Attainment Scotland Fund Evaluation: Interim Report, 2025

Executive Summary

Introduction and context

The Scottish Attainment Challenge, launched in 2015, aims to close the poverty-related attainment gap between children and young people from the most and least disadvantaged communities. It is supported by the Attainment Scotland Fund (ASF), which prioritises improvements in literacy, numeracy, and health and wellbeing to achieve excellence and equity in education. The Challenge was refreshed in 2022 with a new Mission ‘to use education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, focusing on tackling the poverty-related attainment gap and delivering the Scottish Government’s vision of equity and excellence in education’.

Attainment Scotland Funding currently provides:

• Strategic Equity Funding: Allocated to all 32 local authorities to support strategic planning and implementation.
• Pupil Equity Funding: Distributed directly to schools based on the number of pupils (P1–S3) registered for free school meals.
• Care Experienced Children and Young People (CECYP) Funding: Provided to local authorities to enhance outcomes for children and young people with care experience.
• A suite of national programmes, including investment in Education Scotland Attainment Advisor support for all 32 local authorities, third sector partnerships, workforce development and programme evaluation.

ASF Evaluation

Evaluation of the Attainment Scotland Fund has been ongoing since 2015. The current evaluation, supported by the Evaluation Strategy for the Attainment Scotland Fund 2022-26, focuses on implementation of the refreshed programme in 2022 and the extent to which progress has been made towards meeting Scottish Attainment Challenge Logic Model outcomes.

This report

This interim report presents analysis of the evidence available to date in order to provide learning on both the implementation and impact of the Fund. The Summative Evaluation report will follow in March 2026.

The key sources for the report includes surveys of local authority Scottish Attainment Challenge Leads in 2024 and 2025, an online school-based staff survey (the ‘School Survey’ in this report) completed by 974 staff in 598 schools between March and May 2025, online interviews with national stakeholders held in 2024, and quantitative analysis of National Improvement Framework (NIF) measures of the poverty-related attainment gap between 2015/16 and 2023/24.

Implementation of the ASF

A number of key points emerge from the evidence on implementation of the ASF since the refresh of the Scottish Attainment Challenge in 2022, in terms of what is working well and what might be improved.

Local authority approaches

• Approaches at the local authority level have evolved over the years of the fund, with increased understanding of the challenges associated with poverty and planned strategic approaches rather than short-term interventions.
• Evidence exploring what has worked well has consistently highlighted enhanced approaches to planning, the strong use of data and evidence, and collaboration and partnership working. Approaches are viewed by local authorities as effectively embedded in local settings, effective within local contexts, evidence-based and to demonstrate evidence of impact.
• Areas for improvement highlighted include: strengthening the voice of children and young people and parents/carers; enhancing the role for third sector; further strengthening strategic oversight; continuing to address variation in planning and reporting; and addressing sustainability.

School approaches

• Schools are primarily utilising funding to develop approaches to learning and teaching. There has also been a clear focus on wellbeing and nurture and using ASF to address financial barriers/cost of the school day issues, family support/wellbeing and readiness to learn.
• Staff working in schools in more deprived areas are more likely to describe approaches based on family support/wellbeing, pupil attendance, cost of the school day/ financial barriers, pupil wellbeing and outdoor learning.
• Data and evidence, and collaboration are key factors for schools in developing their approaches with evidence that both have improved.

Funding

• Strategic Equity Funding (SEF) has been largely welcomed by local authorities in providing resource to plan and implement strategic activity. However, there have been reported negative impacts for some local authorities previously in receipt of Challenge Authority funding related to year-on-year reductions in their local authority with transition from Challenge Authority funding to SEF.
• Pupil Equity Funding (PEF), allocated directly to schools, is reported to have provided schools with additional resources needed to address the poverty-related attainment gap in local contexts. School leaders feel they have autonomy to develop PEF plans taking into account local needs and their confidence in implementing PEF has increased over time.
• Care Experienced Children and Young People (CECYP) funding has supported strategic decision making and collaboration at the local authority level, although the need for further improvements to partnership working and longer term planning were identified.

