The Significance of the PIECE (Paternal Involvement and its Effects on Children's Education) Report

In 2023, the University of Leeds, the Fatherhood Institute and the University of Manchester published one of the most rigorous studies ever conducted into how fathers affect their children's education. The findings are unambiguous. Fathers matter.

The Paternal Involvement and its Effects on Children's Education (PIECE) study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, tracked 4,966 mum-and-dad households in England drawing on Millennium Cohort Study data tracking children from age three through to age seven. It separated what mothers did with their children from what fathers did, allowing the independent effect of each parent to be measured for the first time at this scale in the UK. The PIECE Report project team are Principal Investigator Dr Helen Norman. Co-Investigators; Dr Jeremy Davies, Professor Mark Elliot and Professor Colette Fagan. With research contributions from Dr Rose Smith and Dr Darya Vanchugova.

The findings are unambiguous. Fathers matter. Specifically, fathers matter for academic attainment in a way that is distinct from, and additional to, what mothers contribute.

What's striking about the PIECE recommendations, when read alongside what Dads Kids Club (‘DKC’) actually does on a Saturday, is how closely the two align. DKC isn't a parallel intervention to what the research recommends. It is, we feel, part of a wider delivery ecosystem for it. Please note that we read this report after founding DKC and the reason we write this post and believe so much in the power of the PIECE Report, is that we can see its recommendations working in real life to create more opportunities for dads and kids.

What PIECE found

The headline statistic from PIECE is now well-cited: children whose fathers read with them several times a week were 60% likely to reach a "good" level of achievement in their Early Years Foundation Stage Profile at age 5, compared to 38% of children whose fathers rarely read with them (Norman & Davies, 2023, p.18). A 22-percentage-point swing, on a single activity, by a single parent.

But PIECE goes further. The benefit of dad involvement compounds over time. Engagement at age 3 is associated with higher attainment at age 5. Engagement at age 5 is associated with higher Key Stage 1 grades at age 7. Among the individual EYFSP subjects at age 5, maths showed the strongest effect from father involvement (p.21). And once early dad involvement is established, it tends to persist: a dad who is engaged at age 3 is significantly more likely to still be engaged at age 7 (p.20-21).

The effect is independent of what mums contribute. Mothers' involvement, the study finds, primarily supports children's behavioural and emotional development, which in turn helps foster higher attainment - reducing hyperactivity, improving peer relationships, strengthening pro-social behaviour and emotional regulation (p.17). Fathers' involvement primarily lifts academic attainment. The two parents are doing different things, both of which matter and children benefit most when both are happening.

Critically, the academic gain from father involvement is present for children in poorer households as well as more affluent ones, even though it does not on its own offset poverty's effects (p.21-22).

What PIECE recommends fathers do

The report is specific about which activities matter. The "involvement" measure PIECE uses is built from seven structured engagement activities (p.11):

• Reading with the child

• Telling stories (not from a book)

• Playing or listening to music, singing, or doing other musical activities

• Drawing, painting or making things

• Playing with toys or games indoors

• Playing sports or physically active games, indoors or outdoors

• Taking the child to the park or outdoor playground

  
  

In the recommendations section, PIECE summarises this as: "Talking and play-centred activities are most conducive to a child's education and learning" (p.31). It encourages dads to engage in multiple types of structured activity several times a week, even for short periods. It points specifically to the Fatherhood Institute's Fathers Reading Every Day (FRED) programme, which asks dads to commit to 10–20 minutes a day of reading or storytelling, and has been shown to lift EYFSP attainment at age 5 - especially for boys (p.31).

It also recommends that dads build a relationship with their child's school: making sure the school has their contact details, attending parents' evenings, and participating in school activities. PIECE notes that this is currently rare, as only 32% of dads participate in their child's school in any way, compared to 61% of mums (p.22).

