A Singapore study reveals how classroom co-facilitators (CCFs) support children from lower-income families – and what gets in the way of them doing it well.

What the Research Study Is About

This study examines Singapore’s Classroom Support Program (CSP), an initiative by NTUC First Campus under the My First Skool banner, which places trained Classroom Co-Facilitators (CCFs) in preschool classrooms to support children from lower-income families. Working with children aged 4 to 6, CCFs provide small-group and one-on-one learning support designed to help these children keep pace in Singapore’s academically driven early childhood education system. The study sought to understand what CCFs actually do day-to-day, what makes their work effective, and what structural factors support or hinder the programme.

Key Findings

• Leveraging individualized support and rapport
  • • The programme demonstrates high efficacy when CCFs provide meaningful individualized support.
    • The most successful outcomes are rooted in strong relationship-building, child-responsive approaches and flexible scaffolding.
• Small-group and one-on-one interventions allow CCFs to better align teaching practices with a child’s specific learning needs.
• School leadership should protect the CCFs’ core instructional time by minimizing their involvement in tasks outside their primary job scope.
• The programme provides a robust foundation for academic preparation; this can be further enhanced by integrating a greater focus on social-emotional development.
• Current informal collaborations between CCFs and teachers provide a strong starting point that can be strengthened through structured, leadership-supported communication channels, and clearer pedagogical leadership roles.
• There is an opportunity to deepen parental engagement by including CCFs in formal meetings, leveraging their intimate knowledge of the children’s daily learning experiences.
• Practitioners should be encouraged to adopt culturally and linguistically responsive teaching methods to better support children from all backgrounds.

This research summary was generated by Claude AI and has been reviewed by the authors.