uction of the Pupil Equity Fund (PEF) by providing funding to schools focussing on children and young people who are eligible for such interventions and those in receipt of Free Meal Entitlement (FME). With accountability for Pupil Equity Fund spending resting on individual schools, the question of whether the Scottish Government can effectively measure the impact of positive interventions and confidently discuss the success of such funding is raised. Since the funding has only been in place since 2017 sustained impact across improvements in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing may not be able to be fully demonstrated in such a short timeframe.

Global ideas around nurture and the health and wellbeing agenda directly influence Scotland’s national policy landscape as the context dimension of current educational policy drivers focusses around the achievement of equity and equality for all children and young people. Written in response to the OECD report Synergies for Better Learning: An International Perspective on Evaluation and Assessment (2013), it could be said that the National Improvement Framework (2016) arose from political pressures regarding the Scottish education system. The NIF is authoritative in nature but is clear in its goal and strategy in closing the poverty attainment gap whilst achieving excellence in raising attainment. A key priority in the National Improvement Framework (2018) states that ‘every child has the same opportunity to succeed’ (2018, p. 5). Rizvi and Lingard (2010) differentiate policies by the way they are communicated and promoted. They suggest that policies showing commitment to implementation backed up by funding can be seen to be material in nature. By contrast, symbolic policies arise from political pressures. Rizvi and Lingard (2010) also make distinctions between distributive and redistributive policy. Distributive policies by nature, distribute resources, whilst redistributive policies put appropriate interventions in place promoting positive discrimination. Although the NIF could be seen as being idealistic in nature, the introduction and use of Pupil Equity Funding (PEF) implies that the NIF has a material policy element to it as there is strong commitment to its implementation, backed by the Pupil Equity Funding. It is also redistributive as a policy as interventions are put in place by schools promoting positive discriminations, focussing on young people who are eligible to receive the funding and for those in receipt of Free Meal Entitlement (FME). Underpinned by the NIF, Getting It Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) and Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) the Scottish Attainment Challenge (SAC)