Special Focus

History

The history of early intervention projects in Scotland goes back over ten years, beginning with the Pilton Project, which took place in Edinburgh under the then Lothian Regional Council, in 1992.

PDF Icon Pilton Project

Timeline

The following is a short description of how the early intervention movement has developed in Scotland over the past ten years and of the documentation that has affected that development.

  • 1992
    Pilton Project Edinburgh - 4 schools
  • 1996
    Publication of Interchange 39
  • 1997
    Government announces a three-year programme with £20 million aimed at P1 and P2 with the objective of raising attainment in literacy and numeracy.
  • 1998
    Publication of Interchange 50

    The programme expanded to extend the development over five years, with an increase in funding to £60 million.

    In year one, 700+ schools participated.

    At the beginning local councils tended to concentrate their resources on an identifiable small group of schools of schools, but as the programme has progressed a large variety of approaches has been developed, for example extra staff, staff development, resources, ancillary staff, research into different approaches, etc.
  • 1999
    The government doubled its financial contribution to the project.

    Clackmannan Synthetic Phonics report was published as Interchange 57.
  • 2000
    67% of Scottish schools involved in early intervention activity by this time.
  • 2001
    Evaluation Report, University of Edinburgh
  • 2001
    Interchange 71
  • 2003
    Aberdeen City Council PIPs report published indicating increased progress in early learning across the board.

Local history

A consideration of local authority reports on the early intervention programmes that have been operating in their areas helps to put these developments into some kind of time perspective. The first sections of the final report from Stirling Council covering the five years of the project are a good example of this.

PDF Icon Early Intervention Initiative - Final Report 1997-2002
This report was produced by Stirling Council Children's Services and the first part is given here, so that the chronology and development can be seen and related to the chronology of the national development programmes.



Updated on: 29 August 2005 The LTS Online Service is funded by the Scottish Government.