Evaluation of a child-centred intervention targeting wellbeing and cognitive skills in primary age children

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The proposed project will deliver and evaluate a trial to improve well-being and cognitive skills in primary age children in the Doncaster area. It is a collaboration between the Centre for Educational Neuroscience (CEN) and Evolve, a social enterprise established in 2003 with the aim of enabling children to achieve their potential through supporting all aspects of physical, emotional and cognitive health and wellbeing. Evolve's Project HE:RO is a programme of social and emotional learning activities for primary school children which combines health mentoring and cognitive training. Project HE:RO recently underwent a trial to test the effectiveness of the intervention in promoting wellbeing and cognitive skills in children ages 8 to 11 who were at risk of school exclusion. Whilst wellbeing and cognitive gains from health mentors and cognitive training were observed, it was assessed that the trial's cognitive training arm was underpowered and educational outcomes were not considered. The proposed project will follow-up on the results of this prior trial and aim to address the recommended improvements through increased sample size and focus on evaluating educational outcomes. As the intervention targets multiple skills, understanding the mechanisms of improvement brought about by the intervention will be a key point of the study, as well as assessing the transferability of cognitive skills developed through the intervention. In addition, intervention scalability will be assessed through comparison of the effects of intervention delivery by Evolve's trained health mentors, school staff who have received training from Evolve, and an active control group. This project is relevant to ESRC remit by its interdisciplinary collaboration and the potential for societal impact through the development and evaluation of an educational intervention targeting wellbeing and cognitive skills in primary school children at risk of school exclusion.