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Two-thirds of primary schools took part in covid
recovery programme for four- and five-year olds
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Independent evalution finds lasting benefits of taking
part in nuffield early language intervention
Almost 11,000 schools – or two-thirds of state-funded schools in
England with reception pupils – took part in a government-funded
roll-out of a programme to support four- and five-year-olds who
would benefit from additional support with their language skills,
according to an independent evaluation published by the Education
Endowment Foundation (EEF) today.
The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) was offered to
state-funded primary schools across two school years (2020-21 and
2021-22). The EEF and Nuffield Foundation oversaw the roll-out of
the first and second years of delivery respectively, with a team
based at the University of Oxford and then at the university’s
spinout organisation, OxEd and Assessment, managing the delivery
of the programme. The roll-out was supported by Oxford University
Press, who helped with supplying resources to schools.
Both years of activity were funded by the Department for
Education as part of their wider COVID-recovery efforts. A team
from RAND Europe was commissioned to conduct an independent
evaluation of the scale-up, through surveys, interviews, focus
groups and data analysis.
Developed by researchers at the Universities of Oxford, Sheffield
and York, NELI trains teaching assistants or early years
educators to deliver scripted individual and small-group language
sessions to four- and five-year-olds identified as needing
additional support over the course of 20 weeks.
Two independent evaluations of NELI are published today. A
process evaluation of the national roll-out, conducted by RAND
Europe, found that it was well managed and easy for schools to
access. However, some schools were unable to deliver the
programme as intended due to Covid-related disruptions. For
example, some adapted the number of one-to-one sessions, while
others continued delivery into Year 1.
Schools thought that taking part in NELI had been beneficial for
their pupils’ oral language skills and confidence with using
language. This wasparticularly true for schools who delivered the
programme as intended. An impact evaluation of the national
roll-out will be published later this year.
Last year, an EEF-funded study on
the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on four-and five-year olds
found that it was their early literacy skills that had been most
affected, with parents and schools perceiving that language and
communication skills had been negatively impacted by their
children’s experiences during the pandemic.
The NELI programme has been robustly tested through several
trials, including two funded by the EEF. The most recent,
involving 193 schools, found that children who received NELI
made, on average, three months of additional progress in oral
language skills compared to a similar group of children who did
not receive NELI.
The EEF has published longer-term analysis from this independent
evaluation of NELI today. The evaluators from RAND Europe found
that many of the benefits of taking part in NELI remained when
children were six or seven. They also found some evidence that
taking part in NELI could be particularly beneficial for
socio-economically disadvantaged pupils. In this follow-up
project, the University of Oxford recruited schools to take part
and supported them to complete the assessments.
Professor Becky Francis CBE, Chief Executive of the
Education Endowment Foundation, said:
“We know that parents and schools have been worried about the
impact of the pandemic on children’s language skills. So, it is
terrific that so many schools in England were able to take up the
offer of the NELI programme, as part of the Department for
Education’s recovery efforts.
“There’s robust evidence showing NELI to be effective in
supporting children’s communication and language skills and
today’s new findings suggest that the positive benefits for
children are still seen later in primary school.
“Today’s reports give us a great example of how evidence can
be successfully scaled and mobilised to address a real and
pressing need. The success of the roll-out is also testament to
the power of collaboration, with many different organisations
contributing.”
Josh Hillman, Director of Education at the Nuffield
Foundation, said:
“For two thirds of primary schools in England to take up an
intervention programme is an extraordinary
development.
“It took a pandemic to mobilise this, not least because of
the effects of lockdowns and the closures of nurseries and
schools on early language development. But, as the evidence
shows, the NELI programme is important and effective for pupils’
language and communication skills.
“This roll-out will stand schools and the children they serve
for years to come. The Nuffield Foundation is proud to have
played an integral role in the programme’s
success.’’
