English as an Additional Language (EAL) and Educational Achievement in England: An Analysis of Publicly Available Data
This report is the latest in a series commissioned by the Bell Foundation and Unbound Philanthropy to Dr. Ariel Lindorff, Professor Steve Strand OBE, and Ivan Au at Oxford University. It provides new evidence about the growing number of EAL children in English schools – and why measuring proficiency in English is essential for schools to understand their attainment trajectory and unlock their potential.
This report is the latest in a series commissioned by the Bell Foundation and Unbound Philanthropy to Professor Steve Strand OBE and Dr. Ariel Lindorff at Oxford University.
It consists of detailed analysis of EAL children data from the National Pupil Database and highlights the critical importance of promoting a pupil’s Proficiency in English to their academic results, and future attainment.
Key findings
- The number and proportion of school-age pupils in England speaking English as an Additional Language (EAL) has continued to increase over time, from just under 500,000 or 7.6% of all pupils in 1997, to 1.05 million or 16.2% of all pupils in 2013, and 1.68 million or 20.5% of all pupils in 2023. The number of children who speak English as an Additional Language (EAL) across the country has increased by 4 to 5% between 2013 and 2023 and the proportion of them varies widely across England. The highest percentages of EAL children are found in urban areas, notably in London and the West Midlands
- A greater proportion of schools now have EAL speakers in their classes. In 2013, a quarter of English schools had at least 5% of EAL pupils. In 2023, this has risen to over half of English schools, while EAL pupils make up 50% of the roll in 10% of all primary schools and 8% of all secondary schools.
- London, the West Midlands and the North West have the highest number of schools with the majority of pupils (over 50%) speaking EAL. Nearly half (47.9%) of all the schools in London, 13.2% of all the schools in the West Midlands and 11.6% of the schools in the North West have over 50% of pupils who speak EAL.
- EAL is not a reliable indicator of ethnic minority status, as the proportions of ethnic minorities in the school population are much larger at 37.7%. Over 20 years the greatest increases have been in Any Other White (from 2.1% to 7.3%) and Black African (1.7% to 4.9%) and these two ethnic groups contain large proportions of pupils recorded as speaking EAL and tend to have larger achievement gaps.
- EAL and Educational Achievement: Looking at the data for each educational stage, the research finds that:
- At EYFS (age 5), in 2023, pupils using EAL are less likely than monolingual English peers to attain the expected standard or above in literacy, mathematics and in the overall category of a Good Level of Development (GLD), typically by around 7 percentage points.
- At KS 1 (age 7), the data shows that monolingual pupils are more likely than peers using EAL to attain the expected standard or above in reading by about 5 percentage points, and in science by 6-7%. In mathematics, monolingual pupils are more likely than pupils using EAL to achieve the expected standard but by a slimmer margin of about 2%.
- At KS 2 (age 11), in general, from 2013 through to 2023, monolingual pupils have remained more likely to attain the expected standard or above in reading than their counterparts using EAL as well as overall, but pupils using EAL have been at least slightly more likely to attain expected standards in mathematics and GPS.
- At KS 4 (age 16), there is some change over time in the achievement gaps between monolingual pupils and pupils using EAL. In English, pupils using EAL historically underperformed on average compared to their monolingual peers, at least to a slight extent, but by 2023 the difference was small and in favour of the EAL group. This was also true in Mathematics. EAL pupils have been more likely to achieve the EBacc with GCSE 9-4 or 9-5 passes than their monolingual peers.