Delivery of NELI deviated from the prescribed model in some schools, and teaching assistants reported difficulty devoting enough time to the programme¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · qualitativer2·q2
Currency · newest study 2016 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? Five of the 31 completing schools showed significant deviations in structure and delivery, and TAs found the workload hard to manage without senior-staff support. → Sibieta 2016
Evidence¶
Sibieta 2016¶
Sibieta, L., Kotecha, M., & Skipp, A. (2016). Nuffield Early Language Intervention: Evaluation report and executive summary. Education Endowment Foundation. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects/language-for-learning/
q2 · i? · qualitative · r2
Process evaluation finding from staff interviews and project-team delivery data. The team reported that "5 of the 31 schools" completing the intervention showed significant deviations, including delayed starts, failing to deliver three group sessions per week, and merging the 20- and 30-week groups; deviations were otherwise generally in line with the prescribed model.
"Teaching assistants delivering the programme reported that they found it difficult to devote enough time to it, and that support from senior staff was required to protect the programme time."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Many teaching assistants did not feel confident delivering the intervention after the initial five days of training without ongoing support, and the language comprehension component was hardest to deliver. — related
- Staff views of the interventions were more positive in schools with experienced TAs, senior staff support, and a dedicated delivery space. — related
- Implementation fidelity of Switch-on was compromised in some schools, with modifications to prescribed content, duration and format of sessions — related
- Neither the 30-week nor the 20-week version of NELI showed reliable short-term impact on children's word-level literacy skills — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
status |
review |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-11-02 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.