Pupil Equity Funding: national operational guidance 2026-2027

Use of Pupil Equity Funding

How can it be used?

Although the funding is allocated to schools on the basis of free school meal registrations of pupils in P1-S3, headteachers and teachers have discretion to make decisions about which children and young people would benefit most from any particular intervention or approach, whilst keeping a clear focus on deliveringequity through improving outcomes for learners impacted by poverty.

As highlighted in the PEF report published in May 2025, based on engagement with 129 schools across all 32 Local Authorities, we know that the majority of the funding supports staff with roles specifically designed to help children and young people and their families impacted by poverty. The PEF report includes examples of how schools have used their PEF, and videos from Headteachers, staff and children and young people also show the approaches being taken and the impact PEF is having. Headteachers highlighted the following key areas of focus for their PEF:-

• Attendance, Behaviour and Curriculum – Schools are using PEF to drive improvements in attendance and engagement. PEF supports additional staff to focus on family engagement focus, nurture spaces and supports, and partnerships with businesses and colleges to enhance personalised curriculum pathways underpinned by excellent, equitable, learning and teaching.
• Empowering Leadership and staffing – PEF enables school leaders to empower their leadership teams, helping to provide high-quality learning for children and young people with enhanced support and challenge from Local Authorities and Education Scotland.
• Data and evidence – There is a clear focus on the identification and tracking of children and young people to ensure the additional support provided is improving outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, including a focus on children with additional support needs and other issues of equity.
• Health and Wellbeing – Schools are using PEF to improve nurturing and wellbeing, including by appointing counsellors, providing professional training for staff, and establishing bespoke calming places for children in schools

High quality early learning and childcare (ELC) can make an important contribution to children’s outcomes, life chances and continuing readiness to learn, particularly when they are growing up in more disadvantaged circumstances. It also supports children to recover from the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic. There is clear evidence that high quality support in the earliest years is critical to ensuring all children have the chance to learn and develop to their full potential. Pupil Equity Funding can therefore be used to provide support for a learner’s transition between ELC settings, such as nurseries, and primary schools. For example, this support may be used to provide extra flexibility for induction events to ensure learners and families impacted by poverty, including those who access their ELC in private and third sector settings, are enabled to attend. Funding should not be used in ways that stigmatises children and young people or their parents and carers.

The funding should be focused on appropriately targeted resources, activities and approaches for learners impacted by poverty, and which will lead to improvements in literacy, numeracy and support health and wellbeing. Leadership; learning & teaching; and families and communities continue to be recognised as useful organisers to consider when determining interventions and approaches.

The provision of school age childcare (SACC) contributes to improving outcomes for children and families, tackling child poverty, and reducing inequalities. High quality SACC can promote positive social interactions and relationships, build social skills and confidence, and can help improve attendance, behaviour and attainment. These benefits can be particularly important for children from low-income families.

Schools play an important role in enabling access to affordable and accessible SACC and some schools already use Pupil Equity Funding for this purpose. Funding may be used to provide breakfast clubs, which help children and families at the start of the day, or activities or childcare clubs after the school day which can also provide much needed support.

Headteachers can work at an individual school and local community level, which includes children and young people and their families, or collegiately in wider school clusters and beyond at a local authority level to address common interests such as Whole Family Support. Special schools may need to consider how they work across their school communities as children may attend their school from across the authority.

Consideration should be given to how the school can work with community partners beyond education to deliver proposed and collaboratively agreed aims and outcomes. Interventions and approaches should be considered within the context of the school improvement planning cycle and must be targeted towards closing the poverty-related attainment gap. Where appropriate, funding should build upon existing Scottish Attainment Challenge improvement plans, utilising the Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress.

Education Scotland also publish a range of evidence detailing how the Attainment Scotland Fund programmes, including Pupil Equity Funding, are helping to close the poverty related attainment gap.

A comprehensive evaluation has been ongoing since the start of the Scottish Attainment Challenge programme in 2015, to provide evidence and learning about the overall implementation of the Attainment Scotland Funding to enable assessment of progress towards its long-term outcomes. The Attainment Scotland Fund (ASF) Evaluation Summative report, published in March 2026, brings together both quantitative and qualitative evidence to report on progress towards the short, medium and long term outcomes of the Scottish Attainment Challenge. The full report may be accessed here. An easy to access concise summary of this report may be acccessed here.

Local approaches should be shaped by the three organisers: learning and teaching; leadership; and families and communities.

Headteachers should use their discretion when deciding which pupils will benefit from Pupil Equity Funding, as well as engaging with teachers, when deciding which approaches would have the most impact for children and young people impacted by poverty. The following five key indicators may be helpful and should be taken into consideration.

• Attainment and Achievement
• Attendance
• Inclusion
• Engagement
• Participation

Consideration should also be given to approaches that encompass Learning for Sustainability (LfS). LfS is an entitlement for all learners within Curriculum for Excellence and is a cross-curricular approach which enables learners, educators, learning settings and their wider communities to build a socially-just, sustainable and equitable society. An effective whole-setting approach to LfS weaves together global citizenship, sustainable development education and outdoor learning to create coherent, rewarding and transformative learning experiences.