Does providing 5-6 year olds with daily 15 minute music sessions impact on their reading attainment?
| ISRCTN | ISRCTN14035536 |
|---|---|
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN14035536 |
| Secondary identifying numbers | N/A |
- Submission date
- 17/07/2018
- Registration date
- 24/07/2018
- Last edited
- 07/06/2023
- Recruitment status
- No longer recruiting
- Overall study status
- Completed
- Condition category
- Other
Plain English summary of protocol
Background and study aims
First Thing Music is a programme that aims to improve children’s reading and social skills by providing them with daily music sessions. Research has shown that a difficulty in processing rhythm can have a negative impact on children's reading. The trial aims to test whether the First Thing Music programme can improve pupil's reading attainment over the course of one school year for Year 1 pupils, along with whether it impacts their social skills.
Who can participate?
Children in Year 1 across approximately 120 state-funded primary schools in Tees Valley and Sheffield
What does the study involve?
Classes within schools are randomly allocated to either the intervention or the control group. The intervention group will receive the First Thing Music Intervention, whereas the control group will continue with "business as usual".
The First Thing Music Intervention involves daily 15 minute music sessions over 3 terms, which will involve singing games and movement activities. Class teachers will deliver the intervention after receiving training from a team of music practitioners. As the children progress, more advanced skills will be introduced, such as written notation, subdivisions of beats, patterns of longer/shorter sounds and awareness of melody and pitch.
The control group will not receive any intervention and continue as usual.
Children will be assessed on their reading and social skills at the end of the study.
What are the possible benefits and risks of participating?
The possible benefit to participants is that approaches such as the First Thing Music programme may improve children's attainment outcomes, along with communication and language. There are no known risks to participants taking part in this study.
Where is the study run from?
The study is run by the Tees Valley Music Service and the evaluation is led by the Behavioural Insights team in collaboration with UCL Institute of Education.
The schools participating in the study are based in the Tees Valley and Sheffield.
When is the study starting and how long is it expected to run for?
May 2017 to December 2019
Who is funding the study?
1.Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (UK)
2. The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) (UK)
Who is the main contact?
Kimberly Bohling (Research Advisor, The Behavioural Insights Team)
kimberly.bohling@bi.team
Contact information
Public
4 Matthew Parker St
Westminster
London
SW1H 9NP
United Kingdom
Study information
| Study design | Interventional cluster randomised controlled trial |
|---|---|
| Primary study design | Interventional |
| Secondary study design | Cluster randomised trial |
| Study setting(s) | School |
| Study type | Other |
| Participant information sheet | Not available in web format, please use contact details to request a participant information sheet. |
| Scientific title | Using the First Thing Music programme to improve pupil attainment: A randomised trial in schools |
| Study acronym | FTM |
| Study objectives | First Thing Music intervention increases reading attainment of 5 and 6 year olds |
| Ethics approval(s) | University College London Institute of Education Research Ethics Committee, 20/03/2018, Z6364106/2018/02/09 |
| Health condition(s) or problem(s) studied | Academic attainment |
| Intervention | Classes within participating schools will be stratified by school and a random number will be generated for each class within each school. In the case of a two-form school, the class with the highest random number in the school will be assigned to the treatment group and the other class to the control group. In the case of schools with more than two forms, BIT will do as per step 3 for schools with an even number of forms (e.g. four-forms). For schools with an odd number of forms (e.g. three forms), the randomisation will be done as follows. Half the schools will randomly be chosen to have one intervention and two control classes and the other half will have two intervention and one control class. If one-form entry schools are recruited, they will be grouped into a single stratum for the purposes of randomisation. The intervention group will receive the First Thing Music Intervention, comprised of daily 15-minute music sessions for Year 1 pupils (5-6 year olds) over the course of three terms. The children will take part in singing games and movement activities, focusing mainly on steady beat, rhythm and pitch. The intervention will be delivered by class teachers who will receive training and mentoring from a team of music practitioners recruited by specialists from the British Kodály Academy. The daily music sessions will follow a Kodály-based approach, introducing the children to musical concepts through experiences such as listening, singing and movement. These concepts will be constantly reviewed, reinforced and extended through games, songs and exercises. More advanced skills such as written notation, subdivisions of beats, patterns of longer/shorter sounds and awareness of melodic shape by pitch discrimination, will be introduced gradually according to the progress of the children. The control group will not receive any intervention. |
