Education: improvement framework and plan - 2021

Delivering improvement

The primary purpose of the National Improvement Framework since January 2016 has been to bring together an enhanced range of information and data at all levels of the system, to drive improvement for children and young people in early learning and childcare settings, schools, and colleges across the whole of Scotland. The Scottish Attainment Challenge has also become a rich source of information about good practice in schools, and how high‑quality teaching and learning delivers improvements in outcomes. 

However, COVID-19 has also had an impact on the collection of some of the data that informs the NIF.  In particular, the Scottish Government decided that the collection of Achievement of CfE level (ACEL) data for 2019/20 should not go ahead.  

The Scottish Government has collected and published this data since 2017.  It provides information on the progress that children and young people in P1, P4, P7 and S3 are making in reading, writing, listening and talking, and numeracy.  This data has also been available to schools and local authorities to assist with improvement planning.  

While the schools were closed, it was impossible to gather the 2019/20 ACEL data in the normal way.  A number of possible options for collecting the data were considered, including asking teachers to make an estimate, based on their professional judgement, of whether children and young people have achieved the relevant CfE level on the census date of 8 June 2020.  Other options would be to have a census date of 20 March (when the schools closed), collecting aggregated data at stage level, using data from a sample of schools and/or local authorities, or collecting the data once the schools re-open.   

However, there were potential complications with each option, and we could not be sure the data would be comparable with previous years, or whether it could be used effectively to assess progress towards closing the poverty-related attainment gap, or to target local improvement work.  This meant that the purpose and value of the data collection at both a national and local level was compromised and was, therefore, deemed to provide less benefit than providing schools and education authorities the space required to deal with the many challenges presented by the COVID-19 crisis.  

This has left a 2019/20 gap in ACEL data, and in our ability to report progress against the 11 key measures later on in the NIF.  This is far from ideal, particularly given the Scottish Government's focus on closing the poverty related attainment gap.  However, even if we had proceeded with one of the options for collecting the data, it would still not be directly comparable to previous or future years.  

At the moment, the latest evidence is demonstrating that there have been improvements in the percentage of 16-19 year olds participating in education, training and employment, and in the percentage of primary and secondary pupils achieving Curriculum for Excellence levels relevant to their stage in both literacy and numeracy.  However, the picture is more mixed for the percentage of pupils leaving schools with 1 or more qualification at SCQF Levels 4, 5 and 6.  

Over 71,000 skills-based qualifications were achieved this year, compared to around 48,000 in 2014 (from 47,747 to 71,723).  The proportion of school leavers looked after within the last year attaining 1 or more qualifications at SCQF levels 4, 5 and 6 increased from 62% in 2012/13 to 70% in 2018/19.  There has also been a year on year increase in the proportion of school leavers attaining vocational qualifications at SCQF 5 and above. From 7.3% in 2013/14 to 9% in 2014/15, 10.7% in 2015/16, 12.8% in 2016/17, 14.8% in 2017/18 and 17.1% in 2018/19

We know that more needs to be done to continue to improve outcomes for all our children and young people.

At national level, this Improvement Plan summarises the key evidence and identifies new improvement activity that the Scottish Government will be taking forward or supporting. While it is a national plan, the activity it contains has been informed primarily by local and school-level priorities drawn from the regional improvement and recovery plans produced by the six RICs, as well as the 32 local authority 2020/21 improvement and recovery plans, which in turn have all been informed by improvement planning at individual school level. The national plan is, therefore, a summation of what schools across Scotland have told us they want to focus on, informed by local consultation and evidence. The Plan has also been informed by the data in the NIF Interactive Evidence Report, evidence from school inspections and local authority self-evaluation reports, and recommendations and advice from the ICEA.

The regional and local authority plans, informed by the school improvement plans, identified a number of common themes, which are picked up later on in the NIF under the relevant drivers of improvement:

School Leadership 

• Promote a culture of strong leadership at all levels and in a range of contexts, where educators are empowered to lead across a wide range of educational settings.
• Work collaboratively with peers and colleagues to develop a supportive coaching/mentoring approach to leadership within schools.

Teacher Professionalism 

• Improve skills, and increase the confidence of teachers in using digital tools to enhance learning, teaching and parental engagement.
• An emphasis on staff health and wellbeing support in light of COVID-19.

