Attainment Scotland Fund evaluation: thematic evaluation summary report 2024

Thematic Strand 1: Families and Communities

The use of the ASF to support families and communities has been a developing area over the years of the Fund.

Engaging with and support for families and communities is an aspect of thematic evaluation which developed as a priority focus in the later years of the initial Attainment Scotland Fund (ASF) Evaluation and was identified as one of the three priority areas of thematic focus in the new Evaluation Strategy in 2022. The report presents evidence from the Evaluation over the years since the Fund’s inception and tells the story of how engagement with and support for families and communities became a key focus for ASF funding.

In order to tell the story of support for families and communities, it is important to consider the evaluation evidence over the years of the Fund and to highlight the emerging themes. The Report considers evidence across the years of ASF, predominantly using the annual retrospective Evaluation Reports as source material to highlight the emerging themes and to seek to answer Evaluation Question 8: ‘To what extent has the fund embedded engagement with and support for families and communities?’

What have we learned about approaches being developed in relation to families and communities in the context of the Scottish Attainment Challenge?

The evaluation evidence shows a developing picture of engagement with and support for families and communities over the years of the Evaluation. From an early focus on interventions to the development of wider strategic approaches, there is an evolving picture of support. Support and engagement ranges from parental involvement strategies, approaches to family learning, as well as a range of other initiatives and approaches such as the important role of schools/family development or link workers who often work towards supporting school attendance, engagement and participation as well as wider support to parents and carers around benefits advice and signposting to other services.

From 2019/20 onwards we can see the priority approaches developed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated learning that they provided. There is considerable evidence of an expansion of some services and a pivot towards increased direct contact and support for families during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the two periods of school building closures and remote learning in 2020 and 2021. While some services were expanded others were decreased or paused during the COVID-19 pandemic and we also see an increase in terms of online support and digital access. Evidence from this period highlights the importance of building positive relationships which can lead to more families turning to schools for support.

There is evidence of a consolidation of learning in the post COVID-19 period with evidence collected through the most recent Evaluation enquiry^[1] highlighting a focus on making adaptations based on learning and that nearly all local authorities considered families and communities a strategic priority in relation to their approach to the Scottish Attainment Challenge.

Key learning points highlighted in the Evaluation evidence include the following:

• Evidence highlights that most local authorities currently have strategic approaches in place to support engagement with parents and families. This is often driven by parental involvement and engagement strategies.
• The important role of family link workers and their ability to reach families, engage meaningfully with them and their ability to provide the relevant support required depending on context. There is evidence that these roles or teams have had considerable impact universally and for those targeted, for example in terms of strengthened relationships between schools and with families and communities and the resultant increased awareness within schools of poverty and its impact on pupils.
• Local authorities’ experiences of family engagement has highlighted the important role of the home learning environment and parents’ capacity to support pupils’ learning.
• The importance of building positive relationships built on trust. Local authorities noted this as a factor which can lead to more families turning to schools for support, particularly during the period of COVID-19 School building closures.

Learning suggests that impactful approaches involve the following:

• Importance of meaningful and proactive engagement with families and maintaining this over time.
• Importance of effective links, collaboration and joint working with wider public and third sector partners.
• Importance of continuing to learn from ongoing experiences of engaging with families and communities in order to refine and improve engagement and supports accordingly.

Based on the Evaluation evidence, it is apparent that local authorities have utilised the Attainment Scotland Fund to support approaches to engaging with and supporting families and communities to the extent that we can evidence an embedding of these approaches. This includes the strategic approaches that most local authorities have put in place to support engagement with parents and families. There is evidence that family link workers and similar roles and teams have had considerable impact universally and on those who have been targeted for example in terms of strengthened relationships between schools and with families and communities and the resultant increased awareness within schools of poverty and its impact on pupils (and their families).