PECE: Positive Early Childhood Education – Powered by Triple P
The PECE program is a professional development programme that helps early years practitioners create warm, responsive environments that support children’s emotional, behavioural and cognitive development. PECE is aligned with the world-leading, evidence-based Triple P – Positive Parenting Program® developed by The University of Queensland, Australia.
PECE has two separate training elements, including one for educators and one for setting managers:
- PECE Online – An online, self-paced professional learning programme for early years educators working with children aged three to four years. The programme includes four one-hour modules and is designed to cultivate educators’ knowledge, confidence and skills.
- PECE Coaching – A professional training course typically undertaken by the setting manager or educational leader involving two days of training, plus a one-day pre-accreditation workshop and an accreditation session. Once training is complete, PECE coaches facilitate and support the professional learning of educators who complete PECE Online through observations and practice sessions.
About the trial
Triple P’s PECE programme has been linked to a variety of beneficial outcomes for educators and the children under their care. The results? Not just significantly less disruptive behaviour, but also increased job satisfaction, less stress at work and better teamwork.
Funded by the Education Endowment Fund (EEF), this randomised control trial aims to understand the impact that Triple P’s PECE programme has on children’s self-regulation. To do this, we’ve recruited 140 early years settings across England to take part, so we can compare the outcomes of children in settings where staff receive PECE training against those who don’t.
Commonly asked questions
To be eligible to participate in the trial, an early years setting must:
- Be a day nursery or pre-school in the private or voluntary sector, a state-funded nursery school, or a nursery setting in a state-funded primary school in England.
- Have at least 16 enrolled children aged three to four who attend at least 10 hours a week in September 2026 (born between 1 September 2022 and 31 August 2023).
- Nominate a PECE Coach who is based specifically within your setting, this role cannot be filled by a manager who works across multiple settings.
- Commit to not taking part in another Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) trial with three to four year-olds during the same year (excluding the Maths Champions Scale-up programme that EEF is supporting).
- Have not already delivered the PECE programme within the last five years or currently offer a Triple P programme to parents in your setting.
Not only will you be part of creating national evidence on how to best support young children’s emotional and behavioural development, but early years settings allocated to the intervention group will receive:
- Access to free, high-quality professional development.
- A thank you payment of £400 (split into two payments).
- Reimbursement for staff training (£7.50 per hour):
- A total of 7 hours per educator (£7.50 per hour) for completion of the online programme (4 hours) and up to 3 practice sessions.
- A total of 3.5 days per setting manager / PECE coach (£60 per day) for completion of PECE coach accreditation.
- A £50 voucher for completing paper questionnaires about children’s behaviour.
Early years settings assigned to the comparison group will receive:
- A thank you payment of £1400 (split into two payments).
- £400 after baseline data submission (pupil data) in September – October 2026
- £1000 after outcome data completion (paper questionnaires and observation-based assessments) in June – July 2027.
- A £50 voucher for completing paper questionnaires about children’s behaviour in June – July 2027.
Early years settings assigned to the waiting list will receive:
- The opportunity to take part in the trial if a place becomes available.
- A thank you payment of £100 for settings that provide baseline data but are not ultimately granted a place on the trial.
Additional thank you vouchers will be given to early years settings selected to take part in interviews and in observations or coaching sessions.
As part of the evaluation, all settings (including comparison and waitlist settings) will be asked to:
- Share a parent information sheet with families explaining the study and how they can opt their child out, if they choose.
- Share information about staff and children securely with the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen).
- Ask staff to complete short online surveys in September – October 2026 and again in June – July 2027.
- Facilitate observation-based assessments carried out by independent testing administrators from AlphaPlus in June – July 2027.
- Support research activities such as interviews and observations (selected settings).
If your setting participates in the intervention group, you will be asked to:
- Have setting managers attend three 1.5-hour online Implementation Cluster sessions facilitated by a Triple P Implementation Consultant.
- Have setting managers/leaders that are based within your setting commit time to become a PECE coach, including 3.5 days of online training across a number of different modules.
