Liverpool City Council's Wonder Hub: supporting the home learning environment with the BBC’s Tiny Happy People

Liverpool Family Hubs are based within the city’s existing network of Children’s Centres and currently offers access to coordinated support for over 15,000 families per year, with those families accessing services and support for their children more than 133,000 times. Liverpool is considered the third most deprived local authority area in England with income deprivation affecting children as the fourth most deprived authority (IMD, 2019). 20,983 children (aged under 16), are living in low-income families and are deemed as living in ‘absolute poverty,’ which is 20.8 per cent of children in Liverpool (DWP,2024).

Research highlights the importance of a stimulating Home Learning Environment (HLE) in supporting children’s early learning and development. The most disadvantaged children, mostly those living in poverty, are 19 months behind their most affluent peers in language and communication development by the time they start school. We know that what happens at home in the early years of a child’s life is not only key to their success in education but to their success in life. We wanted to take a play-based approach for supporting rich parent/child interactions to help young children develop their speech, language and communication skills. We also wanted parents and carers to be aware of the positive impact they have on their child’s development and the simple everyday things that they can do to help.

All families need support from time to time to help their babies and children thrive, whether that’s from friends, family or practitioners. Having a digital offer of evidence-based content and resources available for families to access freely was important for creating a holistic home learning offer. Our aim is to provide city-wide support for every family to be able to access the best guidance and advice to care of and interact positively with their babies and young children, and to look after their own wellbeing. Further to this we wanted to find out whether parents were aware of digital support available and their preferences for accessing information to support their children’s learning and development in the home.

‘Wonder Hub,’ was created as the brand name of HLE support in Liverpool. Wonder Hub aims to promote city-wide access to evidence-based information in partnership with BBC Tiny Happy People (BBC THP), so families can access digital resources, such as simple video messages as part of the Family Hub HLE offer. BBC THP have been a key partner in supporting Wonder Hub to develop their digital home learning offer.

BBC Tiny Happy People is a free to use website full of activities, tips and advice and child development content, created by the BBC’s Children’s and Education department, for parents/carers with children 0 to four years to help them develop their little ones’ speech and language skills.

BBC THP has been developed by experts through strong working relationships with The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, Institute of Health Visiting, Royal College of Midwives, UNICEF, DfE, early years organisations as well as local authorities and NHS trusts across the UK, and work closely with academics from University of Sheffield, University of Liverpool, Newcastle University and University of Manchester amongst others.

Find our more about how BBC Tiny Happy People work with speech, language and communication experts.

The BBC Tiny Happy People digital offer was developed in response to a need for families to freely access digital resources and tools for supporting their young children’s learning and development at home. We have particularly focused on supporting families to understand the importance of play and how young children learn and develop communication and language skills through play alongside more specialist strategies.

BBC Tiny Happy People has a wealth of play-based activities and resources for parents/carers to do with their children in the home learning environment.

The content is great for supporting parents’ understanding, so they can feel confident doing the activities; knowing they’re having a positive effect on their child’s development.

BBC Tiny Happy People, Children’s Centres and Family Hub coordinators and staff, parents of children aged under five, Alder Hey Speech and Language therapists and health visitors.

A strategy was created with the BBC Tiny Happy People team and key partners working with families in Liverpool to roll out and embed BBC THP digital resources into universal, targeted and specialist programmes, activities and focused events for families.

The partnership began when the BBC THP team supported us to produce a Family Hub launch event for over 500 families, the team attended the event to offer a range of fun BBC THP activities to children and families. The event brought together a wide range of professionals working with young children and families who were able to access information and resources directly from the BBC THP team.

BBC Tiny Happy People speech and language videos were embedded each week into a targeted early communication group in children’s centres and Family Hubs for parents and children identified as requiring additional support with early speech development.

Whole family BBC THP summer trips were planned to forests and parklands with targeted families who were using Tuebrook and Yewtree Family Hubs. We focused on promoting specific BBC THP activities on the trips out and gave each family a home learning pack and pocket sized BBC THP resources. The trips offered an opportunity for talking to parents about their preferences for accessing information on children’s learning and development and parents were encouraged and guided to access and explore BBC THP on their mobile phones.

BBC THP resources on the importance of play and ideas for playing at home have been included on the Wonder Hub page of the Liverpool family directory for HLE alongside other HLE information, such as the Liverpool 24 Magic Months app, the PEEP Learning Together Programme (available at all children’s centres and Family Hub sites) and National Literacy Trust resources. Wonder Hub has been promoted by using BBC THP activities and events so that families are aware of the information and resources available locally.

Liverpool Play Values have been created through a working party of early years professionals to increase broader understanding of how children learn through play and the best way to support their early curiosity and exploration in practice. BBC THP resources have been embedded to compliment the Play Values training which will be rolled out to EY professionals.

BBC Tiny Happy People champions training has been accessed by professionals working with children and families in the early years sector and the BBC THP team have been offering bespoke sessions for professionals working with young children.

BBC THP Champion Training has been taken up by:

• School nurseries
• Private, voluntary. or independent (PVIs)
• Childminders
• NHS healthcare teams – health visitors and speech and language teams
• Children’s Centres
• Family Hubs
• Libraries
• Everton Stronger Practice Hub
• Liverpool School Improvement Team

A number of Wonder Hub HLE Family Hub events have promoted and brought to life BBC THP activities, such as paper bag puppet making and story sharing activities Resources were given to families to do at home, with individual signposting to specific areas of BBC THP website.

A representative group of 50 parents attending events were asked how they were accessing guidance on supporting their young children’s learning and development and what their preferences were. We discovered they did not know the scope of information available, or that BBC THP or digital guidance existed, so we needed to promote the way we share digital resources with families.

Physical resources, such as BBC THP postcards, posters and video advice in places such as waiting areas were more effective than giving QR codes for getting simple messages to families who may be digitally excluded. Using BBC THP signposting alongside face-to-face programmes, drop in Stay and Play activities and group interventions were seen by families as a more effective way of accessing a wide range of information.

There were challenges in the way services share digital resources with families. This required a system change for a consistent approach for sharing digital information with families. Sharing simple, bite sized messages was an effective way, so families did not have to scroll for information and another way was to embed the sharing of videos into existing courses for families. We also developed a schedule for sharing BBC THP resources across Instagram, Facebook and children’s centre/Family Hub websites.

Families may not access information using QR codes on their mobile phones, especially those who may be digital excluded or living in poverty. We found that by directing them to Wonder Hub site was effective information on HLE could be accessed in one place. The BBC Tiny Happy People team developed the information for us to include on the HLE page, so that the information was not overwhelming and could be found in one place.

An approach was adopted by Liverpool City Council strategic leads to ensure that the importance of play, particularly engaging strategies for promoting communication and language development were promoted and prioritized across sectors for supporting children’s learning and development. Story sharing activities were modelled in Stay and Play groups to promote language development alongside BBC THP tips and advice for supporting early literacy. This has ensured that BBC Tiny Happy People was recognized and disseminated as a key evidence-based offer.

Everton Stronger Practice Hub is also sharing and embedding BBC Tiny Happy People content in early years settings and services across ten regional boroughs, inviting practitioners to access the champions training sessions either via the BBC website or through bespoke sessions organised directly through the BBC team.

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