International Council of Education Advisers meeting papers: June 2022

Accelerating progress with the Scottish Attainment Challenge (paper 4)

This paper is for discussion/information ICEA(22)04. Paper by Education Scotland.

Purpose

This paper provides an overview of how Education Scotland is taking forward the responsibilities of the organisation which are outlined within the refreshed SAC Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress. The update provided in this paper has been shared with the Cabinet Secretary prior to and since the launch of the SAC refresh.

Background

In March 2021, the Scottish Government and Education Scotland published the 5 year report on progress towards closing the poverty-related attainment gap. The report indicated substantial progress in relation to school leaders and practitioners understanding of the poverty-related attainment gap. Knowledge of how best to support children and young people most impacted by poverty has significantly increased since the SAC was launched in 2016 and there is evidence that the gap is closing in relation to a few of the national measures. We recognise however, that the pace of progress has not been sufficient to ensure the long term goal to close the poverty-related attainment gap within 10 years and that the impact of Covid-19 has also slowed progress towards this.

In March 2022, following a year of consultation with stakeholders led jointly by Education Scotland and Scottish Government SAC teams, the Cabinet Secretary launched the new SAC Mission and associated Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress and new SAC Logic Model. The Framework and the Logic Model seek to clarify the role and responsibilities of all players in the Scottish education sector underpinned by a strengthened theory of change developed in collaboration with all the relevant stakeholders.

The Framework states that Education Scotland will:

• play a key role in working with local authority senior leaders to develop local stretch aims ensuring these are appropriately ambitious and focused on closing the poverty-related attainment gap and improving outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty
• effectively use available data and the Scottish Attainment Challenge Logic Model to explore a shared understanding of the local context, support setting of ambitious local authority stretch aims and monitoring performance and progress towards achieving these stretch aims
• engage in professional dialogue with local authority senior leaders to support local self-evaluation and improvement plans, including the stretch aims
• support local authorities to deliver an agreed plan which provides universal, targeted and intensive support as required to ensure recovery, progress and achievement of stretch aims and 
• provide professional advice and support to local authority senior leaders. This will have a focus on supporting collaboration and sharing practice within and between local authorities to maximise impact of the resources to support children and young people affected by poverty

To ensure these responsibilities are met, Education Scotland has taken significant steps to build on the achievements of the first iteration of the SAC, reassert the aims of our regional support model and maximise the impact of the Attainment Advisors and our wider staff teams with a renewed focus on the new SAC mission – “Improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, with a focus on closing the poverty related attainment gap”. This mission sits central to all of Education Scotland’s work and is a key driver for all teams across the organisation.

Working with LAs to develop stretch aims

The Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress includes a requirement by September 2022, that each local authority prepare an annual plan which includes stretch aims for improving outcomes for all, while closing the poverty-related attainment gap. This supports, within an empowered system, local authorities and schools to carefully consider how improvements can be delivered, the interventions that are required, and a framework for measuring success. Whilst the Framework is clear that the responsibility for improvement lies with local authorities, it is also clear that ES will continue to play a crucial role in providing professional advice and support, while at the same time ensuring stretch aims are realistic, and appropriate processes and support are in place to ensure they can be delivered. 

Between April-September 2022, Education Scotland’s Senior Regional Advisors, supported by Attainment Advisors are engaging in regular dialogue with all 32 local authorities to support setting of stretch aims. Professional dialogue to date indicates that all local authorities have embarked on this process with a clear understanding of what is expected of them and many are well ahead in their planning. To support this we are working with our own and Scottish Government analytical services to ensure setting of stretch aims is founded on effective data analysis against the specific NIF measures included in the SAC Framework. 

This professional dialogue with local authorities is highlighting different approaches in measuring progress and use of data, including application of the NIF measures, across Scotland. The challenge of ensuring robust Achievement of a Level (ACEL) data is also increasingly evident and we are aware of a need for assessment and moderation support in a number of local authorities. We plan to address this through more targeted support over 2022-23. Education Scotland will continue working with local authority assessment co-ordinators whilst also delivering targeted support with the network of Quality Assurance and Moderation Support Officers in areas of greatest development need. There is also scope to strengthen consistency of data analysis through regional improvement collaborative work. Alongside this, some more strategic collaborative work between ADES, Education Scotland and Scottish Government is getting underway with the aim of achieving consistent application of key performance measures across the system and a shared understanding of the factors impacting on variation between local authorities.

A particular challenge which is outwith Education Scotland’s control is the timeline for availability of national ACEL data against the need for this to be used to inform setting of stretch aims. LAs submit ACEL data to Scottish Government in August, however this is not published until December. This means that, although we can have dialogue with individual LAs on their data we are unable to discuss this in the context of the national picture which makes it challenging to ensure LA stretch aims are suitably ambitious. We think it would be helpful to shorten this timeline with a view to supporting more timeous robust professional dialogue using nationally quality assured ACEL data.