Governance and Support

• Education Scotland support to each local authority through assigned Attainment Advisors and the Equity Toolkit continue to be valued as a source of support and challenge.
• The Scottish Attainment Challenge Logic Model is viewed as a helpful tool supporting local authority level planning.

Evidence of Impact

The approach to evaluating the impact of the fund has been informed by the ASF Impact Feasibility Study undertaken in 2023. It takes a mixed methods approach, combining measures of the poverty-related attainment gap with research evidence from schools, local authorities and national stakeholders.

Measures of the poverty-related attainment gap

• The National Improvement Framework and Improvement Plan (NIF) sets out 13 attainment and health and wellbeing measures that are used to assess progress in closing the poverty-related attainment gap. Analysis shows that of the twelve measures with available, comparable data, the poverty-related attainment gap has narrowed in 7 measures and widened in 5 between 2016/17 and 2023/24.
• Of the measures which have narrowed, Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels (ACEL) data show consistent, positive improvement in attainment in primary and secondary (S3) levels, while participation and positive destination data continue to show strong progress. The measures that widened in this period relate to National Qualifications in the Senior Phase and attendance data.
• Perceptual data from the evaluation indicates positive views on closing the attainment gap from schools, local authorities and stakeholders. Three quarters of the respondents to the School Survey reported that the poverty-related attainment gap had closed, at least a little, for literacy attainment, numeracy attainment, and health and wellbeing as a result of interventions/approaches supported by ASF.

Attainment

• For Literacy, Achievement of Curriculum for Excellent Levels (ACEL) data show that the poverty-related gap in secondary schools is the lowest on record, while the proportion of pupils achieving expected levels in literacy in primary is the highest on record. In the School Survey, three-quarters of respondents agreed that the poverty-related attainment gap in literacy has ‘closed a lot’ (15%) or ‘closed a little’ (60%).
• For Numeracy, the ACEL data indicates more progress at the secondary level than at the primary level in terms of closing the poverty-related attainment gap. The attainment gap in numeracy is at its lowest ever level in secondary schools. In the School Survey, three-quarters of respondents agreed that the poverty-related attainment gap in numeracy has ‘closed a lot’ (12%) or ‘closed a little’ (62%).
• In National Qualifications in the Senior Phase in 2023/24, school leaver attainment data at both SCQF Levels 4 and 5 showed a widening of the gap between pupils from least and most deprived areas. Attainment at Senior Phase decreased in general, but more so for pupils from the most deprived areas leading to the widening of the gap.

Health and Wellbeing

• Three-quarters of respondents to the School Survey reported that the poverty-related gap in health and wellbeing has closed at least a little, with 22% saying the gap had closed a lot.
• Respondents reporting the gap had closed a lot for health and wellbeing were particularly likely to report professional learning in relation to wellbeing initiatives (73%, compared to 55% of those saying the gap had not closed at all) and family support/wellbeing initiatives (53% v 31%).
• Respondents from schools in the most deprived areas were more likely to report that their school had an approach that included family support/wellbeing (81%) and pupil wellbeing (99%).
• NIF measures of Health and Wellbeing include the Total Difficulties Score and Attendance and Absence rates, both of which show a widening of the poverty-related gap. Children from the most deprived areas tend to have higher total difficulties scores compared to those from less deprived areas, and this gap has increased in recent years. Attendance rates have decreased since 2016/17, with a widening of the poverty-related gap since 2014/15.

Care Experienced Children and Young People

• Seven out of ten School Survey respondents reported that there were specific interventions for children and young people with care experience in their school, including specific pupil support staff (29%), tailored interventions (25%), and specific wellbeing focused approaches (22%). The main impacts of these approaches were reported to be improved attendance and attainment, increased engagement, and behavioural/emotional impacts.
• National data show long term improvements in educational outcomes for Looked After Children. Attainment for school leavers who were looked after within the year has increased since 2015/16 at all levels, with the gap with attainment overall decreasing. The same pattern is seen with positive destinations.

