Research tells us that ANAs are at their most effective when they have had time to plan and prepare with teachers. In circumstances where ANAs work well alongside teachers in providing excellent supplementary learning support, research has noted good emerging evidence that ANAs can provide noticeable improvements to pupil attainment. This approach is evidenced in the Earlston Cluster in Scottish Borders. The Earlston cluster used the Model for Improvement methodology to closing the poverty related attainment gap in numeracy, through pooling together and training ANAs to deliver a specific intervention. Read more about this project HERE.

Research by the Education Endowment Foundation has led to the development of key reccomendations  and resources to support schools to make effective and best use of their ANAs. Previous research had shown that in many schools, support staff were not being deployed in ways that improved learner outcomes. Indeed, for learners from more deprived areas, the impact of ANA support was too often negative. However, EEF trials have demonstrated that, when support staff are used in structured school settings with high-quality support and training, ANAs can make a noticeable positive impact on pupil learning. This English research suggested that it was the decisions made by individual school leaders about how to best use ANAs that best explained the impact of the support in the classroom on pupil progress.

Results from the first Welsh Adverse Childhood Adverse Experience Study show that suffering four or more harmful experiences in childhood increases the chances of high-risk drinking in adulthood by four times, being a smoker by six times and being involved in violence in the last year by around 14 times.

The survey revealed around one in every seven adults aged 18-69 years in Wales had experienced four or more Adverse Childhood Experiences during their childhood and just under half had experienced at least one.

The Child and Adolescent Health & Wellbeing in Scotland Review summarises the available evidence on child and adolescent health and wellbeing in Scotland. It presents the national quantitative data from a variety of sources to produce a picture of the current situation in terms of health and wellbeing outcomes for children and young people, as well as key drivers of wellbeing.
The Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey provides national level data on smoking, drinking, drug use and lifestyle issues amongst Scotland’s secondary school children.
Findings from the Health Behaviour in School Aged Children Report provides data for children and young people aged 11, 13 and 15 years across a wide range of topics, from wellbeing and health behaviours through to contextual factors such as peer relations and the school environment. For example, less than a fifth of respondents were found to be meeting the physical activity guidelines and around two-thirds spent two or more hours in front of a screen each weekday.