This report by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) shows that the national roll-out of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic had a positive impact on young children’s language development.
The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) was offered to all state-funded schools in England with Reception classes across three academic years (2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23), funded by the Department for Education. Over 6,500 schools registered to take part in the first year, while a further 4,000 signed up across the second and third years of delivery.
The independent evaluation, conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), found that children who took part in the programme made on average four months’ additional progress in their language skills, compared to children in participating schools who didn’t receive the intervention. The study looked at data from 10,800 children in 350 schools who registered for the second year of the national roll-out (2021-22).
The report found that children eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) made on average seven months’ additional progress as a result of receiving the programme, suggesting that NELI could help to close the language development gap between socio-economically disadvantaged children and their peers.
The findings also showed that the impact was greater for children who received more of the programme sessions compared with children who received fewer sessions. Due to ongoing disruption caused by the pandemic, many schools included in the evaluation – which examined the impact of NELI in the academic year 2021-22 – were unable to deliver all the sessions as intended. But even for children who received fewer sessions, there was an average positive impact on their language outcomes.