A third of primary schools have yet to sign up to the government’s £17 million early years language catch-up scheme designed for Reception-age children, new figures published today reveal.
The Department for Education said today that primary schools that haven’t signed up to the programme should have other interventions in place to help early years foundation stage (EYFS) pupils catch up on early language and communication skills, and that progress in this area is being monitored by Ofsted.
The DfE funded the rollout of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme to help four- to five-year-old pupils impacted by the pandemic catch up on speech, language and communication skills.
The scheme was first launched in 2020, and last year the government said 62,000 four- and five-year-olds had access to the first wave of the programme, offered from January 2021, after around 40 per cent (6,600) of primary schools signed up.
Around 4,300 more schools signed up to train to run the programme this academic year after the DfE opened the scheme up to every school with a Reception class last May.
The government now says that 90,000 pupils from 11,000 primary schools across England - around two-thirds of the total number of primaries - have signed up to the programme.
The scheme is a 20-week intervention that is usually delivered by a specially trained teaching assistant.
‘Language is key’
Speaking about the scheme, children and families minister Will Quince said it was “encouraging” that so many schools had taken up the offer.
“Being able to confidently communicate is vital in shaping a child’s ability to understand and engage with the wider world,” he added.
“Language is key to a child’s development and we know that for many children the pandemic meant they missed out on important early social interactions, like parties or play dates.”
James Bowen, director of policy for school leaders’ union the NAHT, said that the union had heard from school leaders that the disruption of the past two years has had an impact on some children’s early language and communication skills.
But he added that it was “important that schools continue to be able to choose the interventions that are right for their pupils”.
The NELI scheme is delivered over 20 weeks and involves scripted individual and small-group language sessions delivered by trained teaching staff.
The most recent large trial of NELI, funded by the Education Endowment Foundation, showed that pupils receiving the intervention made an extra three months of additional progress in their oral language skills compared with their peers who did not take part.
However, the scheme has also attracted some criticism from teachers who feel it does not align with their pedagogical approach.
