Familes and Schools Together Evaluation

Families and Schools Together (FAST) is a parental engagement programme which aims to support parenting and enhance links between families, school and the community. Groups of parents and their children (usually around 5–8 families in each group) attend eight weekly 2.5-hour group sessions after school, delivered by trained local partners. Families then continue to meet on a more informal basis for up to 22 months, a period known as FASTworks. Sessions are designed to encourage good home routines around mealtimes, bedtimes and homework with the intention that this will improve the behaviour of the attending pupils, freeing up the teacher to focus on learning to the benefit of the whole class. Save the Children U.K. (SCUK) delivers FAST in U.K. primary schools. This school-level randomised controlled trial focused on pupils in Year 1 and measured the impact of FAST for the whole year group on Key Stage 1 (KS1) attainment, as well as on children’s behavioural and prosocial outcome. A process evaluation explored the views of school leaders, school FAST co-ordinators, teachers, pupils, parents, and FAST partners through case studies and telephone interviews. The trial ran between April 2015 and September 2017.