Mind The Gap

Intervention description

Mind The Gap is a programme which aims to help male parents and carers support their child's learning. Children (mostly Year 4 students currently) work with their father or male carer on a joint project which lasts for ten hours of sessions. The sessions are co-ordinated by a practitioner who supports participants in completing the task (for example, an animation activity), and helps them to develop metacognitive skills such as thinking about how they are learning and reflecting on their progress. These practitioners also help schools to embed this approach in the classroom.

Professional development/training

Training is available to help teachers embed the metacognitive approaches in their work, and how to continue to effectively and strategically involve parents.

Technology

An online toolkit is available through the provider's site

Evidence Summary

The Education Endowment Foundation recently ran a project in 2015 investigating the effectiveness of Mind The Gap, which did not show it to be effective. The study found a mean effect size of -0.14 for primary maths and for primary reading.

Key research

Implementation difficulties raised concerns about the security of the results in the Education Endowment Foundation evaluation. The main problem was the high level of dropout and the fact that this was concentrated among control schools.

The estimate of the programme’s impact on pupils’ metacognition was positive. This improvement in metacognition may in time lead to an impact on academic attainment.

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/mind-the-gap/