Attainment Scotland Fund evaluation - readiness to learn: thematic evaluation report 2024

Executive Summary

What do children and young people need to be ready to learn? During extensive stakeholder engagement and collaboration as part of the refresh of the Scottish Attainment Challenge, there was a clear steer from stakeholders that the evaluation examine aspects of children and young people’s readiness to learn through a focus on engagement, attendance, confidence and wellbeing.

This report focuses on readiness to learn, presenting evidence from the evaluation and telling the story of how the focus on readiness to learn has emerged, what we have learned to date and how we plan to progress this exploration in the evaluation going forward.

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, Engagement in decision-making.

What is Readiness to Learn?

The identification of readiness to learn as a new outcome area in the revised Logic Model for the Scottish Attainment Challenge was developed through a process of extensive stakeholder consultation and collaboration, with outcomes proposed at both short- and medium-term in relation to children and young people’s readiness to learn through focusing on engagement, attendance, confidence and wellbeing.

The initial focus for this thematic area was to explore the concept of readiness to learn in the context of the Scottish Attainment Challenge, to use this exploratory work to develop proposals to deepen our understanding in this outcome area and to take this forward into considering how to include the concept within the ongoing ASF evaluation.

Whilst the term readiness to learn is used to some extent within the education system, there is no clearly defined understanding/concept of the term in the academic literature. The evaluation therefore seeks to explore different perspectives of what readiness to learn means, whether it means different things to specific groups (children and young people, parents and carers, and teachers) and to what extent there are commonalities between these different perspectives.

What does Readiness to Learn mean to children and young people?

Children and young people’s perspectives of readiness to learn has been the initial focus, particularly in the context of children and young people affected by poverty.

The Scottish Government have worked with Young Scot and the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) to explore what readiness to learn means for children and young people. Young Scot worked with their #YSEquity Panel of young people to explore perspectives of readiness to learn which resulted in the development of a questionnaire that was responded to by over 1,000 participants, while CPAG explored the perspectives of primary and secondary school pupils perspectives of readiness to learn through the Cost of the School Day Big Question in October 2023, resulting in nearly 600 primary school and over 4,000 secondary school pupils providing their views.

The views of children and young people highlighted to date through these two complementary pieces of evidence-gathering have started to indicate what children and young people consider readiness to learn means and feels like. The findings from the engagements, some of which are summarised in this report, will inform thematic work on readiness to learn going forward.

How is Readiness to Learn being addressed as part of the Scottish Attainment Challenge?

There is evidence of readiness to learn as a feature of school and local authorities’ approaches in relation to the Scottish Attainment Challenge. Scottish Government analysts included questions on Readiness to Learn in the Scottish Attainment Challenge Local Authority Leads survey which was undertaken in 2023. All local authorities who responded to the 2023 Survey (nineteen of thirty-two) considered that readiness to learn was a strategic priority for their local authority, whilst seventeen indicated that that was to a great extent.

Nearly all local authority respondents considered that the ASF was supporting the development of approaches to readiness to learn in their local authority. A range of examples of readiness to learn approaches supported through the ASF were provided by local authorities. These included Home Link Teams, an Educational Psychologist Service, and Engagement Officer approach, partnerships with third sector organisations, effective use of nurture teachers, and a focus on enhanced support in the Early Years.

Next steps

The Evaluation will continue to explore the concept of Readiness to Learn from different perspectives, focusing on the views of practitioners and other school staff in future work. The Evaluation will also utilise wider datasets, including PISA 2022, the Health and Wellbeing Census, and the Growing up in Scotland survey to further explore the factors that support being ready to learn.