Maximising the impact of the regional support model

In April 2019, Education Scotland concluded an organisational restructure which included establishment of the Regional Improvement Directorate. This resulted in six regional teams of education specialists led by a Senior Regional Advisor and aligned to the six Regional Improvement Collaboratives (RICS). The aim is to broaden and increase the reach of our improvement and support work in partnership with RICS, local authorities, schools and other partners in their local context and to work more directly with practitioners.  

By the time the pandemic struck in March 2020, there was emerging evidence that this structure was starting to have an impact in increasing engagement with practitioners and enhancing the work of the RICs and LAs, albeit not consistently across all areas. Progress in implementing the regional support model slowed down somewhat during the initial stages of the pandemic as more universal and national work was required. Over 2021-22 this has changed again. The regional teams have increased their work supporting delivery of RIC plans and bespoke locality work has introduced teams of regional and scrutiny staff working together to support recovery for individual establishments and school clusters.  

Through the regional model our staff are continually building positive relationships at local level. Regional working is strengthening our knowledge of what is working well across Scotland and areas or aspects where further support is needed. This has established an important foundation for implementing the new Framework and we are now ready to flex this model further for session 2022-23 by implementing the original intention of an agile approach to staff deployment which supports local needs. Distributing our resources and expertise proportionately will allow us to maintain strong core links and relationships providing a level of universal  support across all local authorities alongside more targeted or bespoke support to increase capacity where there are persistent challenges which we know are significantly holding back progress.  

Universal, targeted and intensive support

The SAC Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress states that Education Scotland will “support local authorities to deliver an agreed plan which provides universal, targeted and intensive support as required to ensure recovery, progress and achievement of stretch aims”. We will continue to tease out what these three different types of support will look and feel like over the course of session 2022-23 as we work with partners to exemplify them in real contexts. Targeted and intensive support by its very nature will look different in each context. However, the aim of supporting recovery and accelerating progress will remain the focus of all support work. The following provides an indicative overview of what universal, targeted and intensive support could look like.

Universal support

This support is available to all 32 local authorities. It is a national offer focused on key national improvement priorities. It includes access to:

• Education Scotland National Professional Learning and Leadership Programmes
• the National e-Learning Offer
• professional advice and support from a Senior Regional Advisor
• professional expertise of a dedicated Attainment Advisor
• a range of professional learning webinars, networking opportunities and sharing practice events advertised and accessed through the ES website
• practitioner focused advice and guidance across all curriculum areas and for all sectors including early learning and childcare, community learning and development and educational psychology
• direct support in response to specific requests

Targeted support

Targeted support will be provided to local authorities and schools with the most need. This may be those with the highest levels of poverty or others depending on the data and contextual analysis. Targeted support will be planned through dialogue with LAs. The aim is to provide bespoke support where a local authority and/or Education Scotland has identified aspects that with some targeted support could be levers for improvement. Targeted support can include support for individual schools or groups of schools. It can also include focused support in a particular aspect of the curriculum across a local authority. Targeted support is likely to involve ongoing focussed engagement over a 3-6 month period with follow up as necessary to ensure long term impact. Examples include:

• engagement with a specific sector such as Early Learning and Childcare, Primary or Secondary to improve curriculum design or pedagogy
• a few Attainment Advisers working as a team with a cluster of schools. requiring support to maximise use of Pupil Equity Funding to improve outcomes
• focused support to improve literacy and/or numeracy where data analysis shows a decline in performance
• professional advice and support to improve attendance for a number of schools with the lowest attendance rates and in particular where attendance of pupils in SIMD is low
• delivery of our self-evaluation for continuous improvement programme where this is identified as aspect for improvement possibly through inspection
• professional learning to ensure effective use of data targeted at all headteachers across a local authority
• bespoke delivery of a national PLL programme to support improvements in system and/or school leadership
• increased coaching/mentoring for practitioners, school leaders or senior central staff
• engagement with a Regional Improvement Collaborative to support bespoke delivery of a programme of support across regional areas

Intensive support

Intensive support will be provided to local authorities and schools where there is a consistent barrier and no, or very limited, progress is being made to improving outcomes for children and young people affected by poverty. A package of intensive support will be planned through dialogue with schools and local authorities where capacity for improvement is limited or curtailed by circumstances pertaining to the local context. Drawing on robust self-evaluation to identify the right next steps, a shared action plan will be developed and agreed. The action plan could include bespoke to improve pedagogy, curriculum, effective use of data to meet learners needs and coaching/mentoring support to school leaders and will set out the intended outcomes and measures for the improvement work alongside the roles and responsibilities of all partners. It is likely to be a bespoke programme of ongoing support over a 3-6 month period initially but likely for a longer period of up to one year or longer. It could include support from ES alongside brokered support from other local authorities/Regional Improvement Collaboratives and other partners. Examples of situations that would result in intensive support are:

