Background 

Shetland Islands Council has 27 schools. There are no learners living in quintiles 1 or 5: free school meal registrations are used to articulate the poverty-related attainment gap. The higher cost of living on the islands and their remote and rural context contribute to a mixed demographic across communities. 

Rationale 

Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Level (ACEL) data indicated writing as an area for improvement, particularly within first level. Staff confidence in teaching writing was reported as variable.

An initial pilot of professional learning on using quality improvement approaches to improve writing took place with one school between March 2022 and June 2022. Led by an Education Scotland education officer for literacy, the pilot had a positive impact on children’s views on writing, staff confidence in teaching and on attainment.

Following this success, Shetlands Islands Council was offered a place on the National Improving Writing Programme. This has included two central officers being trained as local leads as well as professional learning and support for schools. Subsequently, similar approaches are being tested to improve attainment in numeracy. 

Attainment Data includes:

• P4 Shetland ACEL data 2022: 66% 
• P4 Shetland ACEL data 2023: 71% 
• P4 children involved with Cohort 1 and 2 achieved 77.7%.

This is 115 out of 148 P4 children.

Attainment Scotland Funding 

Strategic Equity Funding: £5,000 to £14,999  

What Shetland Islands Council did

Following the pilot, two local leads were identified to engage with the National Improving Writing Programme and to take this forward. Working with the Children and Young People’s Improvement Collaborative, two cohorts of schools have now completed this and the third is underway. Each cohort has been involved in an impactful programme of professional learning in: 

• understanding Quality Improvement Methodology 
• applying Quality Improvement tools 
• setting aims for improving writing 
• implementing a bundle of change measures 

To date, nine schools have completed this with 22 staff and 148 children involved. Cohort three is well underway, where the local leads are working with ten schools, 22 staff and 261 children. 

Four schools are now using this learning to implement small tests of change to improve numeracy. In one school, this has resulted in 79% of P7 children being on track to achieve second level division benchmarks (baseline 0%). 

Impact 

Published data shows that across the eight schools First Level writing in cohorts one and two, was 77.7% by December 2023. It is hoped that this year’s data will demonstrate a similar improvement in cohort 3. As of October 2023, 15 of 27 schools have been involved (55.5%)  

Quotes from participants: 

“The confidence in my pupils to write independently has increased dramatically, and it shows within the work they produce.” 

“The class implementing the bundle have made excellent progress with writing and this has really promoted staff confidence and learner engagement.” 

“Whilst this has been a universal offer, it has contributed to the progress in closing the poverty-related attainment gap within writing.”