From the cradle to the classroom: Improving educational support for preterm-born children and families

Improving educational support is crucial for improving outcomes and experiences for preterm-born children and their families. Here we present evidence underpinning the need to upskill education professionals and raise awareness of prematurity in the education sector. We describe the work we are doing to improve educational support for children and families and the emerging impact of that work

Alison Green
Research Assistant, Centre for Mathematical Cognition, Loughborough University

Catriona Ogilvy
Founder and Director of The Smallest Things charity, London

Professor Camilla Gilmore
Professor of Mathematical Cognition, Centre for Mathematical Cognition, Loughborough University

Professor Samantha Johnson
Professor of Child Development, School of Healthcare, University of Leicester
sjj19@leicester.ac.uk

Green A., Ogilvy C., Gilmore C., Johnson S. From the cradle to the classroom: Improving educational support for preterm-born children and families. Infant 2025; 21(6): 153-58.

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Keywords

preterm; neurodevelopment; education; special educational needs

Key points

Preterm-born children are at higher risk of poor academic attainment and special educational needs than their term-born peers.
A lack of training has led to poor awareness of prematurity in the education sector.
The PRISM training and The Smallest Things Prem Aware Award can be used to upskill education professionals and improve their confidence.

Also published in Infant:

VOLUME 15/ISSUE 6, NOVEMBER 2019

Improving educational outcomes for children born preterm: a new approach

Children born preterm are at higher risk of special educational needs than their term-born peers, and have poorer attainment at school. As intervention efforts to date have had little success in improving long-term outcomes, a new approach to intervention is needed. The Premature Infants’ Skills in Mathematics (PRISM) team has developed a novel e-learning resource to improve educational support for children born preterm. The resource is freely available for use by parents, healthcare and education professionals worldwide and has been shown to improve teachers’ knowledge of preterm birth and their confidence in supporting children in the classroom. Here we describe the development and evaluation of the e-learning resource.