Attainment Scotland Fund Evaluation: Interim Report, 2025

Summary and discussion

This interim report brings together our learning structured across the four evaluation strands of activity set out in the Evaluation Strategy. The range of evidence which has been gathered since the refresh of the Scottish Attainment Challenge in 2022, including quantitative data over the years of the Fund along with other evaluation evidence, collectively provides a broad understanding of both the implementation of ASF and the progress being made as a result of ASF supported approaches at the school, local, regional and national level to support children and young people affected by poverty.

Implementation

The reporting provides a number of key insights into the implementation of the Attainment Scotland Fund including in relation to planning and approaches at both local authority and school level, funding, and governance and support arrangements:

• The three organisers underpinning the Scottish Attainment Challenge all work together in pursuit of the SAC Mission. Learning and Teaching is fundamental, but the Families and Communities theme has also emerged strongly as a key area. There has been a greater focus on and understanding of a number of aspects e.g. cost of the school day, readiness to learn.
• The importance of local context, with no ‘one size fits all’. Rather than a ‘menu’ of approaches, there are a number of themes and principles which underpin successful approaches including collaboration, strong use of data and evidence, and planning to suit local context and circumstances.
• Both SEF and PEF have important and complementary roles in achieving the SAC aims. Headteachers play an important role in ensuring that PEF is utilised to meet their own local context, with evidence of growing confidence over time in relation to PEF. This is particularly the case for school leaders in areas with higher proportion of pupils from deprived areas.
• There are clear differences emerging between schools’ approaches depending on the proportion of pupils from deprived areas. For example, there is evidence that schools with a higher proportion of pupils from more deprived areas focus approaches towards wellbeing/readiness to learn including family support/wellbeing, pupil attendance, cost of the school day/addressing financial barriers, pupil wellbeing and outdoor learning.
• Support and challenge from Attainment Advisors, alongside wider resource and support from Education Scotland, has been key. This includes sharing good practice and networks, and resources to support local authorities and schools to plan and implement their approaches. Ongoing support with transition planning is required, alongside considering sustainability and addressing funding uncertainties.
• Whilst there is some evidence that ASF is aligning with other relevant policies at the local authority level, there is a suggested need for further evidence to understand this more comprehensively.
• Where Care Experienced Children and Young People Funding has been used to support Virtual School Headteachers in providing a strategic role within local authorities supporting care experienced children and young people, this is reported to have been impactful.

Impact

This report highlights the importance of the wider evidence base to support understanding of progress; evidence on progress through the NIF measures together with perceptual data provides nuanced understanding of progress in relation to the SAC Logic Model outcomes.

• The basket of National Improvement Framework (NIF) measures are the key indicators of progress towards closing the poverty-related attainment gap: they show continued variability of progress. Of the 12 measures considered in the 2025 NIF measures report where there is 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 that have narrowed, ACEL data shows consistent, positive improvement in attainment in primary and secondary (S3) levels, while participation and positive destinations data continue to show strong progress. The five 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.

• The COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis have exacerbated poverty, making the targeted support through the Scottish Attainment Challenge all the more important to children and young people. Even though this is the case, at the national level the quantitative measures provide some continued indications of progress.
• A clear focus on wellbeing and nurture emerged from the School Survey: pupil wellbeing initiatives were mentioned by 85%, and nurture based interventions/approaches by 71%. At least half mentioned family support/wellbeing initiatives (54%). While schools report positive perceptions of impact on health and wellbeing, NIF measures indicate continued challenges.
• Evidence from the School Survey indicates that ASF is providing opportunities beyond the classroom. This includes a range of opportunities such as residentials/trips/holiday activities, outdoor learning, after school clubs and sporting events/activities.
• Supporting sustainability was identified as a factor in choosing approaches to closing the poverty-related attainment gap by both schools and local authorities. Local authorities reported addressing sustainability through embedding approaches into core planning processes, developing local authority wide and whole school approaches, building staff capacity and planning transition strategies. At the school level, building capacity among teaching staff and whole school approaches were most frequently reported approaches to addressing sustainability.

Thematic

The thematic approach to evaluation alongside the process/implementation and impact strands has enabled a deeper dive into a number of specific outcome areas identified as important aspects of the SAC Logic Model. Not only has this supported a targetted evaluation focus on these areas, allowing insights to emerge, but also some understanding of the cross-cutting nature of the themes and clear connections between them.

• Insights from the Families and Communities theme suggests that approaches to support engagement and support for families and communities have become embedded through local authorities’ use of ASF. Impact of family link workers (and similar roles and teams) includes: strengthened relationships between schools and with families and communities; increased awareness within schools of poverty and its impact on pupils and their families.
• Children and young people’s views of readiness to learn is not a clearly defined concept. However, from explorations with children and young people to date, it is clear that readiness to learn coves a range of aspects related to what they need inside and outside of school to feel ready to learn. Having enough food and not being tired or stressed are the main aspects.
• Those who reported a focus on readiness to learn as part of their school’s approach were more likely than others to report the poverty-related attainment gap had closed, particularly for improved health and wellbeing: 29% of those reporting a focus on readiness to learn to a great extent reported the gap had closed a lot compared to 9% of those focused on readiness to learn to some/not much/no extent (equivalent figures were 19%/6% for literacy and 15%/4% for numeracy).
• Engagement in decision-making and children’s voice have been identified as central to deciding how and where to target PEF. Good practice, including the work of the National Programmes, is evident but could be strengthened in some areas.
• 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.

Concluding points

This report has outlined learning related to implementation of the Attainment Scotland Fund, the impact of the Fund and from the thematic areas of exploration. It has brought together analysis of the NIF measures of the poverty-related attainment gap alongside wider evidence gathered through the evaluation to provide a holistic picture of progress. The evaluation evidence presented points to continued progress on an embedding of behaviours and activities related to a long-term ambition to closing the poverty-related attainment gap.

Although progress towards closing the poverty-related attainment gap in the key NIF measures remains varied depending on the measure under consideration, the broader evaluation evidence indicates the extent to which systemic change is taking place, for example in relation to culture and ethos and the awareness of equity within school communities. This is particularly the case in schools with the highest proportions of pupils from more deprived areas and schools based in urban areas, where staff are more likely to agree with statements in relation to awareness of challenges and being able to support children and young people affected by poverty. Whilst there is stronger evidence from schools, there is also some evidence of wider education systemic change.

This points to the ongoing need to support and sustain embedding equity across the education system, with addressing the complex and long term nature of the challenge remaining of high importance. Wider societal concerns/challenges, including the ongoing impact of COVID-19, and the cost of living crisis, point to a potential exacerbation of challenges faced by families experiencing poverty. This suggests that there is a need for a long-term and joined up approach across all services.

Next steps

Over the next six month period, further evidence will become available. Expanding on this report, the ASF Summative Evaluation Report will utilise the available evidence to report against the Scottish Attainment Challenge Logic Model and associated Evaluation Questions and to present an overall assessment for the period since the SAC refresh in 2022.

Further evidence which will be integrated into the Summative Reporting includes:

• Evidence from school case study research on implementation and impact of the ASF undertaken in spring 2025;^[37]
• Further evidence on the NIF measures;
• Final wave of SAC Local Authority Leads Survey scheduled for autumn 2025;
• Second round of national stakeholder interviews scheduled for autumn 2025;
• Research with children and young people on the impact of ASF.