Attainment Scotland Fund evaluation - voice of children and young people: thematic evaluation report 2024

Executive Summary

In the Scottish Attainment Challenge, learner participation is crucial to ensuring that children and young people have a voice in the decisions that most affect them.

In particular, it is important that children and young people affected by poverty – those that the programme is designed to support – are able to influence and engage with the decisions that affect their education. Both learners and schools benefit from meaningful engagement with children and young people.

This report seeks to map out children and young people’s engagement in decision-making across the Scottish Attainment Challenge to start to assess the extent to which children and young people are engaged in decision-making; how this differs across schools and local authorities, and across the learner journey; and, what is working well and what could be improved in such engagement.

A thematic approach to evaluation

The Evaluation of the Attainment Scotland Fund (ASF) was established to provide learning about the overall implementation of the Fund and the extent to which progress has been made towards the outcomes of the Scottish Attainment Challenge.

A refreshed approach to the Evaluation was developed in 2022, which included a thematic strand of evaluation, is designed to respond to emerging system priorities and to consider ‘what works, for whom and in what circumstances’. Based on input from the ASF Evaluation Advisory Panel, three initial thematic areas were prioritised: Families & Communities; Readiness to Learn; and, Children and Young People’s Voice.

Children and Young People Voice in the Scottish Attainment Challenge

In this thematic strand, we have utilised evidence from a survey of local authority Scottish Attainment Challenge Leads in 2023 and learning from initiatives undertaken through National Programmes, Education Scotland Attainment Advisors, and local authorities. The survey of local authority leads found that the majority indicated that engaging children and young people in decision making was a priority, and that ASF funding helped to support development of approaches to engage children and young people. Local authorities were asked to describe the types of activities they were undertaking, with Participatory Budgeting noted as an important mechanism for increasing engagement. Other examples included local authority wide pupil voice programmes, targeted focus groups, care experienced groups, and a social justice ambassadors programme.

A number of case studies are provided which seek to provide insight into the range of work currently in progress in engaging children and young people in decision-making. These include:

• The #YSEquity Panel, which was established by Young Scot through Scottish Attainment Challenge funding, which brings to together young people from diverse backgrounds to influence the Scottish Attainment Challenge programme on key areas.
• The Education Scotland ‘children and young people voice’ pilot, in collaboration with Forth Valley West Lothian Regional Improvement Collaborative (RIC) is taking a UNCRC approach to support schools to determine the extent to which schools are engaging pupils in decision-making in relation to the Scottish Attainment Challenge.
• The Voice Network, established as part of CPAG’s Scottish Attainment Challenge funded Cost of the School Day Project, which supports groups within schools with a range of activities and tools to enable children and young people from P5 to S6 to participate and develop their own school-level actions to address poverty-related issues in school.
• Stirling Council has established a programme of Social Justice Ambassadors across twelve primary schools and one secondary school in the local authority area.
• Initiatives from Youthlink to support partnership working between youth work and schools, and
• the establishment of local care experienced groups as part of the CELCIS Virtual Headteacher Network.