Intervention settings<\/strong> will need sufficient staffing and space to run story time with groups of around ten children, nominate a TWiTCH Champion and take part in TWiTCH training. <\/p>\n\n\n\nAll settings<\/strong> will need to allow time for evaluation activities, share parent information with families, and provide pupil data and access for researchers to carry out short pre and post programme child language assessments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
The evaluation aims to work with 132 nurseries settings in a randomised controlled trial (RCT). This means that settings will be randomly allocated to either an intervention group or control group. Half of participating settings will be assigned to the intervention group and will receive the TWiTCH training, resources and coaching, and will deliver TWiTCH with the three-four-year-old nursery cohort across 27 weeks from November 2026 to July 2027. The other half of participating settings will be assigned to the control group and will NOT receive the TWiTCH programme and will serve as a comparison group for the settings receiving the intervention. All settings are required to participate in the evaluation activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The independent evaluation will be conducted by Durham University led by Vic Menzies and working with the University of Manchester and with Qa Research (conducting the child language assessments). The evaluation will assess the impact of the programme on children\u2019s language skills, school readiness and practitioner\u2019s story-time practice through collecting assessment data before and after the intervention and comparing settings that do TWiTCH (intervention group) with settings that do not do TWiTCH and continue with story time activities as usual (control group).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Data will be collected from children and practitioners at the start and end of the programme which includes child language assessments, practitioner and senior leader surveys and audio recordings of story-time practice (at the end of the programme only). The evaluation will also look at how settings deliver TWiTCH through observations of training and TWiTCH practice, sharing of coach records, interviews with setting staff and case studies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Settings are randomly allocated to either an intervention or a control group; therefore, settings cannot choose which group they are included in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Intervention settings receive full TWiTCH training, coaching support, and a TWiTCH Resource pack including traditional tales books used within the story cycles. All settings receive a thank you payment for their time spent on evaluation and data collection:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIntervention settings: \u00a3575<\/li>\n\n\n\n Control group settings: \u00a31,000<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The programme will run from September 2026 to early July 2027. Sheffield Hallam University is partnering with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and Durham University to further evaluate the\u202fTWiTCH programme. Through a randomised controlled trial, the evaluation will assess the impact of the TWiTCH approach on children\u2019s\u202fnarrative skills, vocabulary, and self-expression. This is an exciting opportunity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-20","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/twitchefficacytrial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/twitchefficacytrial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/twitchefficacytrial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/twitchefficacytrial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/twitchefficacytrial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/twitchefficacytrial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":803,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/twitchefficacytrial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20\/revisions\/803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/twitchefficacytrial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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