Nursery World - Early Intervention: Opportunity Areas: Oldham

In Oldham, a literacy programme that has helped families improve their home learning environment should stand them in good stead over lockdown. By Charlotte Goddard

‘Let’s get Oldham Talking’ aims to improve communication in the Opportunity Area

With the majority of children currently confined to their house or flat for almost all of their waking hours, the quality of the home learning environment has never been more important. The home learning environment is consistently identified in research as the most significant predictor of a child’s outcomes, and the poorest children are already 11 months behind their better-off peers before they even start at school. Now with the Covid-19 lockdown, that development gap is likely to widen.

‘In the short term, having providers temporarily closed is likely to have the biggest impact on the poorest children, who benefit most from structured provision and are less likely to have the suitable home learning environment needed,’ says Dr Rebecca Montacute, author of The Sutton Trust’s Social Mobility and Covid-19report.

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