The Nuffield Early Language Intervention is a programme developed for reception-age children needing additional support with their speech, language and early literacy skills. This intervention is not available to early years group based or childminder settings. A different but related oral language programme, called NELI Preschool, is available to support practitioners working with 3-4 year olds in group-based settings. A trial of NELI Preschool is currently being recruited to in some regions across England with places co-funded by DfE’s stronger practice hubs and Education Endowment Foundation. The data for NELI Preschool is not captured here.
NELI was rolled out in academic year 2020/21, ahead of the wider early years education recovery programme with funding from the National Tutoring Programme.
NELI data is provided by our delivery partner, OxEd & Assessment. We include the number of participating schools, which since academic year 2021/22 is collected by Nuffield Foundation and their delivery partners on behalf of DfE. DfE was responsible for collecting school participation data in 2020/21. Participating schools are defined as those that have registered and signed a Memorandum of Understanding; this allows them to train staff, use LanguageScreen, and receive a NELI pack that contains the scripted intervention and other resources. We include the number of children that have been assessed using LanguageScreen which helps to identify which children within a reception class would most benefit from the intervention. Use of this tool is encouraged and failure to carry out the assessment with children does not preclude access to NELI training or materials.
We also include our delivery partner’s estimate of the number of children who have received the intervention. The annual estimate is based on independently collected data and analysis by RAND that is included in the Nuffield Early Language Evaluation Report. The number of children estimated to have benefited from the intervention in this report has been extrapolated across delivery years using the number of registered schools. This assumes the intervention rate at registered schools has remained consistent. The independent EEF report estimated that a total of 94,000 children were supported by NELI in the first two years of delivery, with 35,304 children from 6,668 schools receiving the intervention in 2020/21 and an estimated 58,696 children across 11,086 schools receiving the intervention in 2021/22. On the basis that 11,112 schools were supported in academic year 2022/23, our delivery partner has extrapolated from the EEF data that an additional 58,833 children will have received the intervention in that year (total children 2021/22 x number of schools 2022/23 ÷ number of schools 2021/22).