Dads are vital to success for children

Fathers can boost their child's achievements in education

- PAUL BENNETT

A FATHER'S involvement in childcare has a big positive impact on their child's school achievement, research has found.

The University of Leeds study found interactive dads can give their children an educational advantage at primary school by reading, singing, drawing, and playing with them on a regular basis.

The longitudinal analysis in England explored the relationship between fathers' childcare involvement and their children's achievement at school.

The paternal focused study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and led by Dr Helen Norman, Research Fellow at Leeds University Business School, in collaboration with co-author Dr Jeremy Davies, Head of Impact and Communications at the Fatherhood Institute, and co-investigators at the University of Manchester.

Analysing primary school test scores for five, seven and eleven-year-olds, the researchers used a representative sample of nearly 5,000 mother-father households in England from the Millenium Cohort Study, which collected data on children born in 2000-02.