Local Evaluation of Children's Services Learning from the Children's ...

confidently attribute any trends in this data to the work of the X (project) as otherfactors may be affecting the figures’.The evaluation then analysed child level data based on twelve randomly selectedchildren in the schools targeted by the project focusing on school attendance. At thislevel the evaluation report appears able to identify and evidence significant impactsof the project work with more confidence. For example, one pupil’s attendance levelsincreased by 40% over a seven month period, during which s/he had receivedsupport from the project: ‘…it is clear that without the support and encouragement ofthe X (Project), all of these children and probably many others, would have missed alarger percentage of their early years education’. There were also attempts tomeasure the impacts of the reading project at individual child level by considering anational pupil survey conducted by the organisation operating the project. The surveymeasured impacts in terms of ‘attitudes to reading’ and demonstrated animprovement in this during 2002. Evaluators detailed the improved reading ages offive randomly chosen pupils at one of the targeted schools, as described by the staffdelivering the project. Qualitative impacts were also described. These were based onsome one-to-one interviews with children accessing the service and duringevaluation events where children were encouraged to express their thoughts andopinions on the projects they had been accessing through art work and writing.Analysis of such data led evaluators to note the development of ‘supportiverelationships built between the children and the project volunteers’ and ‘the effort… toincorporate the children’s views on how their work should progress and particularlywhat books they enjoyed’.It therefore appears that it was when the evaluator reported upon data gathered fromchild-level analysis that impacts could be described with greater confidence. Thesequalitative data typically referred to the experiences of individual children rather thanbeing of a quantitative nature. There remained, however, potential difficulties withthese data. For example, the selection of the five pupils by those providing theservice may not have resulted in a typical sample.Overall, however, the evaluators argued that their multiple methods approach(analysis of quantitative data at national, local, school and individual child-levels,together with qualitative interviews allowing for service providers’ and service users’perceptions of project impacts to be revealed) whilst imperfect, allowed them toChapter 2 27