Become the Chair at The Bell Foundation

Welcome

Dear Applicant

Thank you for your interest in the role of Chair of The Bell Foundation. This is an important time to join The Bell Foundation as we deliver our five-year strategy and continue to expand our reach and impact through influencing policy to improve outcomes for adult learners of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and children who use English as an Additional Language (EAL).

Our vision is to create opportunities, change lives, and overcome exclusion through language education. Through our work we aim to address systemic language barriers and enable better outcomes for those children and adults who use English as an Additional Language. The focus on adult English language learning started later than our work with schools and is now in a major development phase.

The Bell Foundation was established in 2012 and since then has become a leading authority on EAL matters in school education and scaled its training capacity to reach over 130,000 educational practitioners and cover the areas of highest need around the country. Last year, 2025, marked the launch of a new five-year strategy which sees the organisation develop its work into adult ESOL and increase its public policy and influencing work.

We are looking for a Chair who is committed to tackling exclusion through language education and is well aware of how a lack of English language limits opportunity, and the ways in which this can be transformed positively, with other languages and English being an asset. This can be through lived experience of acquiring English as an additional language. This is an important time for developing policy, and stronger practice for adults learning English and understanding the need for cooperation and partnerships across a range of groups, sectors, and actors across society.

The Chair will lead the Board of Trustees in driving the Foundation’s strategy, helping to ensure the growth and success of the Foundation’s English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programmes, as well as maintaining and building up the work on English as an Additional Language (EAL) with children in schools.

The Board ensures that the Foundation’s assets are stewarded well and invested wisely to maximise impact for our beneficiaries. Trustees have positive relations with the Foundation’s executive, work collaboratively as a team, and are forward-looking. The new Chair will be key in the forthcoming appointment of three new Trustees, as the terms of some Trustees conclude.

Toni Fazaeli
Chair, Governance Committee