My reflections on our ESOL Beacon Award finalists

Exactly a year to date, The Bell Foundation embarked on a new adventure as sponsor of the inaugural Beacon Award for Excellence in ESOL in order to recognise exceptional achievements in the teaching, learning, and support of learners who are speakers of languages other than English in college.  

As the sponsor-assessor for the award, I count myself extremely lucky to have met truly inspirational learners and passionate staff and leaders giving their all to make a difference to their students’ lives, and to hear their touching and life-changing success stories up and down the country.  

This year’s finalists, Bradford College, Nottingham College, and New College Durham, all deserve to be both celebrated and held up as beacons of excellence for other colleges to learn from and with. While the innovations they showcased varied according to the different contexts in which they are situated, they nevertheless have a number of features in common.  

All three colleges understood that for their learners to thrive, reach their potential, and achieve their goals, just offering ESOL classes would not be enough. This is why their provision is broader, holistic, and well-integrated, unlocking learners’ social integration, progression to further study and the world of work, active participation in their local community, and fulfilling lives as citizens living in their new home.  

Committed leadership in these colleges continues to invest in strong, impactful partnerships and in new approaches to teaching and learning, securing and ring-fencing funding to sustain and further develop these effective initiatives into the future. The finalists have adapted with great flexibility to the impact of recent socio-economic and political changes, developing highly responsive designs to support diverse new cohorts of learners, many of whom have histories of displacement, traumatic separation, and previous disrupted schooling.  

From drama-embodied learning approaches and volunteering and ambassador schemes to sports enrichment opportunities and demand-led ESOL Plus embedded courses, the three colleges rose to the challenge with creative innovations resulting in high levels of confidence, engagement, wellbeing, and a sense of belonging as well as dramatic increases in retention and achievement.  

I am thankful to each individual I met in my assessor visits for a humbling and eye-opening experience which reminded me of the power of education in changing lives and overcoming exclusion. You are the tangible embodiment of the Foundation’s mission.