Early Interventions

06 Jul 2021

What is an Early Intervention?

Early intervention requires identifying and providing effective early support to young people who are at risk of poor outcomes. It works with the aim of reducing these risks and strengthening the protective factors in a child’s life to increase their wellbeing, health, and life chances.

Research into the academic trajectories of young pupils demonstrate the crucial impacts that early interventions can have since:

• The academic trajectories of pupils from under-represented backgrounds show a major shift between the ages of 11-16.
• By Key Stage 4 (ages 14-16), high achieving children from the most deprived families fall behind lower-achieving children from the least deprived families.

Interventions can therefore manifest into a variety of different practices and methods but are always focused on addressing the risk immediately proposed to the child to improve their later life.

These interventions can be:

• Targeted: Intervention can involve a specific group or aimed at supporting a specific young person such as through tutoring or speech therapy.
• Universal: Interventions may occur for the welfare of every young pupil in a classroom such as through the forms of health visits or music lessons.

What makes a successful early intervention?

The Early Intervention Foundation outlines nine critical factors to consider for a successful intervention:

• Make the case: To propose an early intervention practice to key leaders, supporters and decision-makers, the case must be supported by local strategies and investment plans.
• Understand need: Early intervention is much more likely to be effective if it is tailored to the needs of the young people who will receive it.
• Identify risk: Effective early intervention includes being able to scope out as early as possible the young people who are at risk of experiencing poor outcomes.
• Use evidence: Young people who receive interventions supported by robust evidence are much more likely to benefit and an evidence-based approach can support the early intervention plan.
• Commissioning: A strategic approach to commissioning aid in an early intervention case is crucial in choosing the right support for the young person.
• Implementing programmes: An early intervention should be tested and delivered in the way it was designed as appropriate to local needs and resources.
• Evaluation: Evaluation of the early intervention programme is critical to improving decision-making and in delivering effective interventions in the future.
• Workforce and practice: Effective early intervention relies on having caring, skilled and adaptable service managers and practitioners working at the front line.
• System and partnerships: Often risk pertaining to a young person’s development touches on social issues and can be the concern of a wide range of services. Effective early intervention means building links between many different parts of the system to provide interconnected services.

What are school-based early interventions?

The early years of a person’s life is identified as the critical period of development. It is the period when a child begins to form bonds, develop language and social skills, becomes more independent and establishes behavioural patterns. Since most of a child’s life is spent in school, the institution can be best placed to identify any atypical development in a pupil and intervene to help cultivate the skills and competencies that set the pupil up for life.

School-based early interventions can therefore manifest as any practice which seeks to increase the protective factors in a child’s life, including:

• Physical health, for example providing extracurricular sports clubs.
• Cognitive development, for example hiring a careers adviser.
• Social and emotional wellbeing, for example providing speech and language therapy.
• Behavioural development, for example providing counselling.

How is The Brilliant Club involved with supporting early interventions?

While increasing research and evidence highlights the merits of early academic intervention,  85% of outreach programmes that support pupils from under-represented backgrounds target pupils aged 16-18. The Brilliant Club recognises the significance of early academic interventions. For younger pupils across the UK, our two programmes support pupils’ academic development:

Brilliant Tutoring Programme:

• In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, pupils across the UK face risks to their educational and personal development as school terms were disrupted.
• The Brilliant Tutoring Programme is an accredited National Tutoring Programme provider that is designed to reinforce confidence in pupils and support their reengagement with the curriculum.
• Through consistent delivery and intensive tutoring, the Brilliant Tutoring Programme acts as a form of targeted early intervention.

The Scholars Programme:

• The Scholars Programme provides pupils aged 8-18 from non-selective state schools the opportunity to experience university-style learning.
• Structured around seven tutorials of consistent, weekly delivery and complemented by two university trips to a competitive university, The Scholars Programme can offer targeted early intervention to raise pupils’ academic aspirations, develop their cultural capital and promote their own sense of confidence.
• The Scholars Programme also records pupil development through an end-of-programme report that is provided to every school. This report illustrates pupil premium impact and progress against the Gatsby benchmarks, linking early interventions to other frameworks set up to support pupil progress.
• Our Research and Impact Reports illustrate the significance of The Scholars Programme as a form of early intervention. Compared to the research that suggests a third of high-performing primary school pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds do not go to university, 89% of participants aged between 8-14 in The Scholars Programme reported feeling capable of studying at a highly competitive university.

To learn more about early interventions, click here.

To read The Brilliant Club’s Impact Case Study on Starting Young: Improving University Access Through Early In-School Interventions, click here.