Achievement for All: improving psychosocial outcomes for students with special educational needs and disabilities.
A whole-school plan that mixes academic tracking, set parent meetings, and better supports cuts behavior problems and bullying for students with special needs.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Humphrey et al. (2013) tested a whole-school package called Achievement for All in 30 English schools.
The team tracked 4,758 students with special needs for 18 months.
Teachers used academic tracking, held planned parent talks, and improved wider school supports.
What they found
Kids in AfA schools had fewer teacher-rated behavior problems.
They also made more friends and were bullied less.
These gains held when compared with similar schools that kept usual practice.
How this fits with other research
Alwahbi (2024) extends AfA by moving the same whole-school idea online for ASD-only special schools. Virtual PBS gave very large, fast behavior drops, showing the model works on screen too.
Riches et al. (2016) used a close cousin, Preschool First Step, in mainstream classes. Both class-wide programs cut problem behavior, but PFS starts earlier with 3- to 5-year-olds flagged for ADHD.
Dixon et al. (2022) ran another full-school plan, daily AIM lessons. AIM raised psychological flexibility and test scores while AfA lowered behavior issues, together showing whole-school efforts can hit different targets.
Why it matters
You can borrow AfA’s three moving parts tomorrow: track each learner’s goals every few weeks, schedule short, structured parent talks, and audit wider supports like lunch clubs. No extra staff are needed, just a calendar and a shared sheet. Start with one grade team, pick two behaviors to watch, and meet parents once a term. If it helps, scale it up or blend with virtual PBS for classes that include autistic students.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are at a greatly increased risk of experiencing poor psychosocial outcomes. Developing effective interventions that address the cause of these outcomes has therefore become a major policy priority in recent years. We report on a national evaluation of the Achievement for All (AfA) programme that was designed to improve outcomes for students with SEND through: (1) academic assessment, tracking and intervention, (2) structured conversations with parents, and (3) developing provision to improve wider outcomes (e.g. positive relationships). Using a quasi-experimental, pre-test-post-test control group design, we assessed the impact of AfA on teacher ratings of the behaviour problems, positive relationships and bullying of students with SEND over an 18-month period. Participants were 4758 students with SEND drawn from 323 schools across England. Our main impact analysis demonstrated that AfA had a significant impact on all three response variables when compared to usual practice. Hierarchical linear modelling of data from the intervention group highlighted a range of school-level contextual factors and implementation activities and student-level individual differences that moderated the impact of AfA on our study outcomes. The implications of our findings are discussed, and study strengths and limitations are noted.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2013 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2012.12.008