PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Special Educational Needs: North West Norfolk (15 November 2022)

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to encourage schools in North West Norfolk constituency to participate in the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme.

Asked by:
James Wild (Conservative)

The department has invested £17 million on the Nuffield Early Language Intervention, improving the language skills of reception-age children who need it most following the COVID-19 pandemic. The programme targets children needing extra support with their speech and language development and is proven to help them make around three months of additional progress. An estimated 90,000 reception-age children will get extra support with their speech and language development from this proven programme.

All state-funded schools in North West Norfolk with a reception class were invited to apply for the programme. To encourage participation, every primary school in North West Norfolk and nationwide has been directly contacted at least twice by a dedicated contact centre team. Additional written communication has been undertaken by the department and its delivery partners to encourage all primary schools to apply.

In total, over 11,100 schools (two thirds of all primary schools) have signed up for the programme. Registered schools are eligible to continue to receive the funded programme during the 2022/23 academic year.

The full list of registered schools is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/neli-nuffield-early-language-intervention-programme.

Answered by:
Claire Coutinho (Conservative)
22 November 2022