| Intervention type | Behavioural |
| Primary outcome measure | The following will be assessed at the end of the intervention period - the end of the 2019 school year: 1. Reading ability (phonics, literal comprehension and reading for meaning) assessed using the Progress in Reading Assessment (PIRA) 2. Oral narrative skills (information content, sentence length, grammatical usage and independence), assessed using the Renfrew Bus Story test To account for baseline variation in attainment, the child's Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) will be used. |
| Secondary outcome measures | The following will be assessed at the end of the intervention period - the end of the 2019 school year: 1. Social skills, assessed using the Social Skills scale of the Social Skills Improvement System (SSiS). This is assessed across the following subscales: 1.1. Communication 1.2. Cooperation 1.3. Assertion 1.4. Responsibility 1.5. Responsibility 1.6. Empathy 1.7. Engagement 1.8. Self-control 2. Self-perception of ability to generate and use ideas in their school work, assessed using an adapted version of the ideation sub-measure of the writing self-efficacy measure, with significant simplification to make it age-group appropriate To account for baseline variation in attainment, the child's Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) will be used. |
| Overall study start date | 20/05/2017 |
| Completion date | 31/12/2019 |
Eligibility
| Participant type(s) | Other |
|---|---|
| Age group | Child |
| Sex | Both |
| Target number of participants | 3,288 across 120 classes |
| Total final enrolment | 3004 |
| Key inclusion criteria | 1. Located in North East England 2. Discussed participation with First Thing Music and signed an MoU detailing the conditions of participation (opt-out process, pupil data provision and endline assessment, participation in IPE activities, etc.). If there is significant interest from localised areas not in the North East (e.g. Sheffield), music practitioners may be recruited to these areas as well. This will typically require at least 10 schools in a localised area to be recruited in the study. Strong preference will also be given to two-form entry schools. If the project team are unable to recruit the required number of two-form schools, other schools (e.g. single and three-form entry) will be considered after discussions with the evaluation team and the EEF. Schools with an average or above average share (14.1%) of Free School Meal (FSM) children will receive priority in recruitment. As this trial will be randomised at the class-level, there are no pupil-level eligibility requirements. |
| Key exclusion criteria | N/A |
| Date of first enrolment | 01/01/2018 |
| Date of final enrolment | 29/06/2018 |
Locations
Countries of recruitment
- England
- United Kingdom
Study participating centres
Stockton-on-Tees
TS19 0HQ
Stockton-on-Tees
TS19 0HQ
United Kingdom
Westminster
London SW1H 9NP
London
SW1H 9NP
United Kingdom
Bloomsbury
London WC1H 0AL
London
WC1H 0AL
United Kingdom
Sponsor information
Research organisation
4 Matthew Parker St
Westminster
London
SW1H 9NP
United Kingdom
| Website | https://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/ |
|---|---|
"ROR" |
https://ror.org/03mk5b468 |
Funders
Funder type
Not defined
Private sector organisation / Trusts, charities, foundations (both public and private)
- Alternative name(s)
- EducEndowFoundn, Education Endowment Foundation | London, EEF
- Location
- United Kingdom
No information available
Results and Publications
| Intention to publish date | 01/09/2021 |
|---|---|
| Individual participant data (IPD) Intention to share | No |
| IPD sharing plan summary | Not expected to be made available |
| Publication and dissemination plan | Planned publication of an evaluation report. |
| IPD sharing plan | Participant level data is quite sensitive, as it contains personal and academic information that could be used to identify trial participants. As such, this data will not be made publicly available. However, participant level data will be transferred and stored with the Education Endowment Foundation (the project funder) and (in an anonymised form) the UK Data Archive. |
Study outputs
| Output type | Details | Date created | Date added | Peer reviewed? | Patient-facing? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Funder report results | 07/09/2021 | 13/09/2021 | No | No |
Editorial Notes
07/06/2023: Internal review.
13/09/2021: Funder report added.
13/01/2021: Total final enrolment number added.
12/01/2021: The intention to publish date was changed from 31/12/2020 to 01/09/2021.
23/10/2018: The intention to publish date was updated from 31/05/2020 to 31/12/2020.
