Attainment Scotland Fund evaluation: case study research 2025

Appendix

Topic guide

Note this is the main topic guide used for school-based staff. Other topic guides were developed for partner organisations, parents/carers and children and young people, structured around the same general question areas but tailored to each audience.

Introduction

• Introduction of moderator, Progressive, Market Research Society Code of Conduct.
• Explanation of interview: anonymous and confidential, explanation of approach, probably around 45 minutes depending on how much you have to say. No right or wrong answers, I’m just interested in your experiences and opinions. If you don’t know an answer, that’s fine – anything not relevant to your role, just let me know.
• Recording: check permissions – recordings will not be shared outside the project team.

Context

• Introduction to the school:
  • Tell me a bit about your school – what size is it (overview of number of classes/pupils)?
  • Can you tell be about the community your school is located in? How many of your pupils come from the most disadvantaged communities? (check profiling info from sample)
  • Does poverty have a big impact on the children in your school? How much of an issue is the poverty-related attainment gap in your school? (overview only – challenges and barriers are covered below)
  • Check if they have Early Years provision and/or ASN in mainstream setting (see sample info).
• Introduction to respondent – tell me about yourself:
  • Confirm role in the school – job title
  • Do you have any specific role in relation to closing the poverty-related attainment gap, like PEF lead or a specifically ASF-funded post, or a more general role?
  • How long have you worked in your current role/at this school/in education?

Background understanding

READ OUT: The mission of the Scottish Attainment Challenge (SAC) is to use education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, with a focus on tackling the poverty-related attainment gap.

• How familiar are you with the SAC mission/what is your understanding of the SAC mission? Do you have a good understanding of what it’s trying to achieve? Where has that understanding come from?
• What are the main challenges and barriers faced by pupils affected by poverty in your school? Have the barriers changed over time? (If so, how?)
• ASK HTs: Do staff in the school have a good understanding of the issues faced by pupils affected by poverty? Has that developed over time?

Approaches

READ OUT: The Attainment Scotland Fund includes Strategic Equity Funding, Pupil Equity Funding and Care Experienced Children and Young People Funding. [Moderator note: refer to descriptions of funding streams if needed]

• Can you describe how ASF funding has been used in your school? What kinds of approaches or interventions have been used to raise attainment and close the poverty-related attainment gap? PROMPT IF NEEDED:
  • Funding specific posts in the school (if so, which ones)
  • Development of resources (details of these)
  • Funding of professional learning/development
  • Learning and teaching approaches – what has this involved? Literacy, numeracy, other?
  • Targeted approaches aimed at specific pupils (which groups/how is this done)
  • Universal approaches supporting all pupils
  • Focus on pupil wellbeing, health, confidence, nurture, readiness to learn, improving attendance
  • Cost of the school day/addressing financial barriers to learning (details of support provided)
  • Focus on wider achievement, positive destinations, transition initiatives e.g. transition from ELC
  • Anything else?
• Do you know which funding streams have supported these approaches/ activities? (Get details of which funding streams were used for activities/ approaches mentioned, if known).
• PROBE IF SEF, PEF, CECYP funding not specifically mentioned above – skip funding section if respondent has no knowledge of funding streams:
  • Do you have any knowledge of how Strategic Equity Funding is allocated/used by the local authority? Has SEF been used to support specific posts or approaches within the school?
  • Does your school receive Pupil Equity Funding? If so, how do you use your PEF funding? How did you decide what to use it for?
  • Do you have any children that are supported by the Care Experienced Children and Young People Funding? If so, how are they supported?
    • PROMPT IF NEEDED: Have any of your pupils received support from a Virtual School Headteacher? What has this involved?
  • Do you think ASF funding is viewed as an additional/separate resource, or if not why not?
• How did your school develop approaches to closing the poverty-related attainment gap? How did you decide what to do? PROMPT IF NEEDED:
  • E.g. referring to national SG guidance, local guidance from LAs
  • Input/advice from LA Attainment Advisors in developing and supporting your approaches (nature/extent of this support?)
  • Discussion with teachers/other schools/other HTs etc
  • Any other info sources used? E.g. Education Scotland, Equity Toolkit
  • Input from families/communities, or CYP?
• Have staff in the school done any professional learning as part of ASF work?
  • If yes, details of what this involved; If no, why not?
• How important has the concept of ‘readiness to learn’ been in improving outcomes for CYP affected by poverty? Is this something your school has focused on? If so, how?

Moderator note: By ‘readiness to learn’ we mean the range of things that can help children and young people to be better able to engage in their learning at school. For example, feeling well and not being hungry, tired or stressed; feeling confident and motivated to learn; and an environment which supports being able to concentrate and engage in classes (e.g. not in a noisy environment).

Community and collaboration

• Has your local community context shaped your approach to how the ASF has been used? If so, how? Have you felt able to tailor approaches to the local context?
• Have you involved CYP/families/the local community in decisions about how you tackle the attainment gap?
  • If yes, how? (Consultation, participatory budgeting, something else?)
  • How successful has that engagement been? (If not, why not?)
  • What is working well in engaging with CYP and their families and communities in decision-making about how the ASF is used?
  • And what could be improved in engaging these groups?
• Have you collaborated with others as part of approaches to reduce the poverty-related attainment gap? What has this involved? PROMPT IF NEEDED:
  • E.g. with other local schools
  • Community/third sector organisations
  • Partners like social work, Ed Psych, health, CLD? (could include alternative Education settings – moderator note: this could be projects run by third sector, or LA provision focused on attendance or for excluded pupils etc.)
• Can you think of any examples of collaboration improving over time, as a result of the ASF?
  • Have you changed how you work with others over the course of the Scottish Attainment Challenge?
  • If so, get details of how things have changed and what benefits of this have been.
• Do you think the ASF has encouraged collaboration across the education system? (Between schools, LAs, third sector, other delivery partners and professionals)? If so, how?

