilevel modelling) that enable the identification of individual pre-school centre
and school effects.
Beginning around the age of 3 years (at entry to a target pre-school in the centre sample or at
their third birthday for children who had already entered provision at a younger age), children
were assessed and then followed up at entry to primary school. In this way it has been possible
to explore variations between individual pre-schools in their value added contribution to children’s
cognitive progress and social/behavioural development. The first phase of the research explored
whether different types of pre-schools differed in their impacts and effectiveness. It also identified
variations between different pre-school centres in children’s cognitive progress and
social/behavioural development.
The overall EPPE 3-11 study uses a mixed methods approach (combining qualitative and
quantitative methods) and an educational effectiveness design, including detailed statistical
analyses of effectiveness and in-depth case studies of individual pre-school centres (Sammons
et al., 2005; Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2006). This report is based on statistical analyses for a
sample of 2,556 children for whom cognitive data on Reading or Mathematics attainments was
collected at the end of Year 5, between 2003 and 2006 (as the EPPE sample were drawn from
four age cohorts reflecting their recruitment to the original pre-school phase of the research).
This represents eight-seven per cent of the children in the EPPE 3-11 sample for whom valid
baseline data had been collected on cognitive attainment at entry to primary school.
Data on cognitive attainment was collected at different time points: the start of primary school, at
the end of Year 1, Year 2 and Year 5. Additionally a wide range of further information has been
drawn on, including information about child, family and HLE characteristics collected from
parental interviews (in pre-school) and questionnaires (in KS1).
This report focuses on children’s attainment at the end of Year 5 and progress from the end of
Year 1 to the end of Year 5 in primary school. It explores the influential strength of a wide variety
of child, parent and family factors as predictors of attainment, including aspects of the early years
HLE provided by parents during the years of pre-school and aspects of the later HLE during Key
Stage 1 of primary school. It also investigates pre-school and primary school influences.
1
1 Full details of the original EPPE study are provided in a series of 12 Technical Papers (see Appendix 1).