Evaluation pilot Bilingual Primary Education. Baseline assessment. School year 2014/15. English Summary

This report describes the initial findings of the study into the bilingual primary education pilot (BPE). The study aims to answer the questions posed about the form that BPE has taken at schools and the effects of BPE on the language skills of the pupils in both English and Dutch.
After the baseline assessment in group 1 (kindergarten; age 4-5), the study will have two further opportunities to measure pupil progress, in group 3 (grade 1; age 6-7) (2017) and group 5 (grade 3; age 8-9) (2019). The first report is mainly descriptive in nature but the future reports will focus on the development of language skills amongst the pupils and the effects BPE has on this.
Next to the twelve BPE schools in the study, there are twelve EEFL schools (early English as a foreign language) and nine schools where there is no extra foreign language teaching. These nine schools follow the requirements currently set by the government (English from group 7 / grade 5) and are known in the study as LEFL schools (late English as a foreign language). The baseline assessment has gathered information about the initial levels of pupils, parents, teachers and lessons. Group 1 (kindergarten) pupils were tested on their receptive vocabulary and understanding of grammar in English; for Dutch, results from national standardized diagnostic tests (Cito-LVOS) were used. In addition, parents completed a questionnaire. Teachers were tested in English and completed a self-assessment to establish their levels of skill in the language; they were also interviewed and their English lessons were observed.