Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2016-17

Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2016/17: Experimental Statistics – Data under development

NOTE: The statistics in Chapters 2 and 5 of this report have been superseded. Revised figures, along with further information on the revisions, can be found in the Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2018/19 publication which can be found here:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/achievement-curriculum-excellence-cfe-levels-2018-19/

These statistics are currently being developed and have been published to involve users and stakeholders in their development, and to build in quality and understanding at an early stage.

The annual Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels Return includes data on 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.

This return measures national performance in the literacy organisers (i.e. reading, writing, and listening and talking) and numeracy, and reports on the percentage of pupils who have achieved the expected CfE level, based on teacher professional judgements, relevant to their stage (please see section 1.2 for more detail on CfE levels).

All figures are for Achievement of CfE Levels in reading, writing and listening and talking in the English language unless otherwise specified (Achievement of CfE Levels in Gàidhlig can be found in Chapter 8).

The information was based on teacher professional judgements as at June 2017. This publication provides detailed analysis on national and local authority level results for each stage.

These results are not directly comparable to Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2015/16 results as they continue to be data under development (see sections 1.5 and 1.6).

Full results are available from http://www.gov.scot/stats/bulletins/01302

Key Findings

• The percentage of pupils achieving the CfE level relevant for their stage was highest for listening and talking and lowest for writing in primary stages and lowest in numeracy at S3.

• The percentage of pupils achieving the expected CfE level for their stage in each of the four organisers falls throughout the primary stages.

• The percentage of S3 pupils achieving CfE Third Level or better is between 88 and 91 per cent for all organisers (reading, writing, listening and talking and numeracy).

• For each organiser a higher proportion of pupils living in the least deprived areas achieve the expected CfE level compared to pupils from the most deprived areas.

• The performance gap, between pupils from the most and least deprived areas, widens throughout the primary stages.

• In S3, the performance gap was 11 to 12 percentage points for reading, writing and listening and talking. The gap for numeracy was 15 percentage points.

• Females outperform males across all stages and across all four organisers.

Chart 1.1: Percentage of primary pupils achieving expected CfE levels, 2016/17

The percentage of P1 pupils achieving Early Level:

• 80 per cent in reading
• 77 per cent in writing
• 85 per cent in listening and talking
• 83 per cent in numeracy

The percentage of P4 pupils achieving First Level:

• 77 per cent in reading
• 71 per cent in writing
• 83 per cent in listening and talking
• 75 per cent in numeracy

The percentage of P7 pupils achieving Second Level:

• 76 per cent in reading
• 69 per cent in writing
• 81 per cent in listening and talking
• 70 per cent in numeracy

Chart 1.2: Percentage of S3 pupils achieving Third Level or better and Fourth Level, 2016/17

The percentage of S3 pupils achieving Third Level or better:

• 90 per cent in reading
• 89 per cent in writing
• 91 per cent in listening and talking
• 88 per cent in numeracy

The percentage of S3 pupils achieving Fourth Level:

• 51 per cent in reading
• 48 per cent in writing
• 51 per cent in listening and talking
• 56 per cent in numeracy