• direct support to individual school(s) to support improvement and accelerate progress
• local authority or schools with systemic performance/capacity/leadership issues
• quality assurance and/or quality improvement arrangements within local authorities that are not performing effectively and resulting in self-evaluation that is not robust
• data analysis indicates poor outcomes for particular groups of learners i.e. most deprived, care experienced, particular stage e.g. primary 4
• data analysis indicates that overall the local authority is one of the lowest performing in Scotland, consistently below national average
• range of evidence and intelligence indicates fundamental structural and/or cultural issues for example empowerment, arrangements for ASN provision, leadership development

Initially it is thought that 4-5 local authorities could be identified for intensive support in any one year. Baseline measures would be recorded and impact of interventions would be measured and evaluated. The new Scottish Attainment Challenge Logic Model will be important to ensure a strong theory of change underpins this work. However, the impact of Covid-19 on available performance data over the past two years must be recognised as a challenge for us in implementing such a performance led model. Hence the particular importance of qualitative data and intelligence at this time to get the work underway.

This approach will require a change in how we work to ensure we use our resources and expertise to provide the right support, particularly to the small number of authorities who require more focused bespoke support to ensure performance improves. It is important to emphasise it is intended this to be a collaborative approach with the local authority to agree a plan to accelerate improvement. The plan will include specific interventions/actions and Education Scotland staff, will play an important part in agreeing and resourcing the implementation of the plan.  

Providing more focused bespoke support to local authorities will commence in August 2022. Given our commitments, not least the implications of education reform, it will be important to consider resource implications. Accordingly, we are looking at ways of augmenting our resources building on our learning, for example, through exploring use of ‘associates ’- experienced practitioners and leaders from across the system and, where appropriate, colleagues from other local authorities/partners will also be involved. As our approach develops there will be further discussions and consideration about how best to deliver this approach. 

Attainment Advisors

Our 32 Attainment Advisors (AAs) are a significant specialist resource within Education Scotland. The AA team includes staff with primary and secondary school senior leadership experience and others with educational psychology or community learning and development or social work backgrounds. This range of expertise is invaluable to supporting a deep understanding of poverty and its impact. Feedback from local authorities and headteachers through the annual Attainment Scotland Fund evaluation demonstrates that the role is valued and that this has grown over the period of the SAC programme. Working closely with SAC leads in each local authority, AAs plan and deliver a programme of engagement with schools, other partners and local authority staff aligning their work to the Logic Model and the three key functions of the Attainment Advisor role:

• provide advice and guidance
• lead improvement and build capacity
• contribute to robust evaluation of impact

Going forward as we introduce the model of universal, targeted and intensive support, all local authorities will continue to benefit from a dedicated link Attainment Advisor to support their work on closing the poverty related attainment gap. There will also continue to be opportunities for AAs, working in their regional teams to add further capacity in a local authority by pulling on other AA expertise for specific projects. We will develop this approach for those local authorities that require bespoke support. For example, a number of AAs working together to review use of PEF and provide advice and guidance to all schools over a focussed period of time, drawing on the skills and expertise of the wider team. This same principle will also apply for other staff where their specialist expertise is required in an area away from their “home team”.  

Over the course of this session we have revised and strengthened arrangements for AA evaluative reporting on LA progress. This will support Education Scotland to ensure quarterly discussions with the Cabinet Secretary are well informed using up to date intelligence from AAs and the wider teams. Work on a new AA reporting cycle is now well underway. For session 2021-22, AAs are preparing a report on how well their LA has taken account of the recommended next steps identified in the five year report produced in March 2021. This will form a year 6 Recovery and Progress report for each LA. A national summary report highlighting key findings will be published early autumn. These reports will include an update on progress over 2021/22 and also the new stretch aims agreed for each LA. From session 2022/23, AAs will produce an evaluative report on their link LA three times a year. This cycle takes account of the school year and will ensure AA reports feed in to the quarterly meetings with the Cabinet Secretary at the appropriate time. 

Conclusion

The new SAC Framework includes a clear role and some specific responsibilities for Education Scotland. Taking this forward involves pivoting our work and utilising our resources in ways that add value where that is most needed to support recovery and accelerate progress. 

The International Council of Education Advisors are invited to note the changes that Education Scotland is introducing in order to implement the new SAC Framework and to discuss the potential benefits and challenges of the new ways of working outlined in this paper.