Our Strategy 2025 to 2030
The new strategy for 2025-2030 which was signed off by Trustees following a consultation with internal and external stakeholders.
During 2024 the Foundation completed its ten-year strategy. The EAL Programme has built influence and impact from the ground up since 2013 and is now working in the majority of regions with high numbers of EAL learners in England. As of 2024, the programme now has significant national reach, with a successful scaling strategy that uses a strong network of Individual Licensed Practitioners (ILPs) and partners, teaching hubs, local authorities (LAs), and Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs). The programme has overseen the ongoing development of free teaching resources and a comprehensive training offer, both of which are widely used by teachers, including the Foundation’s academically robust award-winning assessment framework and its descriptors as a key resource. With over one in five children in state-funded schools speak EAL, and as multilingual classrooms are now the norm, the Foundation’s resources and training are widely used by teachers.
The Foundation’s work on ESOL began in 2021 and has developed rapidly in a short period of time. According to the 2021 Census data for England and Wales[1], 5.1 million people across all age groups self-reported as not having English as their first language: 2.7 million females and 2.4 million males. Of these, over 1 million – 621,000 females and 414,000 males – could not speak English well or at all, a substantial increase from the 726,000 recorded in 2011. During 2024, the pilot phase of the ESOL Programme completed and a new framework for the programme was adopted as part of the strategic review.
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.