About us
The Bell Foundation is a charity which aims to overcome exclusion through language education by working with partners on innovation, research, training and practical interventions.
How we work:
- We are focused on language education and social exclusion.
- We aim for scale and reach by delivering or funding programmes which are scalable nationally.
- We seek to measure impact, and our results are used to leverage change.
- We work to achieve system change.
- We influence and convene by bringing partners together and informing and influencing public policy.
- We innovate by developing new interventions.
- We are transparent and accessible operating in an open way.
- We are evidence-based and
- We engage for the long term.
The new strategy for 2025-2030 which was signed off by Trustees following a consultation with internal and external stakeholders has six overarching objectives.
- Improve the educational outcomes of EAL children through training teachers, school leadership, and other staff, and providing resources at scale. This will be achieved by increasing the reach and impact of Language for Results in key areas of need across the country that the programme does not currently cover.
- Improve the outcomes of adults who are excluded by language barriers so that they have increased opportunity to participate in the labour market and in the community. The Foundation’s existing criminal justice system work will be integrated into the ESOL Programme and refocussed on ESOL in the criminal justice system.
- Speak out through public policy, influencing, and communications work, to continue to ensure that policy reflects the needs of EAL and ESOL speakers through engagement with policy makers and stakeholders at all levels, communicating to relevant audiences, and driving meaningful behaviour change.
- Language for Results International: We will make this a net surplus revenue stream, providing a financial contribution to our charitable work.
- Assets: Continue to optimise the long-term return from all our assets to finance our charitable mission and vision.
- Building a strong and inclusive organisation: We will continue to uphold high standards of governance and build a strong and inclusive organisation. We will continue to measure the impact of our work with a new framework in support of our new strategy.
Our history
Frank Bell, the founder of The Bell Educational Trust Limited, was taken prisoner in the Second World War in Java in 1942. During his imprisonment he was held in five different Japanese prison camps. Prisoners in these camps were forbidden to teach, learn, compile or possess notes on any subject or meet in groups for discussion. Serious study was impossible due to frequent moves between prisons and the confiscation of materials.
However, confronted with desperate conditions in the camp, Frank Bell established an ‘Undercover University’. He organised language classes in Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Italian and Russian, as well as history and public speaking. Lessons, timetables, vocabulary, grammar exercises and multilingual dictionaries were written on every scrap of paper that could be found, from the backs of envelopes and soap wrappers to government forms and tobacco wrapping paper.
And so the secret ‘Kuching University’ was established in the camp, overcoming practical limitations, extreme hardships and the express prohibition that “prisoners of war are not allowed to teach or lecture others in any subject.”
After the war, Frank Bell returned to England, and worked for the University of Cambridge. He was convinced that international understanding and harmony could exist if people throughout the world understood each other through language. He founded the first Bell Language School in Cambridge, England in 1955.