The OVO Foundation

Who is The OVO Foundation?

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The OVO Foundation, established by OVO Energy, addresses critical social and environmental issues with a significant focus on education. It aims to enhance educational opportunities for underserved communities, promoting skills development and lifelong learning. Notable programs include "Future Builders," which combines housing and vocational training for young people, and "When I Grow Up," which supported 3 early years programmes (including Tales Toolkit). Additionally, "Project Jua" brings solar energy to off-grid communities in Kenya, improving educational facilities and learning conditions. By collaborating with various charities and community organizations, the OVO Foundation seeks to empower individuals through education, fostering a fairer, greener, and more sustainable world.

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What's the project? - When I Grow Up

The OVO Foundation set up the When I Grow Up project to tackle the education inequality in the early years, particularly when it came to the home environment. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are exposed to less diverse language and have fewer meaningful conversations with caregivers in the home.

The project was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic when home learning became the norm for many children. During this period, the digital divide was acutely felt by disadvantaged families, where children struggled to access online learning.

The 3 programmes selected for this project therefore prioritised parental engagement and creating opportunities to inspire a love for reading and communication when not in a formal setting. Those 3 programmes were:

1. Doorstep Library
2. Parental Engagement Network
3. Tales Toolkit

What were the outcomes? - Tales Toolkit Parent Training

The funding we received from this project has been put towards the creation of a parent training package which is still in development.

Once completed, it will form part of our offering for settings doing the Tales Toolkit method by providing resources and dedicated training for the families and caregivers. The parent training will be delivered by practitioners in the child's setting. The goal of this new training package is to facilitate sustained shared thinking in the home by using our already established oral storytelling approach, building on what the children are experiencing when in a formal setting so that development can continue.

It is also hoped that relationships between caregivers and practitioners will be strengthened and more parents will be motivated to get involved in the development of the child both inside and outside a formal educational environment. As we all know, the home environment still has the biggest impact on a child's development and it is only by collaborating with parents that children will have the best chance of later success.

Due to the onset of lockdowns, not everything went exactly as planned. The evaluation team was originally going to take evidence from settings to explore the impact on children’s language and communication, but due to Covid-19 restrictions, interviews were conducted instead. Interviewees included members of the Tales Toolkit team, 5 practitioners and 4 parents.

In response to the quickly changing circumstances, Tales Toolkit set about rapidly creating a website focussed on assisting parents who suddenly found themselves home-educators. We created resources and illustrations centred around the pandemic to better enable them to understand what was happening and give them space to express themselves.

During lockdown, practitioners found theTales Toolkit resources invaluable and used them in a variety of ways either stand-aloneor in combination with other activities. Practitioners described in interviews that they found that by the end of Reception, children were choosing their own stories and vocabulary towrite and draw their own stories. Practitioners and parents also said that Tales Toolkit ledt o strong outcomes for children with EAL, speech and language issues and also reluctant writers.
OVO Foundation report: EducationInequality in the early years, Dawson, A., Williams, C. & Akehurst, G.

Read the full report on the project, conducted by the Institute for Employment Studies.