What is Concept Cat?
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) supported by the Department for Education (DfE) is funding a study to evaluate a programme designed to improve early years language development.
Concept Cat is a whole class teaching methodology for early verbal concepts (part of the widely used book ‘Word Aware 2’) and delivered by the authors, two leading experts in the field (Stephen Parsons and Anna Branagan), working with a partner organisation (Better Communication CIC).
The Concept Cat approach teaches children concepts such as ‘first’, ‘wide’ and ‘empty’. This is designed to be taught in a structured and engaging manner with explicit teaching of vocabulary followed by implicit teaching in play-based learning. The teaching process includes staff acting out a scripted story with a toy cat. Small changes are made to the environment so that children have chances to experience the new word an increased number of times. For instance, if the target word for the week was ‘empty’, then sand and water trays would be out that week. Families are engaged with simple home activities which will be available in a number of community languages.
This sequence is designed to be accessible to a wide range of children; including those with limited language. One word is taught per week; allowing opportunity for deep understanding to develop. Rather than general vocabulary, Concept Cat specifically teaches early verbal concepts (such as ‘before, early and through’) core to the curriculum of maths and science, with the ultimate aim of improving maths and science attainment at Key Stage 1.
What does Concept Cat involve?
Each setting will receive:
- Key resources to run the programme
- a free initial three-hour training session for a lead practitioner and one hour training for all staff (delivered remotely) by Stephen Parsons and Anna Branagan (authors of Concept Cat).
- visits from specially trained ‘Concept Cat Coaches’ to provide modelling and in-school support sessions. This will be delivered half termly with an additional session in the first half term. The sessions will provide support for staff to apply the learning in their setting, modelling teaching, quality checking, problem solving issues and sharing best practice.
- half termly one hour on-line peer support sessions for the lead practitioners. This is facilitated by Concept Cat Coaches, supporting practitioners to share experiences of delivery in different settings and collectively reflect on ways of overcoming common challenges in everyday practice.
Recruitment for this programme is now closed.