The Unlimited Child Programme Assessment

The Unlimited Child (TUC) works with 2835 ECD centres and over 346,700 children in all South African provinces except North West.  After successful completion of an initial 5-day training programme, a curriculum-aligned kit of learning materials, educational toys and resources are provided to the centre and there are ongoing on-site support and cluster workshops.  

After their involvement in the ELPO study in 2019, TUC saw the potential of ELOM to inform programme content and implementation.

Firstly, they valued the ELOM as a credible, generic assessment with established reliability and validity.  While overall ELOM outcomes for children on the TUC programme were very favourable, the study highlighted both specific and general areas for enhancement.

Finding 1: Gross Motor Development (GMD) and Emergent Numeracy and Mathematics (ENM) domains needed improvement. As a result, the team –

• Focused on this cluster of workshops by demonstrating activities and materials with children.
• For space limited urban centres, introduced smaller equipment/activities for GMD.
• Expanded the maths component of the curriculum, particularly the number concept.
• Adapted the monitoring tool to rate levels of practitioner proficiency in these areas, and mentored and coached on that basis.

Finding 2: Dosage was found to be important. As a result, the team –

• Placed greater emphasis on tracking and improving child attendance 

Finding 3: There were low levels of parent engagement in home learning. As a result, the team –

• Explored the use of low technology content and Whatsapp as an extension of their programmes to support learning in the home – 60% of 600 parents surveyed in early 2021 indicated they used the activities and found them beneficial.

Finding 4: Practitioner levels of satisfaction with support were predictive of child outcomes. As a result, the team – 

• Introduced more structured continuous professional development (CPD) across all clusters rather than leaving it to the coach to determine content.

For more information on The Unlimited Child, visit their website here.