Question reference: S6W-09388
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
- Date lodged: 28 June 2022
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Current status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 15 August 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-12058 by John Swinney on 31 October 2017, which states that “any school plans for using pupil equity funding must be grounded in evidence of what is known to be effective at closing the poverty related attainment gap”, what evidence it holds that police officers on school campuses are effective in closing the poverty related attainment gap.
Answer
PEF National Operational Guidance is intended to help schools plan how they will most effectively invest their Pupil Equity Funding allocation to improve the educational outcomes of children affected by poverty. Local authorities also issue complementary guidance about how the funding will operate locally.
The PEF National Operational guidance includes key principles which state that ‘Headteachers must develop a clear rationale for use of funding, based on a robust contextual analysis of relevant data which identifies the poverty-related attainment gap in their schools.’ Schools must also have plans in place at the outset to evaluate the impact of the funding. These plans should outline clear outcomes to be achieved and how progress towards these, and the impact on closing the poverty-related attainment gap, will be measured.
To be clear, this should be done within existing local authority reporting processes to their Parent Council and Forum, including in their annual School Improvement Plans and Standards and Quality Reports. These plans and reports must be made publicly available so that parents and carers can easily access, understand and where appropriate, challenge, what is happening in their school with regard to Pupil Equity Funding. The arrangements for publication are confirmed by the relevant local authority.
One specific example of the effectiveness of collaboration with the Police can be found in Education Scotland’s ‘Pupil Equity Funding: Looking inwards, outwards, forwards’ publication. It cites evidence from Eastbank Academy in Glasgow where the school reports that a PEF-funded partnership with Police Scotland has contributed to increased participation and engagement of identified young people. A link to that publication can be found here: Pupil Equity Funding: Looking inwards, outwards, forwards (education.gov.scot)