National Summary Report March 2024: Stretch aims in 2023

P1, 4 and 7 Literacy combined

This stretch aim is based on children achieving the national level for their stage in all three literacy organisers. Whilst many local authorities may have made improvements in the ‘attainment for all’ in individual organisers, the stretch aim was met by a minority.  As a result, several are now undertaking improvement work focusing on specific organisers, for example the National Improving Writing Programme. There is a need for local authorities to look further at those organisers which are preventing the stretch aim to be met.

All local authorities set a stretch aim for the percentage of young people expected to achieve the appropriate levels in literacy. There were reported improvements across the country with over a third of local authorities successfully achieving their stretch aim.

As outlined previously, where appropriate, local authorities set a stretch aim to reduce the attainment gap between quintile one and quintile 5. Of those, just over a third successfully met their stretch aim.

P1, 4 and 7 Numeracy combined

All local authorities set a stretch aim for the percentage of young people expected to achieve the appropriate level in numeracy. Just over a third of local authorities successfully achieved their stretch aim with others reporting positive progress.

As outlined previously where appropriate, local authorities set a stretch aim to reduce the attainment gap between quintile one and quintile 5. Of those, over a third successfully met their stretch aim.

Broad General Education

Where local authorities did not reach their stretch aim it is clear they have taken steps to ensure further improvement. Some examples include:

Literacy and numeracy equity team officers are providing targeted support to schools most impacted by poverty, in specific areas highlighted through data. There is a focus on working alongside teachers and improving pedagogical approaches. They will also be working on progression pathways as issues have been highlighted regarding varied use across primary and secondary schools.
Additional targeted staffing resource is currently focused on accelerating improvements. SEF funding continues to be invested in professional learning to improve the quality of learning and teaching in literacy and numeracy.

Fourteen schools are currently engaging in the National Writing Programme which is expected to have a positive impact on writing at First Level by June 2024. A third and fourth cohort of schools are planned to participate in the writing programme next session which will support progress towards 2024-25 trajectories in writing.

Attainment meetings with primary headteachers have had a clear focus on data with a view to supporting actions to maximise attainment. The LA has also deployed targeted or intensive support from the pedagogy team where the data shows significant underperformance. This is having a good impact on ACEL measures in almost all establishments supported in this way.

Senior Phase

Based on 'Summary statistics for attainment and initial leaver destinations' publication.

One or more passes at SCQF Level 5

All local authorities set stretch aims for the percentage of young people expected to achieve one or more awards. Less than a third of local authorities were successful in achieving this.

As outlined previously, where appropriate, local authorities set a stretch aim to reduce the attainment gap between quintile one and quintile 5. Of those, more than a third successfully met their stretch aim.

One or more passes at SCQF Level 6 

All local authorities set stretch aims for the percentage of young people expected to achieve one or more awards. Almost all reported that they did not reach this stretch aim. This suggests that further work is required to ensure robust processes are in place to set realistic aims whilst ensuring continuous, improved attainment.

As outlined previously, where appropriate, local authorities set a stretch aim to reduce the attainment gap between quintile one and quintile 5. Of those, over a third successfully met their stretch aim.

Overall, more local authorities met their stretch aim for closing the poverty-related gap than for overall attainment. They continue to adapt their processes and practice to ensure further improvement. Some examples include:

Significant adaptation to available courses and pathways for young people has been implemented which is expected to have a positive impact on attainment.

The active use of the ‘results machine’ will enhance already embedded practice and process around data tracking. It will seek to further strengthen data literacy, by enabling attainment factors to easily be intersected in line with attainment outcomes. This will provide opportunity for strategy to be reviewed and adapted and resource targeted where it is needed most. This, alongside the setting of school level stretch aims, will provide a sharpened focus to schools’ strategies towards meeting the aims set.

As well as sending out analysis of the data and holding specific Insight sessions to support colleagues, especially in relation to the pupil data set, the local authority has targeted Insight visits with schools who had not shown sustained improvement. This is supported by the attainment advisor in using data from Power Bi to collaborate with central officers in targeting approaches/strategies in learning communities.
To improve overall levels at SCQF 6, the education service are working with schools to increase S4 ‘staying on’ rates.

Significant additional support continues to target improvement in senior phase attainment. This includes additional data for improvement visits to targeted secondary schools, more robust tracking and monitoring and additionality of staffing to support learners. It is hoped the impact of this will support meeting 2025/26 stretch aim trajectories.

Proportion of 16 to 19 years-olds participating in education, employment or training

All local authorities set a stretch aim for the Annual Participation Measure. Most reported that they met this aim.

As outlined previously, where appropriate, local authorities set a stretch aim to reduce the attainment gap between quintile one and quintile 5. Just under half successfully met their stretch aim.