What Dads Kids Club does

Coincidence or the universe telling us we are doing the right thing? When we got started, we weren’t actually aware of the PIECE report. After spending time listening to school leaders, dads and kids, we just started doing our dad-led, screen-free, hands-on activity clubs at primary schools and community spaces, primarily on Saturdays, as it felt like the most useful and best thing to do to help increase a child’s engagement in their education. The Report has now become like a checklist for us in advance of every session.

Now, read the PIECE list of recommended activities again:

• Sport and physical play - core to every session

• Music - singing, instruments, listening sessions all feature

• Drawing, painting and making things - a regular feature across clubs

• Playing with toys and games indoors - a constant, we love LEGO

• Outdoor play and parks - central to DKC's outdoor and farm-based sessions, including the new monthly clubs at Vauxhall City Farm

• Telling stories - woven through hands-on activities

• Reading - DKC now provides books for children to take home, allowing the FRED-style 10-minutes-a-day routine to extend the impact of the club into the rest of the week. 

  
  

Six of the seven PIECE-measured engagement activities have been a constant part of a standard DKC Saturdays. The seventh - reading - is now supported through book provision as book availability allows, so dads can take the structured engagement model home with them. We’re always on the look out for more books, btw! 

DKC also delivers something PIECE highlights as important but currently very rare - visible father presence in and around the school. Thus far, every DKC club happens at the school itself, with dads inside the gates, on the school's grounds, working alongside school staff and other parents. This is the precise structural shift PIECE's recommendations call for under "What can schools and early years settings do" (p.32–34) - schools normalising dads as recognised, expected, named participants in children's education, rather than treating mum as the default point of contact. As we take Dads Kids Club to more community spaces, we will continue to recommend this. 

Why this matters

PIECE concludes with a sentence that, on the face of it, looks academic. Read carefully, it's a mandate:

"Greater fathers' involvement appears to provide an educational advantage to children, and this effect is important and seems to operate in different ways to the effects from the mothers' involvement." (p.29)

Translated into plain language, when dads show up in the right ways, children do better at school. The effect is real, it is measurable and it works on top of what mums contribute. It works for disadvantaged children. It compounds over time. And it doesn't require dads to be experts - it requires them to read for ten minutes, kick a ball about, build something, sing, draw, talk.

Dads Kids Club was built on the conviction that this was true. PIECE confirmed it after we started.

What DKC adds, beyond what an individual dad can do at home, is the structure that makes the recommended activities easier to actually deliver. The Saturday format gives dads a regular, predictable slot in the week / month. The school-based delivery gives them visible presence inside the educational setting. The peer environment gives them other engaged dads to learn from. The activity mix covers six of the seven PIECE-recommended engagement types in a single morning. And the books we now provide extend the reading habit into the home, where PIECE's strongest single statistic - the 60% versus 38% gap on EYFSP achievement - is generated.

The evidence base on father engagement is now clear. The activities that work are well-defined. The challenge is no longer knowing what to do; it is creating the conditions in which dads can actually do it. That is the gap Dads Kids Club was built to fill.

Reference

Norman, H. & Davies, J. (2023). "What a difference a dad makes." Paternal Involvement and its Effects on Children's Education (PIECE) study. Leeds: University of Leeds. piecestudy.org

Scott

I'm Scott. Founder of Dads Kids Club. We're a dad-led Community Interest Company that invites men to get more involved in their kids' education - improving children's educational engagement, men's mental health and life opportunities for both. 

We invite, train and mobilise dads, step-dads, grandads, uncles and male carers to co-run screen-free, hands-on Saturday clubs at their children's primary schools. Men share skills, connect and bond. Children enjoy beyond-the-curriculum activities - building confidence, new skills and memories that last. We celebrate all masculinities, backgrounds, identities and beliefs.

If you work in education, family services, philanthropy or simply believe in what happens when dads show up - I'd love to connect.

📧 info@dadskids.club 🌐@DadsKidsClub (on Instagram)