Ensuring practitioners and young people have an understanding of poverty within their context and place is an important aspect of closing the poverty-related attainment gap. We are working to develop a workshop which can be shared with practitioners across the Northern Alliance as well as creating a Support Pack highlighting how poverty can be taught within the curriculum to increase pupil awareness.

Gathering relevant data from all eight local authorities across the Northern Alliance as well as collaborating with third sector and partnership agencies is helping us to explore characteristics which have a specific impact on rural poverty.

Schools understanding their gap means they can plan interventions to close it. Gathering case studies of how Pupil Equity funding has been implemented most effectively is intended to build confidence among head teachers in using this resource to remove barriers to learning.

A ‘Cost of the School Day Toolkit’ will also be disseminated to all educational establishments to help schools make changes to lift barriers that poverty creates.

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 sets Scotland apart as the only country of the UK with statutory targets to reduce the number of children experiencing the damaging effects of poverty by 2030.

The Scottish Government has a clear vision for education in Scotland:

• Excellence through raising attainment: ensuring that every child achieves the highest standards in literacy and numeracy, set out within Curriculum for Excellence levels, and the right range of skills, qualifications and achievements to allow them to succeed;
• Achieving equity: ensuring every child has the same opportunity to succeed, with a particular focus on closing the poverty-related attainment gap.

Find out more about the improvement activities of this workstream in the Northern Alliance Regional Improvement Plan Phase 3.

If you are keen to be part of a small scale project, have any ideas that you are keen to discuss, are working on your local authority’s plan to help reduce child poverty or are aware of good practice in and around your area then please contact Scott Calder (scott.calder@aberdeenshire.gov.uk) or Jo Kirby (jo.kirby@moray.gov.uk). To benefit from specialist resources and/or networking opportunities, join us via our SharePoint site in Glow.

You can also follow us on Twitter – @NAlliance for our main feed and @NAPovertyGap for all the latest news on this workstream.