Using data and evidence

• How do you monitor and evaluate progress in relation to the ASF?
  • What kinds of things are you measuring? (E.g. pupil attendance, pupil health and wellbeing, impact of approaches on attainment, something else?)
• Has use of data and evidence improved as a result of the ASF?
  • Can you give me an example of how it’s being used? Could use of evidence be improved further? How?
• What factors have helped or hindered increased engagement with data and evidence?

Impact

• Refer back to the specific approaches/initiatives mentioned – Which of these have had the most impact, and why? What has been most beneficial about these approaches? Has this impacted on the poverty related attainment gap?
  • Prompt on specific benefits of each – what positive impact has been seen? What data and evidence do you use to measure impact?
• Overall, what impact do you think the ASF funding has had on pupils affected by poverty in your school?
  • E.g. has it led to improvements in literacy, numeracy, pupil health and wellbeing? What kind of evidence do you have for that?
  • Are there particularly groups of pupils who you’ve seen the most benefit/impact for? If so, which groups, and why do you think that is? (e.g. gender, age group, ASN, CECYP, other?)
• And is the attainment gap decreasing in your school? (i.e. the gap between the most and least disadvantaged young people, not just an improvement among everyone)
  • If yes, what factors have had the biggest impact on reducing the gap? What have you done that has been most effective?
  • If no, what has been the biggest challenge in reducing the gap? Is there anything preventing progress in this area? (probe for reasons to explain limited progress, if the gap is felt to be persistent, or progress is not as much as they would like?)
• Have any approaches introduced as part of the ASF had any impact on CYP’s ‘readiness to learn’? (Refer back to any examples given earlier)

READ OUT: Part of the Scottish Attainment Challenge mission was a focus on wider achievement outside the classroom.

• Can you give examples of how the ASF has allowed CYP to achieve their potential, including wider achievements and learning outside of the classroom? PROMPT IF NEEDED:
  • Has it allowed children to learn outside the classroom through things like residential trips, day trips/outings, transition events? Anything else?
    • What has the impact been on children and young people?
  • Have CYP at your school experienced wider achievements like participation in voluntary work, sport, the arts, or other activities in the school or local community as a result of the ASF?
    • If yes, get details of wider achievements and impact on CYP
  • If secondary school: Has the ASF contributed to CYP developing skills for life/work?
    • If yes, what kind? (e.g. Scottish Vocational Qualifications, National Progression Awards, Modern/Foundation Apprenticeships, something else?)
• If they DON’T think the ASF has been successful in wider achievements, why not? How could this aspect be improved?

Embeddedness of approaches

• Do you think staff in the school understand how to support pupils affected by poverty? (Classroom teachers, support staff, and others)
• What kinds of tools or resources do they have available to help them do this?
  • Do they have enough knowledge, skills and resources to do this?
• Do you think the ASF has improved awareness of how to support pupils affected by poverty among staff in the school?
  • If so, how? If not, why not?
• In what ways, if any, do you think this could be improved? What further skills/resources are needed to meet the needs of pupils affected by poverty?
• Do you think learning and teaching approaches introduced as a result of the ASF have been embedded across the school?

Moderator note: By ‘embedded’, we mean it’s used routinely throughout the school, not seen as a one-off project or activity.

• If yes, what has helped this happen?
• If no, what were the barriers to this? What could help embed these approaches in future?
• Do you think it has a positive culture and ethos to support pupils affected by poverty?
  • If yes, what promotes that? (e.g. leadership, use of professional learning, something else?)
• Would you change anything about the school’s culture to make it better at supporting pupils affected by poverty?

How would you describe the culture and ethos of your school, in relation to addressing the needs of CYP affected by poverty?

Sustainability

• What are your thoughts on how sustainable any changes might be, after the current phase of the ASF?
  • What are your main concerns about sustaining progress in the future?
  • What could influence the sustainability of any improvements in closing the gap?
  • What will be most important in ensuring any improvements continue?
• Does the school have any plans to ensure approaches are sustained in the future? How will you make sure changes are lasting? Refer back to initiatives mentioned that have had impact – how will they be ensuring these continue?
• ALSO PROMPT FOR ACTION MORE WIDELY WITHIN THE SCHOOL:
  • E.g. professional learning, partnership working/collaboration, capacity building at leadership level of classroom level, changes at whole school level?
• Do you have any feedback on how funding is allocated? E.g. moving to 4-year funding allocation for PEF? What works well/less well in terms of funding and ensuring approaches can be sustainable?
  • Has the 4-year allocation had any impact on how you plan and implement your approaches?
  • Any positives/negatives/suggested improvements to how funding is allocated?
• Overall, what do you think has been learned about approaches to support progress in improving outcomes for CYP affected by poverty?
  • How can that learning be sustained over time?
  • How can this learning best be shared?

Wrap up

• Any other thoughts/ideas/issues we haven’t already covered, in terms of the impact of the ASF?
• If you could make one change to the ASF to make it more impactful, what would that be? What difference would that make?
• HTs: Info on any additional reports to be provided/how to access (e.g. quality improvement plans etc.)

Thank and close