Evaluation of the impact of Glasses-in-Classes on infant’s educational outcomes

One obvious factor affecting children’s learning in school is their ability to read and write, but this can be hampered if they cannot see properly. Yet many children in the UK have eye conditions that have gone undetected. Even amongst those who do attend an optician’s appointment, many do not always wear their glasses, and this can hinder their progress at school. Glasses in Classes (GiC) is a school-based intervention to ensure that vision screening results are shared with schools to enable them to support children in wearing glasses. This chapter describes our evaluation of a DfE-funded study of GiC in Opportunity Areas in the northeast of England. The objective was to estimate the impact and feasibility of GiC for early years children’s educational attainment. Preliminary results showed positive effects of generic vision screening on children’s maths and literacy, but not among children in GiC schools. The dampened effect could be due to the delay in setting up the programme in some intervention schools. As a result, some children only had their second pair of glasses for a few days - not long enough for real effects to be manifested. To capture the long-term impact of GiC, the project has been extended to look at the impact on children’s Year 1 results. The chapter also covers the challenges in conducting an evaluation of this scale across multiple local authorities and lessons learnt.