Attainment Scotland Fund evaluation - families and communities: thematic evaluation report 2024

Impact of School Building Closures and new approaches

The Year 5 (2019/20) Evaluation Report shows the evaluation continuing to tell the ‘story’ of change and adaptation which occurred throughout the course of the 2019/20 year as a result of the period of school building closures from March to June 2020 due to the COVID -19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted on how local authorities engaged with and supported families and communities and how they utilised ASF Funding to do this – this is a pivotal period in terms of understanding the families and communities’ thematic area.

The Report notes that whilst some family and community engagements and supports were driven forward at pace, responding to impacts of the pandemic, some planned aspects had to be paused or changed due to the school building closures. Adaptations included the development of virtual approaches. The Year 5 Evaluation Report notes that work at the local authority level progressed on a more limited level during the school building closures, whilst at the school level engagement with families and communities increased.

Themes which emerged with regard to the period of school building closures include:

• Increased partnership working, both with parents’ groups, with third sector and with other local authority services.
• Schools working directly to facilitate increased contact with families, with provision of food, hard copy materials to support home-learning, face to face ‘welfare’ visits etc.
• The role of family/link workers, often funded through PEF, were highlighted. For a number of local authorities, existing family link worker roles enabled a rapid response to the challenges facing families, often working in partnership with third sector organisations to respond to changing circumstances of families as a result of the ongoing pandemic. Family/link workers were viewed as key as they were able to use their existing knowledge of families and existing relationships with families to engage quickly to start to address their needs, including direct provision to support Health and Wellbeing needs (e.g. delivery of food parcels, clothes), signposting to other services including benefits advice, food banks, and linking with other statutory and non-statutory services in the local area.

The Year 6 ASF Evaluation Report published in June 2022 and covering a retrospective evaluation of the 2020-21 academic year provides a key point to consider a larger body of focused evidence. At this point the thematic area of Families and communities took on significance in the Evaluation as an agreed area of priority focus based on emerging evidence in previous years. A specific Evaluation question and sub questions were developed. Engaging families and communities emerged as a strong focus in local authority and school approaches to closing the poverty-related attainment gap and given the new priority focus there is a considerable body of evidence to support this view.

Two key evidence sources, the Local Authority Survey and the Headteacher Survey, both included specific questions related to approaches to engaging families and communities and specific questions seeking to capture information on COVID-19 impacts. Table 2 below notes how Families and Communities theme was incorporated into research instruments.

Table 2: ASF Year 6 Evaluation Survey Instruments incorporating Families and Communities

ASF Year 6 Local Authority survey - Included a section on engaging families and communities and a supplementary question about any learning that emerged from the approach to engaging families and communities in the second period of school building closures (e.g. role of link workers; check-ins with families; provision of food and other essential supplies; signposting; remote learning support).

ASF Year 6 Headteacher survey - Included a range of questions related to engaging families and communities. This included related to new circumstances affecting families.

There was considerable evidence of the ongoing development of approaches to engaging families and communities across evidence sources in the Year 6 evaluation report and important to note that the Evaluation was adapted to gather evidence related to COVID-19 (a year of COVID-19 related disruption with the second period of school building closures between January and April 2021).

All respondents to the Local Authority Survey 2021, indicated that their local authority approach to engaging families and communities had developed over the previous year. This was broadly consistent with the previous year, with the 2020 survey evidence showing that the majority of respondents developed their approaches to engaging families and communities during the 2019/20 year. Evidence from the Headteacher Survey 2021 indicates that the great majority of survey respondents had used engagement with families and communities as part of their school’s approach to closing the poverty-related attainment gap.

The Year 6 Report highlights that the Headteacher Survey 2021 invited schools to describe how their approach to family and community engagement had developed in 2020/21, particularly during the period of school building closures. As with the 2020 survey, we can see the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic with the most common approach for schools reported as developing family and community engagement through increased use of ‘outreach’ communication with families. The benefit of this increased contact with families is reported as both to build relationships and to improve their understanding and identification of circumstances and needs.

The Report notes that the use of digital resources and platforms was also used as part of engagement strategies with families by a substantial number of respondents. This included increased use of social media for communication and engagement, as well as use of digital resources and platforms to support schools maintain frequent and more ‘continuous’ communication with families.

A tailored approach of engagement with and support for the most vulnerable families was also highlighted as a key aspect for some respondents. A range of communication options, including telephone, video messages and social media had been employed, and engagement approaches such as surveys and virtual sessions on a range of issues including health and wellbeing, mindfulness, family quizzes and other online social events.