Parental Engagement 

• Ensure that every parent and family is supported to be involved and engaged in their child's education throughout their learning journey.
• Families should have increased confidence in supporting their child in literacy and numeracy.

Assessment of children's progress 

• Assessment should take into account the need to establish children's next steps in learning across the curriculum, with a particular focus on literacy and numeracy.
• Continue to embed a self-improving system to improve outcomes for learners and raise attainment and achievement through improved learning, teaching and assessment. 

School Improvement 

• All school leavers should be well-supported and move into positive and sustained destinations.
• Support schools and settings to harness the potential of digital technologies to enhance learning, teaching and assessment.
• Support schools to implement recovery planning and to reengage with the cycle of school improvement when appropriate.

Performance information 

• It is everyone's responsibility to gather and use performance information to intervene to secure improvement for all children and young people.

A curriculum that provides the skills and attributes needed in a rapidly changing world

In 2018 the ICEA endorsed Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) as "the cornerstone of educational transformation in Scotland" but recommended a renewed focus on the four capacities of CfE^[2]: successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens, effective contributors.

The purpose of Scotland's curriculum is to provide young people with the skills, knowledge and experiences that will prepare them for their life beyond school and provide them with the best possible opportunity to fulfil their potential. Curriculum for Excellence, its four capacities, its principles and its values are therefore the central foundation for high quality learning, teaching, and assessment. It is essential that the curriculum supports our children and young people to develop fully in school, to achieve positive destinations and to be provided with the full range of skills, attributes and capacities to be resilient within a rapidly changing world.

A range of indicators demonstrate important strengths within the curriculum:

School leaver data

• 92.9% of 2018/19 school leavers were in work, training or study within nine months of leaving school, down from a record 93.3% in 2017/18;
• the proportion of 2018/19 school leavers unemployed nine months after leaving school was 5.8%, down from 13.1% in 2009/10;
• the gap between those from the most and least deprived communities within nine months of leaving school in work, education or training – a positive destination – has reduced from 18.7 percentage points in 2009/10 to 8.4 percentage points in 2018/19; and
• 38.4% of school leavers in 2018/19 were in Higher Education nine months after leaving school.
• the number of school leavers attaining vocational qualifications at Level 5 and above increased from 7.3% in 2013/14 to 17.1% in 2018/19;
• the percentage of school leavers attaining one or more passes at SCQF Level 6 (Higher) or better is up from 50.4% in 2009/10 to 60.5% in 2018/19; and 
• the percentage of school leavers attaining one or more passes at SCQF Level 5 (National 5) or better is up from 77.1% in 2009/10 to 85.1% in 2018/19.

This information demonstrates that young people are being provided with a wider range of options and pathways. Schools are being provided with the opportunity to be flexible and to tailor their curriculum to the needs of every single young person no matter their background, interest, confidence or future career aspirations. 

OECD Review of Curriculum for Excellence

The Scottish Government has commissioned the OECD to undertake an Independent review of Curriculum for Excellence. The original remit for the review was published in February 2020.  

It sets out the priorities for the Review as:

• Curriculum design 
• Depth and Breadth of learning in the Senior Phase 
• Local flexibility versus increased prescription 
• The transition from the Broad General Education into Senior Phase 
• Vocational and academic learning and awards 
• Roles and responsibilities in relation to the curriculum

The Review will look at the Senior Phase curriculum and the Broad General Education and the articulation between the two. It will help us to better understand the choices young people are getting across the country. 

Additional work on assessment and qualifications

In response to the 2020 SQA exam results, the Deputy First Minister asked the OECD to expand the work on the CfE Review to also include a deeper focus on the future of student assessment and qualifications approaches in the Senior Phase curriculum in Scotland. The aim of this work is to analyse Scotland's approach to student assessment and qualifications and produce options for how we could enhance our approach, informed by international good practice.

This work will be aligned with the current OECD Review of the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence and the final comparative paper will be published later in the summer 2021, following the publication of the CfE Review Report in June 2021.

Key milestones for the Review:

• Visit 1: National Stakeholders - 28 September - 2 October 2020
• Visit 2: Schools, practitioners and learners - 2-5 November 2020
• Visit 3: Engagement on preliminary findings – late February/ early March 2021
• Publication of final report - June 2021
• Publication of comparative paper – Summer 2021