Findings from kindergartens in Italy, Slovenia and Croatia
Children taking part in EduSkills+ SEL made more progress overall than children in the control groups, according to their educators’ assessments. This encouraging pattern was observed in the combined analysis across all three countries.
EduSkills+ SEL is designed to help young children, aged around 4 to 6, develop important personal, social and learning skills. These include understanding and managing feelings, building relationships, communicating with others and developing skills that support learning.
Over about six months, trained educators guided children through a series of playful, story-based activities. Each participating kindergarten carried out at least 25 activities built around themes such as emotions, friendships and communication, using storytelling, movement, music and art.
After about six months, 255 children took part in the final assessment: 133 had taken part in EduSkills+ SEL, while 122 were in the control group, continuing with their regular kindergarten programme and not taking part in the EduSkills+ SEL activities.
Assessments were carried out in both groups before and after the programme. Their own educators rated eight skills using a checklist adapted for young children and based on LifeComp, the EU framework for personal, social and learning competencies.
The eight competencies were:
For the overall picture, we combined the data from all three countries. Comparing the intervention and control groups helped us see whether children taking part in EduSkills+ SEL showed a stronger pattern of progress over the same period.
Broadly, yes. Before the programme began, the intervention and control groups were, overall, at a very similar starting point (3.46 vs. 3.49 out of 5 — a difference so small it is not statistically meaningful). There was one specific skill, flexibility, where the control group started out a little ahead. So this was not a comparison between a strong group and a weak one — both groups began from a very similar position.
Both groups showed some improvement. The control group’s average scores went up across all eight skills. The clearest improvement was in self-regulation — the only increase that was statistically significant — while the changes in the other seven areas were smaller and less certain.
What set the intervention group apart was a much stronger and more consistent pattern of improvement: mean scores increased across all eight skills, and every increase was statistically significant. The comparison below shows the overall average across all eight skills.
| Children in the programme | Children not in the programme | |
| Before the programme | 3.46 out of 5 | 3.49 out of 5 |
| After several months | 4.33 out of 5 | 3.66 out of 5 |
Average score across all eight skills measured (scale of 1 to 5), combining data from Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia.
Children in the programme showed improvement across all the personal, social and learning skills we tracked. Growth Mindset and Learning Management showed the largest increase over time, while Critical Thinking showed the largest difference between the intervention and control groups at the end of the programme. For children in the control group, the clearest improvement was in self-regulation, although the increase was smaller than in the intervention group.
Both groups showed some positive change over the pilot period. The control group’s average scores rose across all eight skills, while children who took part in EduSkills+ SEL showed a much stronger and more consistent pattern of improvement, with significant increases across every skill measured. By the end of the programme, children in the EduSkills+ SEL group scored significantly higher than the control group in all eight skills. This is a genuinely encouraging sign that the EduSkills+ SEL programme may support young children’s social and emotional development.
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