EAL: Our Calls for Change and the Evidence

The lack of policy designed to integrate EAL learners – who make up over 21% of the school population – must be urgently addressed. All future policy must be informed by robust analysis of EAL learners’ data, including time of arrival in the school system, first language, and proficiency in English.

When aggregated, data on EAL pupils is deeply misleading as it masks a huge level of complexity. EAL pupils are a very diverse group, including both a child from an advantaged, multilingual household who is fluent in English, as well as a newly-arrived refugee, who has experienced disrupted or no schooling and is new to English.

EAL status is not an indicator of proficiency in English, hence a focus on average achievement of EAL children doesn't allow us to understand the nuances of language learning need within this diverse group.

Moreover, in 2011, the ring-fenced Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant funding was removed and the “EAL factor” in the national funding formula, which replaced it, has increased at half the rate of funding for other pupils. As a result, the majority of dedicated expertise and support for EAL pupils has disappeared from the system.

Proficiency in English is a powerful predictor of achievement for EAL pupils: it explains four to six times as much variation in achievement as gender, free school meals and ethnicity combined.

Assessing English proficiency is key to delivering effective, tailored classroom support. Statutory assessment should be (re)introduced in England – as is already the case in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

A more holistic approach to assessment should be built into existing mechanisms, alongside English proficiency scales, to ensure that every student achieves their academic potential.

Tools like our EAL Assessment Framework enable meaningful evaluations, helping schools shape teaching strategies, set individual targets, and provide tailored support.

A highly prescriptive curriculum is in need of reform to deliver in today’s multilingual classrooms and in early years settings. Updating it to include diverse texts and materials that connect learning to children’s cultural and linguistic backgrounds would enrich their educational experience and foster inclusivity in schools.

The rigidity of the current educational stages doesn’t always help some EAL learners either. They need flexible programmes of learning which match their existing skills and disparate needs, with a better range of appropriate qualifications (e.g. three-year GCSEs), supporting both their academic and/or vocational learning and their English language development.

When it comes to assessment, evaluating EAL learners mostly through exams puts them at a great disadvantage – particularly teenage refugees who arrive later into the school system. Learners end up being assessed twice, having to demonstrate not only that they know the subject, but that they understand it in English.

The Government has promised 6,500 new teachers as part of their first steps towards breaking down barriers to opportunity and transforming schools. Most of them now have multilingual classrooms as the norm. With little CPD time and opportunities, teachers repeatedly tell us that they don’t feel prepared to teach children who speak English as an Additional Language alongside their monolingual peers, with no reference to this in Initial Teacher Training nor Early Career Frameworks.

An effective teacher training programme – including how to support EAL learners at different stages in school – is needed to generate and maintain EAL expertise in schools. 

It takes more than 6 years to reach English proficiency. EAL children who arrive in school later (after Year 6) – many of which are refugees or unaccompanied asylum seekers – have less time to catch up and are left behind.  

Provision is needed in schools and/or colleges that enables pupils who arrive later into the English school system to access a broad curriculum. 

For late arrivals who are developing competence, on the other hand, teachers need to focus on enhancing their listening and speaking skills, building confidence, and preparing them for more complex language use (i.e.  academic spoken language) which often lags behind conversational fluency.

Explore our research on late arrivals, which we have carried out alongside our partners, Refugee Education UK.

On oracy, teachers need to provide learners new to English with a structured approach that exposes them to academic and social language and ensures scaffolded speaking activities across the curriculum to build their confidence.

EAL is one of the additional needs factors in the national funding formula for schools, recognising the support needed by this group. Yet this factor has not increased at the same rate as support for other pupils, nor is it ring-fenced. It is also only funded for three years, whereas evidence shows that it takes over six years to achieve full academic proficiency in English. It is vital that the formula appropriately recognises the support needs of EAL pupils.