Almost one in six children in Northern Ireland (NI) leaves primary school without achieving the expected level in English and Maths. In 2010-11, around 9,000 pupils in NI failed to achieve the required standard in literacy and numeracy by the time they left full-time education. Educational underachievement has far reaching consequences, both for individual children and society as a whole. Ready to Learn is a programme package (manualised intervention) with two core elements. The first is an after-school programme for children designed to improve their literacy and promote social, emotional and behavioural skills. The second is a parent-focused programme designed to help parents understand what and how their children are learning in school, and to help them reinforce their children’s learning at home. The main aim of the study was to find out whether Ready to Learn improved the literacy of socially disadvantaged children, and whether it could increase the engagement of parents with their children’s education. In addition, we wanted to know whether, and to what extent, Ready to Learn could improve children’s social, emotional and behavioural skills, because these skills help children learn.

Trial design was a cluster randomised trial with schools as the unit of randomisation and analysis. Schools were stratified for school size (small, medium, large) and type of school (Roman Catholic Maintained or State Controlled) and randomised in April 2010, using a web based system of randomisation. The sample size of 16 schools was determined prior to commissioning the evaluation. All parents of children in participating schools were invited to participate in the study. Those whose children were in experimental schools were asked for permission for their child to join a Ready to Learn Club.