Learners at Trinity High School have been working with teaching staff to identify costs and create a costs calendar. The calendar will help all members of the school community see where costs arise, what support is offered, and widen participation for all learners.
During Challenge Poverty Week, Irvine Royal Academy pupils interviewed their Head Teacher about what their school does to reduce costs. The aim was to raise awareness and think about what more could be done.
Our online training programme covers the full range of UK and Scottish benefits to equip advisers and support workers helping families in Scotland to access financial support.
5,394 children and young people around Scotland took part in the Cost of the School Day Big Question, sharing their thoughts on school trips, food, what helps them feel ready to learn and their ideas about what should change. Their insights have been put together in this report and film.
The benefit cap affects the poorest families. Living in deep poverty is particularly damaging for children’s life chances. Getting rid of the benefit cap would mean that about 300,000 children would be living in less deep poverty.
Scrapping the two-child limit is the most cost-effective way to start to reduce child poverty. It would lift 300,000 children out of poverty and mean 700,000 children are in less deep poverty.
Wallace High School and Bannockburn Primary School in Stirling are both aware of how important families voices are to adapting and evolving their practice. Scott Pennock at Wallace High shares strategies for engaging with a wide parental demographic and Audrey Ross at Bannockburn Primary describes how their practice changed following discussions with families.
Lots of schools have decided to run breakfast clubs, knowing that they help children to have a better start to the day. There is no one way to approach setting up a breakfast club, funding and running it however, and in this case study there are ideas about how this has worked in several different settings.
In 2020 Dundee City Council asked all schools to come up with ways of celebrating World Book Day in the most inclusive way possible, with little or zero cost to families. This case study features the work of two Dundee schools who came up with really creative and exciting ways to do this, Rosebank Primary School and Downfield Primary School.
In more and more schools children and young people are getting involved in creating and promoting initiatives which reduce costs barriers to education in their school. This case study is all about the work of young people at Braes High School in Falkirk, St John Ogilvie High School in South Lanarkshire and Buckie Community High School in Moray.
Specialised staff members are a key part of some school's communication strategy, and can be particularly good at keeping in touch with families who can be harder to reach. Wallace High School in Stirling and The Rainbow Family Centre in Inverclyde have experience of building relationships and trust through face to face engagement.