There is evidence that a range of work is underway to ensure continued improvement towards 2023 to 2024 trajectories. This includes:

• increasing the breadth and diversity of the curriculum offer
• ensuring appropriate post-school pathways
• developing post-school support where appropriate

Attendance is recognised as a considerable challenge across the country. Education Scotland has prioritised this as an area of focus. Attainment Advisors are participating in collaborative work across all 32 local authorities to build capacity and support improvement. This includes the recently published Attendance resources on Education Scotland’s website.

Almost all local authorities set at least one attendance stretch aim as a measure for health and wellbeing. Where these related to overall attendance, in almost all cases, the aim was not met. Additionally, local authorities were unable to meet their aims in relation to the poverty-related gap.

The majority of local authorities set separate stretch aims for primary and secondary attendance. Of these, a few met their overall aim for primary and none met the aim for secondary. Of those who were able to comment on the poverty-related gap, a few met the target set for primary.

A few local authorities also set a health and wellbeing stretch aim related to inclusion and or exclusion. These were not met. Local authorities have prioritised this and have put in place a variety of actions to ensure improvement. Examples include:

A working group was established to look at current strategies which are effective in improving attendance and what developments are needed to reduce the levels of absence. Implementation of the new attendance policy across the authority has begun in consultation with parents. The aim is to improve attainment, social opportunities and greater employment opportunities for learners.

Revised guidance and framework developed to support whole school approach to address attendance. This will be complemented by targeted support. Revised guidance and framework developed to support whole school approach to address attendance. This will be complemented by targeted support.

Attendance is a strong feature of school improvement plans and in some Pupil Equity Funding plans. Professional learning sessions have been offered to senior leaders in schools.

Work has been completed on SEEMiS coding and custom reports. Crib sheets have been created for schools. This will support consistency in how schools record attendance. As a result, improved tracking and monitoring through custom reports will focus targeted interventions.

Attendance has been identified as an area of focus with a revised attendance policy being developed. Targeted interventions funded via the Attainment Scotland Fund are being explored to strengthen participation and achievement for the 2024-25 session.

Attendance remains one of the most significant challenges and barriers to improving attainment faced by the LA. The LA has introduced family engagement support assistants to strengthen the ongoing work to improve attendance rates.

Attendance remains a priority focus for 2023-24 with SEF projects such as the virtual school making positive gains in reconnecting learners to learning experiences.

Almost all local authorities submitted ‘plus’ stretch aims. These are reflective of the local contexts and priorities within each authority. The number of plus aims varies considerably across local authorities. Success in meeting these varied. The majority had success in meeting at least some of them.

There is strong evidence that improving the outcomes of learners who have experienced care continues to be a strong feature of these stretch aims. For example:

The work of the Care Experienced Children and Young People funded virtual school has been instrumental in the unprecedented decrease in exclusion of children and young people with experience of care. This work has been captured and shared nationally, notably at the most recent Scottish Learning Festival.

Intensive support continues to be directed to supporting to secondary school learners who have experience care. The authority has noted that attainment of learners who are looked after in out of authority residential and educational placements is not robustly captured in our Insight data. This, coupled with small numbers in the cohort, can impact figures.

When setting aims for 2025 to 2026, local authorities took account of the process and lessons learned in 2022 to 2023. The aims were broken down into yearly trajectories.

The information in this section is based on the data available from each local authority. At the time of writing not all had provided explicit information on progress towards stretch aims trajectories.

In this first year of setting stretch aim trajectories, there is strong evidence that local authorities continue to develop and refine their approaches to the monitoring of progress.

Broad General Education

Data relating to the stretch aims is routinely gathered from schools. Predictions relating to Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels (ACEL) are commonly collected at least three times or four times a year. In a few local authorities, data is gathered monthly.

P1, P4 and P7 Literacy

Based on the latest predictions more than a third of local authorities explicitly report that they are confident of meeting the trajectory set for 2023-24 in P1, P4 & P7 combined literacy.

Where numbers of pupils were sufficient, local authorities were able to set a trajectory for the poverty-related gap, using the national measure of quintile one versus quintile five, almost a quarter expressed confidence in meeting this trajectory.

P1, P4 and P7 Numeracy

Similarly, based on the latest predictions, more than a third of local authorities explicitly report that they are confident of meeting the trajectory set for 2023-24 in P1, P4 & P7 combined numeracy.

Where numbers of pupils were sufficient, local authorities were able to set a trajectory for the poverty-related gap, using the national measure of quintile one versus quintile five, a minority expressed confidence in meeting this trajectory.

There is strong evidence that central officers use predicted data to target specific support. By providing focused support to schools and cohorts, the likelihood of meeting the stretch aims trajectories should increase.

Annually, in consultation with central officers and based on their own self-evaluation, schools are allocated a category of support. This allows central officers to offer targeted support to ensure maximum impact.

