Evaluation of the 16-19 Bursary Fund: year 1 report

Key Findings: The total number of young people in England receiving a Defined Vulnerable Group (DVG) Bursary in 2011/12 is estimated to be 27,400. The total number of students awarded Discretionary Bursaries in 2011/12 in England is estimated to be 251,800. - Profiles of applicants and recipients for DVG and Discretionary Bursaries across all characteristics were very similar, suggesting that no groups were more or less likely to be awarded Bursaries if they applied. - The majority of providers used income-related criteria to determine eligibility for Discretionary Bursaries, with Free School Meal entitlement, household income and household benefit receipt being the most common criteria. Other eligibility criteria used by providers included identifying financial needs, transport costs and equipment needs. - Discretionary Bursaries were most commonly awarded to cover the costs of transport or educational equipment. - In-kind awards were used by more than a quarter (27%) of providers for at least some Bursaries and by a smaller proportion (12%) for all Bursary awards. - Two-thirds of providers (68%) thought that the Bursary Fund was effective in targeting young people with the greatest barriers to participation

Early education pilot for two year old children : evaluation

This report provides the findings of the evaluation of the early education pilot for disadvantaged two year old children (the pilot). This study aimed to assess the impact of the pilot by looking at: how well the pilot was targeted, parents’ experiences of taking up a pilot place, the quality of the pilot settings, the impact on the children’s behaviour, and parents’ views and experiences of using a pilot place. The pilot provided free early years education to over 13,500 disadvantaged two year olds between 2006 and 2008. The main purpose of the pilot was to improve children’s social and cognitive outcomes, e.g. their social confidence and independence, and their verbal skills and reasoning ability. Additional aims were to have a positive impact on children’s parents and wider family e.g. on the relationship between parents and their children, or on parent’s emotional wellbeing. The funding offered these children 7.5 or in a small number of local authorities 12.5 hours of early years education per week for 38 weeks of the year. The pilot places were available in a variety of early years settings e.g. nurseries, play groups and with childminders, but all were required to operate the Birth to Three Matters curriculum.© National Centre for Social Research 2009. The full text of this report is not available in ORA. You may be able to access the report at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-pilot-for-2-year-old-children-evaluation (URL checked 26 March 2014) or via the publication website link above

The Evaluation of the ‘Teens and Toddlers’ Youth Programme: A Randomised Controlled Trial

In 2009, the government's Department for Education commissioned a team of researchers at NatCen Social Research to evaluate the effectiveness of the youth development/teenage pregnancy prevention programme ‘Teens and Toddlers’. Previous studies had positive findings but had not been very rigorous in terms of methodology and methods used. We evaluated the programme through a randomised controlled trial, in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Bryson Purdon Social Research. This case study provides an account of the stages in conducting a randomised controlled trial, from the initial scoping out of what exactly we were going to measure, coming up with the randomised controlled trial design, to reflecting on the possible methodological limitations of our research. It gives a narrative of the whole ‘RCT journey’ – how we determined the outcomes to be measured, the factors that enabled and limited us in designing the randomised controlled trial and the methodological and practical challenges the research team encountered along the way and how we dealt with those