The changing circumstances affecting families as a result of COVID-19 in 2020-21 were also reported in the Year 6 evaluation report. Nearly all (99%) headteacher respondents to the Headteacher Survey 2021 felt that pupils and/or parents in need of support with mental health and emotional wellbeing had become more common since school building closures, including 78% who felt this had become ‘much more’ common. Whilst other circumstances were also highlighted as affecting an increasing number of families - including difficulties accessing support services due to COVID-19, families struggling with remote learning, digital connectivity issues and pupils and/or parents needing support with physical health and wellbeing – the increase in mental health needs was the most commonly identified issue.

A wide range of adaptations to approaches in response to the new circumstances outlined above were referenced by headteachers in the Headteacher Survey 2021. These adaptations included:

• a greater focus on mental health.
• more support for remote learning and digital connectivity.
• additional staffing skills and capacity.
• and additional support for parents and families such as helping them access financial support, access to food and clothes etc.

From the Headteacher Survey 2021 important examples of learning around engaging with families and communities in the context of COVID-19 emerged. This included:

• the importance of family learning/family link workers and teams.
• effective links to wider partnerships.
• opportunities for online communication.
• need for meaningful engagement and challenging assumptions of what support families may need.

Evidence emerged of the impact of specific roles to support engagement with families, as well as a broader range of emerging impacts including:

• strengthened relationships with families and communities.
• increased awareness within schools of poverty and its impact on pupils and families; increased supports in place for families affected by poverty; a greater appreciation of the role schools can play.
• and a greater focus on pupil attendance and engagement.

In the Headteacher Survey 2021, headteachers were asked their views of the main learning points arising from their engagement with families and communities over the previous year. Most commonly cited was the value of proactive communication and approaches to maintain engagement with families. Headteachers’ responses also suggested their experiences of family engagement had highlighted the important role of the home learning environment and parents’ capacity to support pupils’ learning. The importance of digital skills and connectivity - including support to families to ensure they can make effective use of digital resources - and the increased role that schools have played providing support to pupils and families, have highlighted the importance of building positive relationships built on trust. This was a factor which was suggested to have led to more families turning to schools for support.

In terms of the Local Authority Survey 2021, themes from local authority responses suggested there had been key learning around engaging with families and communities in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic:

• The important role of family learning and family link workers and associated teams.
• The importance of effective links with wider partners both in public and third sector.
• The importance of continuing to learn from current experiences in terms of engagement with families and communities and to refine approaches accordingly. For example, one local authority (in receipt of Schools Programme funding) highlighted that it had established a working group to look at how better to support family engagement across the local authority using learning which had emerged from current practice.
• The options provided through digital solutions to communicate and consult with parents, with some respondents pointing to evidence suggesting that some families found online communication (including parent/carer evenings) more beneficial with the potential for increasing ‘reach’.
• The need for meaningful engagement with families, and for challenging assumptions around what families may need in terms of support:

“What we learned during this time was not to assume what that support was, how it was to be delivered and when it was required. A big lesson was to ensure we engaged in a meaningful way with communities and families to hear their voice in this and to give all community members the opportunity not only to say and shape what the support was but also to contribute to the provision of that support - much more about 'working with' and much less about 'doing to'.” (PEF-only local authority)

Exemplar: School and Family Development Workers in primary schools School and Family Development Workers appointed to work in primary schools across one Challenge Authority were providing links to third sector providers and a gateway to other services and funding streams. The post-holders had engaged in many aspects of delivery such as: ‘foodbanks, linked families and schools, ensured access to learning for the most vulnerable and also supported with family learners.

Emerging impacts of engaging with families and communities were also identified through responses to the Local Authority Survey 2021. These included for example:

• A greater appreciation of the role of schools in providing support to children, young people and their families impacted by poverty.
• Evidence of increased supports in place for families affected by poverty and improved understanding of systems/processes and of supports which can be provided to families and communities.
• Strengthened relationships with families and communities and increased awareness of the importance of ongoing relationships and of mechanisms such as regular check-ins to continue to build and support relationships.
• Increased awareness of the importance of signposting to other services when additional support was required.

A number of local authority respondents pointed to the impact of specific roles to support engagement with families, some examples of which are provided below:

• One local authority respondent highlighted family learning assistants in primary schools leading to greater engagement of families and increased signposting to specialist services.
• Another local authority respondent pointed to the role of Pupil Support Officers (PSOs) to support mental health of families with the aim of improving engagement and attendance of pupils. This was associated with positive impacts on young people and their families and their engagement and attendance at school.
• Early successes with individual families participating in specific family centred approaches provided through partnerships between a local authority and relevant third sector organisations were also described by a local authority respondent.

It is clear that 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 approaches and then 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.

With the development of the new ASF Evaluation Strategy in 2022, a key output in year 1 was the survey of Scottish Attainment Challenge Local Authority Leads. The next section presents key findings on families and communities from the analysis of survey responses.