All establishments have school-level stretch aims, based on their demographics. Analysis of attainment data is collated centrally and shared. Central officers, including the chief education officer, hold attainment discussions with schools. The pedagogy team engages with schools where there is a need for targeted support to raise attainment.

Attainment meetings with primary headteachers have had a clear focus on this data with discussions focused on factors affecting the data and actions being taken to mitigate these.

The central team rigorously analyses each data uplift. This enables a robust picture of the situation in individual schools and allows for appropriate interventions to be but in place. These interventions are monitored monthly to ensure that they are having an impact, if not, further support is given.

Senior Phase

Monitoring of progress towards the trajectories set for the Senior Phase is proving more difficult for some. Local authorities suggest that this is partly because these are based on school leaver data which they find more challenging to accurately predict. Local authorities continue to refine their approaches.

One or more awards at SCQF Level 5
Based on the information available during this reporting period, a minority of local authorities explicitly reported confidence in meeting this trajectory.
Where local authorities were able to set a trajectory for the poverty-related gap, using the national measure of quintile one versus quintile five, a minority expressed confidence in meeting this.

One or more awards at SCQF Level 6
Based on the information available during this reporting period, a few local authorities explicitly reported confidence in meeting this trajectory.

Where local authorities were able to set a trajectory for the poverty-related gap, using the national measure of quintile one versus quintile five, a few expressed confidence in meeting this.

Monitoring of Senior Phase stretch aim trajectories
Work is currently underway to align a secondary data dashboard to track and monitor ACEL progress. Going forward this will give a clearer indication of the trajectory to meet stretch aims. This is still at an early stage.

With regards to secondary data, headteachers were directly involved in developing the methodology and setting of stretch aims and the authority is confident that stretch aims for SCQF Level 5, secondary attendance, Annual Participation Measures and exclusions will be achieved.

To support secondary schools a ‘results machine’ has been developed. This provides information related to factors impacting on attainment. The setting of school level stretch aims, alongside the ‘results machine’ will support a greater understanding of pupil and school-level data. Again, this helps guide strategy and allows support to be targeted where required.

The secondary attainment review process is being redesigned to support more robust tracking of the Senior Phase stretch aims. Currently, attainment visits consider attainment over time and interventions and actions designed to maximise the attainment of cohorts, with a particular focus on young people identified as leavers this year.

Annual Participation Measure

There is evidence that local authorities are focused on improving initial and sustained destinations of school leavers. Monitoring of progress towards this continues to be refined.

During this reporting period, only a few local authorities explicitly reported on the likelihood of meeting the trajectory set for the Annual Participation Measure.

Annual Participation Measure

The youth employment partnership has provided the bridge between school and post-school destinations. Over the last three years there has been an improving trend in school leaver destination results.

There is a better understanding of the Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework and a broader range of options in schools. Improvements are being made in integrating employer engagement which continues to grow through a range of initiatives such as Career Ready, Motivation, Commitment and Resilience Pathways and the Job Education Training programme.

An education officer regularly gathers pupil intentions to leave against destination aspirations using school and Skills Development Scotland snapshots. At school level, pupils are supported where needed.
The authority uses its own internal system and the Skills Development Scotland data platform to track participation of 16-19-year-olds.

Health and wellbeing

Attendance continues to be a focus for improvement across the country. There is evidence of close monitoring of attendance across local authorities with various initiatives and improvements in practice being further developed. Based on the attendance data reported during this period, a quarter of local authorities expressed confidence in achieving their trajectories for 2023-24 for overall attendance. There was less confidence in meeting the trajectory set for the poverty-related gap. It is clear however, that local authorities use attendance data in a variety of ways to target support.

Attendance

Attendance is being closely monitored with key data being shared with schools. To support this, a revised attendance policy is being developed and the attainment advisor will be delivering training to headteachers on the new Education Scotland report Improving Attendance: Understanding the Issues.

A working party has been established within the largest secondary school, supported by the attainment advisor. Work is at an early stage in identifying and implementing initiatives to increase attendance. An authority-level group is also in place, with plans being established on support, training and targeted use of resources to improve attendance.
The authority shows commitment to tackling attendance issues and is continuing to roll out its ‘Addressing Non-attendance' programme.

Plus aim trajectories

Almost a third of local authorities provided information on progress towards the trajectories set for their plus aims. Of those the majority are confident that they are on track to be met. These focus on a range of measures including improving outcomes for learners who have experienced care, S3 attainment in literacy and numeracy, primary writing attainment and early years outcomes.

Where appropriate, a small number of local authorities have used alternative measures to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) to accurately capture poverty-related gaps within their stretch aims. This is reflected within some plus aims which, for example, focus on improving outcomes for children in receipt of free school meals.