Interventions to improve school readiness

School readiness includes the concepts of emotional self-regulation, social competence and family-school involvement as well as the absence of behaviour problems. It plays an important role in young children's future social adjustment and academic success. Coming from a deprived background can lead to children becoming lacking in school readiness; not being able to control their emotions, having fewer social skills, a lack of parent-school involvement and behaviour problems. A number of interventions have been developed to address these problems and one of them is the Incredible Years programme. This has two elements; Teacher Classroom Management and the Child Social and Emotional Curriculum (Dinosaur School). A study of 153 teachers and 1,768 pupils divided them up into two groups with one taking part in the programme and the other being a control group. The study found that those schools which had taken part in the programme used more positive classroom management strategies, their students showed more social competence and emotional self-regulation and they had fewer conduct problems. The teachers who took part in the programme were more involved with the children's parents and satisfaction with the programme was very high.

Webster-Stratton, Carolyn, Reid, M. Jamila and Stoolmiller, Mike - Preventing conduct problems and improving school readiness: evaluation of the Incredible Years Teacher and Child Training Programs in high-risk schools Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry May 2008, 49(5), 471-488