Educational Attainment
This indicator is comprised of seven sub-measures mirroring the National Improvement Framework for Education key measures for monitoring the attainment gap, and covering the key components of Curriculum for Excellence and key stages of school education:
- Proportion of Primary pupils achieving expected levels in all three Literacy organisers
- Proportion of S3 pupils achieving Third Level or better in all three Literacy organisers
- Proportion of Primary pupils achieving expected levels in Numeracy
- Proportion of S3 pupils achieving Third Level or better in Numeracy
- Proportion of school leavers attaining 1 or more award at SCQF Level 4 or above
- Proportion of school leavers attaining 1 or more award at SCQF Level 5 or above
- Proportion of school leavers attaining 1 or more award at SCQF Level 6 or above
The naming convention for these sub-measures within the NPF is as follows:
- Education attainment: Primary 1,4 and 7 literacy
- Education attainment: Secondary 3 literacy
- Education attainment: Primary 1,4 and 7 numeracy
- Education attainment: Secondary 3 numeracy
- Education attainment: SCQF Level 4 or above
- Education attainment: SCQF Level 5 or above
- Education attainment: SCQF Level 6 or above
Definitions
Proportion of pupils achieving expected levels in Literacy and Numeracy is based on the Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels data collection.
The annual Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels data collection includes all Primary 1, Primary 4, Primary 7 and Secondary 3 pupils in publicly funded mainstream schools, and all pupils based in publicly funded special schools/units.
The collection covers performance in the three literacy organisers (i.e. reading, writing, and listening and talking) and numeracy, and reports on the proportion of pupils who have achieved the expected CfE Level, based on teacher professional judgements, relevant to their stage. The Primary measures included in the National Improvement Framework for Scottish Education and the National Performance Framework are based on a calculation derived from combining the P1, P4 and P7 data. The Literacy measure is calculated based on pupils achieving all three literacy organisers.
Proportion of school leavers attaining 1 or more award at Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework (SCQF) Level 4 or above, Level 5 or above and Level 6 or above are from school leaver attainment statistics. The presentation of school leaver attainment data by Scottish Government takes an outcomes-based approach; leavers are classified by identifying the highest SCQF Level at which they achieved one or more passes by the time they leave school.
Source(s)
Criteria for change (what change in the data constitutes a change in performance)
The overall Education Attainment indicator arrow will reflect the underlying sub-measures. If the majority of sub-measures (4 or more) have seen an increase, the Education Attainment indicator arrow will show Performance Improving. If the majority of sub-measures have seen a decrease the indicator arrow will show Performance Worsening. In all other cases the indicator arrow will show Performance Maintaining.
The evaluation of whether an individual sub-measure has seen an increase or a decrease varies between sub-measures.
Where the level of a sub-measure is above 90% (or below 10%) any difference within +/- 0.5 percentage points of the previous year’s figure suggests that the position is more likely to be stable. A change of more than +/- 0.5 percentage points will be classified as an increase/decrease.
This currently applies to the following sub-measures:
- Proportion of S3 pupils achieving Third Level or better in Numeracy (sub-measure (iv)).
- Proportion of school leavers attaining 1 or more award at SCQF Level 4 or above (sub-measure (v)).
In all other cases (i.e. the sub-measure is between 10% and 90% inclusive) any difference within +/- 1 percentage point of the previous year’s figure suggests that the position is more likely to be stable. A change of more than +/- 1 percentage points will be classified as an increase/decrease.
This currently applies to the following sub-measures:
- Proportion of Primary pupils achieving expected levels in all three Literacy organisers (sub-measure (1)).
- Proportion of S3 pupils achieving Third Level or better in all three Literacy organisers (sub-measure (2)).
- Proportion of Primary pupils achieving expected levels in Numeracy (sub-measure (3)).
- Proportion of school leavers attaining 1 or more award at SCQF Level 5 or above (sub-measure (4)).
- Proportion of school leavers attaining 1 or more award at SCQF Level 6 or above (sub-measure 5)).
These criteria will be kept under review and if sub-measures rise above 90% over time the criteria for these sub-measures may change.