New panel to assess home education apps

The Department for Education is forming a new advisory panel to assess existing apps to improve education in the home environment, producing guidance for parents on how to use them, and to help them make informed decisions about which have the most educational value.

This is part of a drive to improve education at home, especially in disadvantaged households, supporting the DfE’s ambition to halve the proportion of five-year-olds not meeting expected standards in these skills by the time they finish Reception.

Representatives from eight organisations including the Lego Group, Clarks, EasyPeasy, HarperCollins, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), British Land, Oxford University Press and KPMG attended a roundtable on 29 January, led by the National Literacy Trust’s Chief Executive Jonathan Douglas. They discussed the next step in the Government’s campaign to tackle concerning rates of early literacy and communication among disadvantaged families.

The nine businesses join others already involved in work to support parents with improving the home learning environment. These include Addo Foods and HarperCollins, whose projects in this area will range from upskilling their own staff to improve their interaction with disadvantaged families, to providing tools and resources that encourage parents to incorporate reading and communication in everyday activities.

Pledges from businesses already signed up include Clarks – where its 6,500 staff will be trained in children’s speech, language and communication development and how to engage with families in stores across the country.

HarperCollins will drive a love of reading through author ambassadors, book donations and grants for independent bookshops to support events targeted at children under five and their parents.

Addo Foods will support its employees with children aged 0 to five to use its language lab facilities at its Nottingham headquarters to encourage improved communication skills.

WHSmiths will support literacy programmes in Swindon, where there are high levels of illiteracy, including bringing parents into nurseries to help advise on how to support their child’s literacy and language development.

British Land and Penguin Random House will work together to provide high-quality children’s books for bookswap schemes launching in three British Land retail sites, building on British Land’s work to reach more than 34,000 primary school children to improve their literacy.