HIPPY - Home based pre-school education

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HIPPY (Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters) is a home-based early education programme working in 41 low-income communities around New Zealand. HIPPY serves families from diverse ethnic and geographic groups across the country, particularly those most at risk because of poverty, parents’ limited education and social isolation.

Two generations benefit through HIPPY’s contribution to both early childhood education and parenting education and support resulting in:

• Improving skills, confidence and educational outcomes of children
• Increasing parents’ participation in their children’s education and wider communities
• Supporting parents into further education and employment

HIPPY helps parents build confidence and skills to create a positive learning environment to prepare their child for school. The programme works with parents of 2-6 year-old children who live in low socio-economic areas and have low incomes. Some parents enrolled on the programme have additional challenges facing them, such as low education levels, isolation or English as a second language.  A number of children are not participating in other Early Childhood Education (ECE) at the time of their enrolment in HIPPY.

HIPPY is a 60-week curriculum worked over two years, linked to Te Whariki and the New Zealand Curriculum.  Contact with parents is through alternating weekly Home Visits and Group Meetings.  Each HIPPY site is led by an appropriately qualified, professional coordinator working with para-professional tutors employed from the parent body.

In 2018 a new curriculum was piloted in four HIPPY sites. This revised curriculum reflects the new younger starting age of children between the ages of 2 and 4-years old.  The younger starting age provides more opportunities for early learning.

FACTS & FIGURES

How HIPPY works

The 60-week curriculum, worked over two years, comprises 60 weekly workbooks with activities that develop both the cognitive and non-cognitive skills that are essential for children to become competent learners. The activities are linked to Te Whaariki, the Ministry of Education’s early childhood curriculum policy statement, and the New Zealand curriculum, enabling children to transition successfully into school.

HIPPY is based on the belief that parents are their children’s first and most important teachers. It is unique in that parents, through participation, develop the skills and confidence to take on this important role, so not only do the children benefit but so do the parents. Many parents, for whom school was a struggle, find they have talents they were unaware of and this is the beginning of a new phase in their life. HIPPY is truly a two-generational programme that, as well as settling children on a positive pathway through education, opens doors for mothers into training, education and employment.

A Mother's Story

In her mid-twenties, Deidre Tavita was a shy mother-of-one who rarely ventured outside her Glen Innes home. After leaving school at 15 she had taken a number of factory, laundry and cleaning jobs to make ends meet. Opportunities in life seemed limited.  Twenty years later, with a degree in Early Childhood Education from NITEC, she became Head Teacher at Apii Potiki, a community preschool in Glen Innes.  She credits the HIPPY programme with helping her realise potential that she hadn’t known she possessed.

“The best thing was that HIPPY made me set aside time for my daughter and her learning every day. Probably I would have known that reading to her and teaching her was the right thing to do, but I don’t think I would have done it.” – Deidre Tavita

READ DEIRDRE'S STORY

BENEFITS OF HIPPY

Benefits for HIPPY children

• HIPPY encourages a love of learning
• HIPPY children arrive at school ready to learn, and settle into the learning environment
• HIPPY children score better on measures of literacy, numeracy and understanding appropriate school behaviour than their non-HIPPY peers
• HIPPY children retain their competency in reading and numeracy skills

       

Benefits for HIPPY parents

• HIPPY parents are more likely than their peers to engage in positive educational activities with their children
• HIPPY parents are more likely than their peers to become involved in school activities with their children
• HIPPY parents are more likely than their peers to seek further education for themselves
• HIPPY creates employment and training opportunities

Benefits for HIPPY families

• Helps create a learning environment at home
• Increases parents’ knowledge of child development and the way children learn
• Provides parents with opportunities to enjoy positive time with their children
• Enables parents to be actively involved in their children’s education
• Supports parents to meet regularly and promotes a sense of inclusion and connectedness with their community
• Increases parents’ self-confidence
• Has an overall positive impact on family relationships
• Promotes language and listening skills and develops concentration
• Builds self-esteem and confidence in learning
• Improves communication between parents and children

What parents say...