EAL Qualifications offered in Bradford – pros and cons

The following qualifications are being and have been offered in schools in the Bradford District. Generally, there is a dearth of good basic qualifications. BradfordCollegeare currently reviewing all their qualifications, as the government expects everything to be in a ‘Functional Skills’ format.

Most of the comments below are based on what schools have reported back about these qualifications. Where it is known that schools have used these, the school name is mentioned.

EDI JetSet (ChallengeCollege)

Goes from Foundation Level to Level 6 (equivalent to NQF Level 2)

Pros:

  • Good, easy to use curriculum/course content – from very basic upwards
  • Easy to incorporate into general teaching of beginners
  • Provides some kind of qualification for language beginners – especially useful for KS4 new arrivals.
  • Fairly easy to administer. Teacher can administer Speaking and Listening component (easier for student, with familiar voice)
  • Not perfect, but better than nothing.

Cons:

  • Poorly designed website – difficult to find appropriate information.
  • Qualification not well recognised.

EDEXCEL ESOL ( Grange, Dixons Allerton)

Skills based English language qualification.

Pros:

  • Used in quite a few schools as well-accepted and can be verified by existing BTEC verifier within school
  • Students can have some success in this

Cons:

  • Doesn’t really offer a curriculum – teachers must devise it themselves. Constant drafting and redrafting leads to pedantic and boring lessons
  • Difficult to be able to devote enough time to it to succeed (Grange have it as option block in Yr 10 & 11 options)

QCA ALN (Adult Literacy & Numeracy Tests) – (Oakbank)

Pros:

  • Familiar for teacher to work with
  • Lot of resources available

Cons:

  • Subject matter not always appropriate, as meant for adults

Entry Level English/BTEC (Laisterdyke)

Pros:

  • The easiest options that require the least ‘put aside’ time and the least staff, as student can fit in with other students.
  • Better than nothing.

Cons:

  • Too difficult for beginners and not enough support from teachers to allow for success.

Cambridge ESOL Skills For Life courses in BradfordCollege (Queensbury)

Used for some KS4 students to go and follow this course

Pros:

  • Good, interesting course, accessible to post-beginners
  • Lots of resources available
  • Well thought of, accepted and recognised

Cons:

  • Expensive to send students to BradfordCollege from school and logistically difficult
  • BradfordCollege is the only exam centre for this in the area – difficult for schools to become an approved centre and must meet a criterion for examining a certain quota of students each year.
  • BradfordCollege are not sure what is going to happen to this qualification (see note above)

National Open College Network Developed by Rotherham education authority.

Pros:

  • Very good resources developed – see for free National Test Toolkit or request hard copy from
  • Leads to Cambridge Esol Skills for Life

from where past papers in Speaking and Listening, Reading and Writing can be downloaded.

Cons:

  • Problems with finding a centre to sit the exams (as above)

It can be concluded that there is no one ideal solution and that there may be some changes in the near future as to how exams are to be conducted.