English Speaking Board (International) Ltd

Category: ESOL Skills for Life

  • Welcome back to all of our UK based centres – Academic Year 2021-22

    Thank you so much to all our centres that booked assessments with us last year. We all worked hard so that your learners could achieve, in spite of the continuing challenges. I want to thank the head office team, our assessors and markers for their part in making that happen for you and your learners.

    As we are starting the new academic year, I wanted to update you on our position for face to face assessing for all our Skills for Life and Speech qualifications occurring in the UK. It is our intention that for the academic year 21-22,face to face assessing will return for all these speaking and listening assessments. However, should public health guidance change, or a local situation emerge ESB will be able to consider using adapted assessments again (remote assessing) as Ofqual has allowed us to adapt in this way, if necessary.

    We will be releasing an ESB News later in the term so we can share all the activity that is happening in the ESB English language and Oracy world.

    I earnestly hope that this year is a year full of potential and positivity for you at your centre.

    Best wishes,

    Tina Renshaw, CEO

  • Attention all centres, ESB wants to hear from you!

    ESB International is always looking at ways to improve its service for its centres. The best way to do this is to find out exactly what individual centres want – deliver it where possible – and as a result build customer loyalty and high satisfaction levels. Your honest feedback enables ESB to provide an outstanding customer experience to all. 

    With that in mind, ESB is embarking on a new venture – which will make that process even simpler. You can now share real time feedback and experiences with ESB through the launch of its new Trustpilot Account!

    What you will need to do:

    1. Please follow this link to start your review (you will need to have booked an assessment with us in order to leave a review): https://uk.trustpilot.com/evaluate/esbuk.org
    • You will need to register as a Trustpilot user to leave a review. If you do not already have an account, this will be done automatically.

    ESB values transparency as one of its most defining characteristics and it hopes that this new feature will bring us closer together with our centres and deepen our working relationship. ESB hopes to see a continuation of the many, many positive views that centres already feed back to us on a regular basis and constructive feedback is always welcome. 

    Your input is invaluable to us and will be listened to. Please help to empower positive changes at ESB by leaving your feedback today. Together, we can continue to raise – and celebrate – the achievement of our learners!

    ESB thanks you for your continued and invaluable support.

  • Communications to centres: Ofqual’s Extended Extraordinary Regulatory Framework (Update 2)

    From the 2nd November until 2nd December 2020, ESB International assessments will take place remotely, using the video-conferencing facility that your centre habitually uses and that your learners are used to. We have already offered this adaptation in the summer, and the learners, assessors and teachers found it to be valid, reliable and a very positive experience. The assessor conducts and assesses the learners’ assessment in real-time and the assessment has the same content and procedure as face-to-face assessments.

    From the 2nd November until 2nd December 2020, ESB International assessments will take place remotely, using the video-conferencing facility that your centre habitually uses and that your learners are used to. We have already offered this adaptation in the summer, and the learners, assessors and teachers found it to be valid, reliable and a very positive experience. The assessor conducts and assesses the learners’ assessment in real-time and the assessment has the same content and procedure as face-to-face assessments.

    Detailed information about each qualification, how we are adapting it, and what centres and learners need to do to prepare are set out in the guidance documents below.

    ESB Centre Guidance for ESOL Skills for Life Assessments
    from 2nd November     Download
    ESB Centre Guidance for Speech Assessments
    from 2nd November    Download

    If centre staff have any questions about these guidance documents or delivering adapted assessments, please email product@esbuk.org.

    We thank you for your continued support and we very much looking forward to working with you in 2020 and 2021.


    Tina RenshawChief Executive
    English Speaking Board (International) Ltd.

  • New Academic Year Welcome!

    A Message from our Chief Executive, Tina Renshaw

    I know that this year will continue with challenges and I wanted to let you know that we are open for business, including taking new bookings and supporting you with any queries you might have. I was in direct contact with a number of you over the summer term as were many of our team. You told us you really appreciated our personal contact and our straightforward processes in difficult times.

    For those who were involved in certificating learners in the spring and summer as part of Ofqual’s Extraordinary Regulatory Framework (ERF), I am sure you will agree, it was a great success (as you can see from these learners below taking their ESB assessments during lockdown). We managed to award almost 10,000 certificates to our learners, so they have the opportunity to progress their oracy and English language skills in this new academic year.

    As you may know Ofqual are currently consulting on an Extended  Extraordinary Regulatory Framework (EERF), with the outcomes due to be published imminently. The focus of the EERF is to allow assessments to take place in circumstances where ‘normal’ assessment protocols cannot be implemented due to social distancing restrictions, for example, or if there was a local lockdown. This means that you can make assessment bookings with confidence that they will be able to take place. Some of our learners used an adaptation model for their assessments in the summer term so we are well placed and practised to manage any adaptations that we may need this academic year.

    If you would like to discuss these proposals in more detail, please contact the Product Development team at product@esbuk.org. otherwise do please book as usual and communicate with our team if your centre has any restrictions that we need to manage with you to ensure your learners have their assessment.

    Tina Renshaw
    Chief Executive
    English Speaking Board (International) Ltd.