Research School Network: An Evidence Based Approach to Improving Oral Language Skills of Disadvantaged Pupils One MAT leader considers how to choose the best approach to address a barrier, using a range of evidence sources.

The Aspire Educational Trust is a MAT of 10 primary academies across the North West (the majority with above national average proportions of disadvantaged pupils), alongside the Aspirer Teaching School and Aspirer Research School. At the heart of our vision and guiding principles is a passion and relentless drive for all children to achieve success, regardless of disadvantage.

Each academy within our MAT has its own individual Pupil Premium Strategy, reflecting the barriers faced by pupils within that school at that time. However, in recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that one barrier faced by disadvantaged pupils is common across the vast majority of our schools – oral language and communication skills. Each academy uses a range of diagnostic assessment tools in order to assess pupils’ language skills, including Wellcomm and Talk Boost assessments, Question Level Analysis of reading papers, a general comprehension rubric tool, writing assessments and moderations. This data has consistently illustrated large gaps in the area of oral language on entry to school for disadvantaged pupils (often with less than 10% beginning their Reception year in line with age related expectations) and a narrower vocabulary remaining a barrier throughout the primary years for many. As a result, there was a collective drive to unpick the evidence in this area and decide upon approaches to be adopted to accelerate the progress of disadvantaged pupils.

We began by looking at the EEF’s Guidance Reports – Recommendation 1 in all of the reports (Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1, Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2 and, most recently, Preparing for Literacy) relates to the development of oral language capability. We initially prioritised responding to the barriers relating to vocabulary, as per our data analysis, and therefore focused upon what the guidance reports recommended in this area. Some of the key points we gained from the research were: language acquisition must be a high priority in schools with explicit strategies for extending vocabulary as well as a language rich environment; careful selection of language to be taught is vital (tier 2 language – high frequency words found in many different contexts); it is important that activities to extend pupil’s expressive and receptive vocabulary are related to current topics, with opportunities to practise using new vocabulary; language teaching should develop breadth (vocabulary size) and depth (understanding and use in context). We then looked at the EEF Toolkit’s Oral Language Interventions section and found this to have an average impact of +5 months with an extensive evidence base (eleven meta-analyses). Finally, we reviewed the interventions which had been evaluated on the Evidence4Impact site. This process provided us with a sound rationale on which to base our choices and we began exploring the interventions available that aligned with the recommendations from evidence and research and would meet our identified need. The conclusion of this process was to adopt the Word Aware approach (written by Stephen Parsons and Anna Branagan). This very closely matched our research and rationale, with all of the principles identified above underpinning this programme (careful selection of vocabulary to be taught; daily teaching of vocabulary in the context of topics, literacy or concepts; new vocabulary taught phonologically, semantically and syntactically; language activated and reviewed within the environment).

Once the adoption decision had been made, we then had to consider how we would implement this approach. Each academy wrote an implementation plan, based upon the EEF’s Guidance Report – A School’s Guide to Effective Implementation, identifying their active ingredients (daily word aware teaching, all adults in school activating and reviewing new vocabulary, pre-teach and tier 1 vocabulary word aware used as a targeted intervention), and implementation activities (up-front training, follow on coaching and mentoring support, an implementation team, opportunities for peer learning and collaboration, resource books). Each academy’s implementation team championed the approach, ensured that all implementation activities were carried out and monitored and evaluated the impact, both in terms of the quality of the implementation (fidelity, acceptability, reach, cost) and the impact upon outcomes for pupils.


The impact of this work has already been huge – some schools have been using the approach for a number of years and evidence can now be seen in data, other schools are earlier in their implementation but successful implementation is already being evidenced. The approach has been adopted with fidelity, has been widely accepted with positivity by staff and pupils, and is now reaching all pupils in the schools using the programme. The cost of implementation has been low, with the on-going cost simply being the up-front training and follow on support for new staff. Two schools who have been using the Word Aware approach for the past two years have seen positive results for their disadvantaged pupils, with them ​‘bucking the trend’ and achieving above the standards achieved by non-disadvantaged pupils nationally. Underwood West Academy, in Crewe, saw 74% of their disadvantaged pupils achieve the expected standard in Reading, Writing and Maths (an increase from a school combined measure of 7% in 2016), with progress measures for their disadvantaged pupils of +0.8 in reading and +1.5 in writing. Ash Grove Academy, in Macclesfield, saw 88% of their disadvantaged pupils achieve the combined expected standard, with progress measures for their disadvantaged pupils of +1.9 in reading and +0.4 in writing.

Jo Ashcroft
Director of Education at The Aspire Educational Trust, Aspirer Research School and Aspirer Teaching School