Positive Destinations

• The gap in the proportion of school leavers in a positive destination has generally been narrowing each year since 2015/16 and in 2023/24 is 4.3 percentage points compared with 7.9 percentage points in 2015/16.
• The gap between the proportion of 16–19-year-olds in the most and least deprived areas participating in education, training and employment has decreased from 12.9 percentage points in 2016 to 8.2 percentage points in 2024.

Thematic Insights

The ASF Evaluation Strategy 2022-26 introduced a new thematic strand of activity, to enable an in-depth focus on collaboratively agreed areas of enquiry in order to allow the evaluation to respond to emerging system priorities and to provide learning and increase the evidence base on ‘what works and what could be improved, for whom and in what circumstances’ at the thematic level. Learning has focused on four areas of thematic enquiry:

• Families and communities: Approaches to support engagement and support for families and communities have been embedded in schools and local authorities, with family link workers (and similar roles and teams) strengthing relationships between schools and families/communities, and increasing awareness within schools of poverty and its impact on pupils/families.
• Readiness to Learn has emerged as an important concept, with both schools and local authorities reporting this as a priority in their approaches. Partnership work with Young Scot and Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) Scotland has shown that a range of factors in school and at home support pupils to be ready to learn.
• Engagement of children and young people in decision-making is a strategic priority for local authorities and schools, with a range of interventions, programmes and approaches in place, including Participatory Budgeting (PB) in decision-making around PEF. This is an area of ongoing development, with examples of effective engagement through the SAC National Programmes, through local authorities and other settings, as well as resources to support children and young people’s decision-making in relation to the Challenge.
• A focus on Learning and Teaching approaches is a key priority in addressing the poverty-related attainment gap for schools. Nine out of ten School Survey participants reported that they routinely use approaches, tools and/or resources in learning and teaching to support pupils affected by poverty; and that school leadership support classroom staff to develop their skills and utilise approaches/resources to ensure the needs of pupils affected by poverty are met. Staff also report heightened awareness of how they can support pupils affected by poverty as a result of the ASF.

Conclusion

The evidence presented in this report provides learning on both the implementation and impact of the ASF. The implementation of the Fund and its various funding strands are generally viewed positively by both schools and local authorities, leading to increasingly strategic approaches across local authorities and locally driven interventions in schools. The importance of planning to suit local contexts and circumstances is key. Both SEF and PEF have important and complementary roles in achieving SAC aims. Headteachers play an important role in ensuring that PEF is utilized to meet their own local context. Education leaders report positive insights into the confidence and autonomy that the Fund has enabled in addressing the poverty-related attainment gap, with some clear differences emerging between schools’ approaches depending on the proportion of pupils from deprived areas.

National data and perceptual data offer insights into the impact of ASF activities on the poverty-related attainment gap. In attainment, Achievement of Curriculum Levels (ACEL) data show that the poverty-related attainment gap in literacy and numeracy is narrowing in primary and secondary, and is at its narrowest ever in Secondary Schools. This trend is supported by responses to the School Survey, where three-quarters of respondents agreed that the attainment gap in literacy and numeracy has reduced in their school. However, National Qualifications showed a different trend in 2023/24, where the attainment gap showed increases since before the pandemic.

Other measures of the poverty-related gap in educational outcomes offer insights into the impact of the ASF. Positive destinations and participation measures show marked and consistent progress in closing of the gap. Data from schools show that health and wellbeing is a key focus of ASF related activities and that they are considered to be making an impact; however – perhaps influenced by wider societal factors, such as the pandemic and the cost of living crisis – measures such as Strength and Difficulties scores and school attendance show a widening of the poverty-related gap.

Important factors in the continued impact of ASF activities are culture and ethos in the education system, and sustainability of approaches and impact. There is strong evidence of a positive and embedded culture and ethos around equity in local authorities and schools. The School Survey found that over nine out of ten respondents agreed that their school leadership encourages a positive culture and ethos; that addressing the needs of children and young people affected by poverty is important in their school; and that staff are aware of poverty-related barriers and challenges to learning. Respondents who were positive about the impact of ASF related acivities in their school were more likely to report that they felt that improvements would be sustainable.