- Ensure educators working with three- to four-year-olds complete the four one–hour online learning modules, followed by PECE Coaching sessions with their setting manager/leader.
- Ensure coaches attend 1:1 remote clinical support (provided by Triple P UK) during the delivery period for a total of two hours.
- Have PECE practitioners implement the programme in accordance with agreed protocols, including PECE coaches observing two to four practice sessions per educator within the setting to support them in applying PECE strategies.
Training will take place between November and December 2026; settings will continue implementing PECE strategies until July 2027.
A randomised controlled trial is a study where research participants are randomly allocated to one of two groups – the intervention group or the comparison group.
In this case, settings have a 50/50 chance of being allocated to receive the PECE training programme (the intervention group), while comparison group settings will continue with their normal early learning and care practices.
The allocation is random (by chance), which ensures there is a fair and unbiased process for deciding which settings receive the programme.
At the end of the evaluation, the children’s personal, social and emotional development will be compared across both groups to see if there is any difference.
Using randomly assigned groups is the best way of understanding whether any differences in outcomes can be attributed to the programme.
- March – August 2026: Settings sign up and complete onboarding.
- September 2026: Settings share pupil/staff details and complete baseline surveys.
- October 2026: Settings are notified of their group allocation (Intervention or Comparison).
- November – December 2026: Training takes place for the Intervention group.
- January – June 2027: Programme implementation in settings.
- June – July 2027: Final research activities and assessments.
If your setting is allocated to the comparison group, you will continue with your usual early learning and care practice during the evaluation period. Comparison group settings still play a vital role in helping build national evidence about what works in early years settings.
Comparison group settings will:
- Share eligible pupil and practitioner information securely with NatCen in September 2026
- Ask staff to complete short online surveys at the beginning and end of the academic year
- Facilitate observation-based child assessments in June – July 2027
- Support selected research activities such as interviews or observations, if invited.
In recognition of the time involved in supporting the evaluation, comparison group settings will receive:
- A thank you payment of £1,400, split into two payments (conditional on providing the required data)
- A £50 voucher for completing paper questionnaires about children’s behaviour
- Additional ‘thank you’ vouchers if selected to take part in interviews or coaching observations.
Comparison group settings must not take part in another EEF trial involving three-to-four-year-olds aimed at improving self-regulation during the same academic year.
All participating settings will be asked to support evaluation activities, including sharing data and enabling staff to complete short online surveys at two points during the project.
These surveys will take approximately 3-4 minutes per child to complete and will take place in:
- September – October 2026 (baseline survey)
- June – July 2027 (end-of-project survey)
If allocated to the intervention group:
- The nominated PECE Coach (usually a setting manager or senior leader) will complete approximately 3.5 days of online training and accreditation, attend three 1.5-hour implementation sessions, and receive 2 hours of 1:1 clinical support. Please note: this role cannot be fulfilled by a manager who works across multiple settings in a chain, they must be based at the participating setting.
- Up to ten educators working with three-to-four-year-olds will complete four one-hour online modules.
- Coaches will deliver two to four short practice sessions per educator to support implementation.
Training takes place between November and December 2026, with implementation continuing until July 2027.
Financial contributions are provided to support staff time for training:
- £7.50 per hour (up to seven hours) per educator completing the PECE online programme and practice sessions.
- £60 per day (up to 3.5 days) for the PECE Coach completing training and accreditation.
The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) is the independent evaluator for this trial and is responsible for data protection and ethics.
Participating settings will securely share limited information about eligible children (such as name, date of birth, postcode and attendance hours) and practitioner contact details for research purposes only.
All data will be handled in line with UK GDPR and stored securely. No setting, practitioner or child will be named in any published report. At the end of the evaluation, anonymised data will be archived for future research in line with Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) requirements.
Parents will be informed about the study and can opt their child out if they wish.
No, there is no cost to early years settings for taking part in the PECE trial.
While there is normally a cost to participate in the PECE programme, participation is free for settings involved in this evaluation.
If you have further questions about the trial, please contact the PECE project team at: earlyyearspeceproject@triplep.uk.net
