King’s College London and the University of Cambridge

EAL Assessment

Project Partners

King's College London and University of Cambridge

About the Project

Between autumn 2016 and spring 2018, UK schools were required to test and collect the English language proficiency levels of their EAL pupils for the school census (DfE 2016). As research on EAL and educational achievement outlines, the current EAL flag gives limited indication of a child’s proficiency in English and does not distinguish, for example, between pupils who lack a basic command of the English language and those who are bilingual and have mastered English sufficiently to access the curriculum.

When this project was undertaken, schools in England were preparing to follow a five-point Proficiency in English scale which was already being used in Wales, however, there remained no one tool or recommended framework for assessing an EAL learner’s proficiency in the English language when they arrived at a new school or as they progressed through the school. In addition, there was a lack of time and resource within UK schools but also a more general lack of EAL assessment expertise which needed to be addressed.

Research by the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University on School Approaches to the Education of EAL Students made a series of recommendations regarding assessment which can be found in the report’s Executive Summary. These findings have informed The Bell Foundation’s Assessment project, which has developed an EAL Assessment Framework and tool for use in UK schools.