Effectiveness Trial | OxEd & Assessment UK

Now recruiting for an effectiveness research trial starting Autumn 2024!

An evaluation of NELI Preschool in Autumn 2024

NELI Preschool is a 20-week oral language enrichment programme, centred around shared storybook reading, which is designed to improve the oral language skills of children in nursery settings. Previous research has shown positive findings for children who took part in NELI Preschool. To build on this previous evidence, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is funding an evaluation of NELI Preschool.

Delivered by the OxEd & Assessment team and independently evaluated by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), the evaluation will be run as a randomised controlled trial (RCT) and will take place during the 2024-2025 academic year. Taking part in the evaluation will be 318 eligible settings from PVI and state-maintained nurseries.

Want to learn more? Join one of our upcoming webinars!

We’re hosting two informational webinars on the the 19th and 21st March so you can find out more about the programme, the evidence behind it, what nurseries are saying and more information on what it means to be a part of a research trial. If you’re not able to join, register for one of the sessions and we’ll send you the recording after the event.

Is my setting eligible to participate?

Your setting may be eligible to take part if you:

are a PVI or state-maintained nursery
have 14 or more children who attend nursery for 15+ hours
are not planning to take part in EEF or similar trial

Geographical eligibility may apply. Please see Setting Information Sheet for more details.

If you do not meet this eligibility criteria, please still get in touch. We would love to discuss NELI Preschool with you.

What is a randomised controlled trial?

The evaluation of NELI Preschool will be run as a randomised controlled trial (RCT). The 318 eligible settings will be allocated to one of two groups at random: the intervention group (who will deliver NELI Preschool programme) and the control group (who will continue with their usual practice), to ensure that, as far as possible, there are no systematic differences between the two groups for factors that may affect children’s outcomes. This design enables the evaluator (NFER) to determine cause and effect relationships between the programme and children’s outcomes. It is essential that settings ensure that they adhere to their groups, assigned through the random allocation, and participate in all evaluation activities, in order to maintain the comparability of the two groups throughout the evaluation.

While settings allocated to the control group will not deliver NELI Preschool during the 2024-25 academic year and will continue their practice as usual, they will have the opportunity to deliver the programme in the following 2025-2026 academic year if they wish, as NELI Preschool will transition to a phase of universal availability for all nurseries.

Share information about the effectiveness trial

We’ve created this infographic to outline what’s involved in the NELI Preschool Effectiveness trial along with the full timeline for the trial.

Please share this with any PVI or state-maintained nurseries who you think would be interested in learning more and participating in the trial.

Download Infographic