EAL: Our Calls for Change and the Evidence

The lack of policy designed to integrate EAL learners who make up 20% 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.

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 for EAL pupils explains 4 to 6 times as much variation in achievement as gender, free school meals and ethnicity combined. Assessing 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.

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 vital that the formula appropriately recognises the support needs of EAL pupils.

Teachers repeatedly tell us that they don’t feel prepared for multilingual classrooms. Yet Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Frameworks don’t sufficiently address how to teach children who speak English as an Additional Language.  

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 6+ years to reach English proficiency. Children speaking English as an Additional Language (EAL) who arrive in school later (after Year 6) have less time to catch up. Many are left behind, without access to a broader curriculum.  

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

On oracy, teachers need to provide learners new to English with a structured approach that emphasises immersion, teaching essential vocabulary and simple phrases for participating in classroom interaction, as well as daily routines that involve speaking and listening.

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.

Ofsted has a central role to play in ensuring that high standards of provision are maintained for all pupils, working with schools and colleges to promote inclusion and best practice.

It is key that Ofsted inspectors explicitly review the provision for learners whose first language is not English – in schools and in colleges – including the quality of teaching, learning and assessment.  By reintroducing an explicit focus on this group of learners, inspections can highlight good practice, identify and prevent areas of concern (such as the use of "withdrawal practices"), and support schools and colleges to ensure the rights, needs, and outcomes of these learners are not overlooked.

EAL, and the specific focus on inspecting how schools integrate EAL learners and ensure their access to the curriculum, was removed from the Education Inspection Framework in 2019. References to EAL remain in the initial teacher education inspection handbook and Teacher Standard 5 but have also been removed from the school inspections handbook.