The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) for pupils in reception is designed to improve the language skills of pupils aged four to five and involves scripted individual and small group language teaching sessions delivered by school staff, usually teaching assistants (TAs). The 20-week targeted programme consists of two 15-minute individual sessions and three 30-minute small group sessions each week, delivered to the three to six pupils with the weakest language skills in each classroom.
The sessions focus on improving pupil’s vocabulary, active listening, and narrative skills and in the second ten weeks include a small additional element focusing on developing phonological awareness and letter – sound knowledge.
The programme was developed by researchers led by Professors Charles Hulme and Maggie Snowling (now at the University of Oxford) including Silke Fricke and Claudine Bowyer-Crane (now at the University of Sheffield). It was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and has been evaluated extensively by the EEF. The programme is now delivered through OxEd & Assessment (OxEd), a University of Oxford spin-out.
EEF’s Early Years Toolkit shows that communication and language approaches can have a very high impact on pupil outcomes.
The EEF trialled this specific programme on multiple occasions at efficacy, effectiveness, and scale up-level. This means that EEF have trialled this programme once under best possible conditions, a second time with a larger number of schools under real world conditions, and again with over 6,500 schools as education recovery support following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The efficacy trial of NELI in reception found that children who received the 20-week programme made, on average, two months of additional progress in their oral language skills, compared to those who did not receive NELI. The effectiveness trial then tested a revised version of the 20-week programme, which found that children who received the NELI programme made the equivalent of three additional months’ additional progress in language skills, on average, compared to children who did not receive NELI. These results have a four-padlock security rating which means that we are confident that this difference was due to the intervention and not other factors.
The programme was supported to national roll out level after the covid pandemic as part of the Government’s recovery programme. EEF conducted a scale-up impact evaluation during this period which found that children who received NELI made the equivalent of four additional months’ progress in language skills (using a tool called LanguageScreen which is part of the programme), on average, compared to children who did not receive NELI. These results have a three-padlock security rating which means that we are moderately confident that this difference was due to the intervention and not other factors. Exploratory subgroup analyses of the impact of the NELI on language skills highlighted that pupils learning English as an Additional Language equally benefited from the programme and pupils eligible for Free School Meals made an average of seven months’ additional progress, although these results should be interpreted with caution due to the smaller number of pupils.
These positive results from multiple trials have led EEF to designate NELI as a ‘Promising Programme’. A full overview of EEF trials of NELI can be found here.
- The scale-up evaluation looked at a sample of 356 schools delivering NELI in all nine regions of England.
- 15% of the analysed pupils in the evaluation were eligible for FSM. This is lower than national average.
- Around 19% of the pupils in the evaluation had English as a second language. This is similar to national average.
Educators working in Reception, mostly TAs, participate in an online training programme, consisting of three online courses which typically take 10 – 12 hours to complete, which includes mentoring by speech and language specialists. The first two courses are completed before NELI delivery begins, and a third short course is completed halfway through programme delivery. There is also a NELI Support Hub which provides additional information and guidance throughout programme delivery.
TAs or early years educators delivering the programme to pupils provide three 30-minute small group sessions to 3 – 6 pupils and two 15-minute individual sessions per week for each of the 3 – 6 children. Participating schools receive one NELI pack per reception class. lans, two sets of posters, flashcards, and one Ted puppet to support session delivery. The materials include two teacher handbooks with detailed lesson plans, two sets of posters, flashcards, and one Ted puppet to support session delivery.
Schools use a short, online assessment called LanguageScreen to assess all children’s language and use the resulting report to identify those who would benefit from targeted intervention. LanguageScreen is used again at the end of the programme delivery to track the progress of children’s oral language skills and measure the impact of the language support provided in school.
NELI was widely perceived by school staff as beneficial for pupils’ language abilities and confidence using language, particularly for schools that had completed the full NELI programme (in the scale up evaluation an average of 11 out of 20 weeks were delivered). Schools running the NELI programme should plan carefully and identify when and where they will deliver the programme to pupils each week.
In the effectiveness evaluation, the average cost of NELI for pupils in reception for a one-form-entry school was around £870 over 3 years, or £58 per intervention pupil per year when averaged over 3 years. This implementation cost has been rated very low by EEF when compared to other programmes that EEF have evaluated.
This is an estimate of holistic school costs to implement the programme at the time of the evaluation, and so may not reflect the current purchase cost. Schools should check the current cost to purchase the programme through the programme provider, OxEd and Assessment.
NELI is available to settings in England , across the UK, and internationally. Since the national rollout, additional support has been put in place to ensure that practitioners have what they need at every stage of their NELI programme delivery, including a Refresher Course, regular webinars through the year and a support team.
The Department for Education has announced that funding to support delivery of NELI in all state-funded schools will continue for a further 4 academic years until the end of AY 2028/29. Schools can find out more on the TeachNELI website.
The EEF are separately trialling an oral language enrichment and intervention programme for children in the year before they enter formal education, called NELI Preschool. The evaluation report will be published in 2026. Settings can find out more about NELI Preschool on the OxEd website.
The EEF are also separately trialling the OxEd Whole Class programme, which builds on the same principles of NELI and applies them in a whole-class context to support language development for all children. The trial aims to assess the impact of whole-class language enrichment when delivered on its own and alongside additional targeted support (NELI). The evaluation report will be published in 2029. Settings can find out more and express an interest in taking part here.