Early Start

What we do

Projects - Family Learning

Early Start

Early Start is a 12 week programme for parents and carers of young children who would like to support their child's early language skills.

Early Start programmes help parents to understand the importance of their role in developing early communication and spoken language through playing, talking and listening.
The programme is intended for parents/carers who do not have a Level 2 qualification in English and provides opportunities for them to gain a national qualification if they wish to do so.
Each session is 3 hours long but can be timed to fit in with the usual session times of the nursery where the programme is taking place.
In each session:
- Parents/carers work with a specially trained adult tutor looking at the ways they can help with their child's learning and brushing up on their own literacy skills. Early numeracy can also be included if appropriate.
- While this is happening, their children spend time on carefully planned activities with their own teacher.
- Finally there is a short joint session when adults, children, teacher and tutor come together to share what they have been doing and give the parents an opportunity to put into practice the activities/ideas shown earlier.