Soft Market Testing - Provision of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Education for Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Young people

The Council is undertaking a soft market testing exercise and is asking organisations to submit comments & ideas to support and shape the development of the ESOL Education offer to unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people.

We have included some questions at the end of this document that should be completed on the response form and returned to us by 12 noon on Friday, 13th June 2025. The information and insight we obtain from this will then support the development of a tendering exercise later in the year.

The Virtual School and local authority have a statutory duty to ensure children who are looked after have access to appropriate education provision up to the age of 18 years old and this include children and young people who are unaccompanied and seeking asylum. The objective is to commission roll on roll off ESOL educational provision for unaccompanied young people seeking asylum who are unable to access a college setting due to local further education and small provider courses already being full.

Children and young people who are unaccompanied and seeking asylum can arrive in Nottinghamshire at any time during the year and this means that some young people arrive part way through the academic year when local colleges and settings are full. In order to enable our young people who are post-16 (aged 16-18 years) and arriving in Nottinghamshire part way through a year, additional ESOL education provision is required as locally courses are full within the autumn term. Therefore, there is a requirement for roll on roll off ESOL course to provide education to post-16 new arrivals until the end of the academic year when they will then be able to transition to a college setting the following September.