Success Looks Different Awards

The Success Looks Different Awards are a chance for schools and early learning settings to showcase how they are celebrating all kinds of success, so that all pupils feel included, supported and celebrated.

The year’s awards received entries from 26 nurseries, primary, secondary and special schools from across Scotland. The Inclusion Ambassadors, who created the awards in 2022, reviewed the entries and have selected their winners across the four school categories.

Created by the Inclusion Ambassadors, and managed by Children in Scotland, the Success Looks Different Awards support the Scottish Government’s commitment to recognise and appreciate success for pupils with additional support needs, and the forms this takes, as outlined in their Additional Support for Learning Action Plan.

Prior to kicking off the planning for the Success Looks Different Awards 2024-25, the Inclusion Ambassadors reflected on previous years’ awards. They decided it was important to provide more opportunities to hear directly from children and young people about how their school made them feel included.

The 2024/25 application process included an Engagement Pack that encouraged schools to work directly with their pupils on their entry. The pack supported children and young people to highlight the things they liked about how their school celebrates success, and schools and nurseries could submit their views in any way they liked. Teachers and staff were then asked to provide some supporting information about how the things pupils highlighted met our success criteria:

• Evidence of celebrating individual success and positive relationships
• Evidence of creativity and doing something different
• Evidence of sharing success with the wider community
• Evidence of respecting and promoting children’s rights
• Recognition through awards or certificates.

To review the entries and decide winners, the Inclusion Ambassadors met together as a group in Glasgow.

Working alongside Children in Scotland staff, the Inclusion Ambassadors engaged with each entry – reading written entries, watching videos and PowerPoints, looking at pictures and photographs – and awarded them up to three stars for how well they met each success criteria. They then discussed the highest scoring school or nurseries and selected their winners!

The Inclusion Ambassadors discussed their thoughts on each entry in-depth and made notes on what things they liked about every school or nursery.

Once the winners were chosen, ambassadors had a chance to help design the winner certificates and work with staff to film video and audio snippets sharing some of the best things that stuck out to them from the entries.

One of the Inclusion Ambassadors involved in the judging process reflected: “It was a good day, I really enjoyed it. Choosing the schools was amazing and it was a lovely safe space.”

This year’s awards made it clear that across Scotland, schools and nurseries are supporting their pupils to engage with all kinds of success. Across the entries, there were some key ideas that stood out:

• Building relationships

Taking time to get to know their pupils was a strength of many of our entries. Understanding a pupil’s needs, strengths, and interests helps create opportunities for success that are truly meaningful for them.

• Show-off spaces

We liked that lots of the entries had noticeboards, posters, and other visual spaces around their schools and nurseries where pupils’ achievements were showcased and celebrated

• Thinking outside of the classroom

Learning doesn’t all need to happen in the classroom – many of our entries showed there are many ways to use outdoor opportunities to learn, from riding bikes to planting a garden.

• Getting creative

Across our entries we saw drawings, paintings, collage, and digital creativity, like videos and voice notes, that really impressed our Inclusion Ambassadors.

• Innovative awards

While SQA exams are important, many of our entries also had other achievements, badges, and awards for their pupils to work towards – celebrating skills like kindness, hard work, and teamwork.

• Shouting about success

There were a range of ways used to spread the word about successes with parents, carers, and the local community, including newsletters, postcards, online spaces, and social media.

• Children’s rights led

All schools in Scotland have a duty to uphold children’s rights, but we were impressed by the entries that directly engaged pupils in understanding, recognising, and celebrating their rights.