Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2017-18

Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2017/18

11^th December 2018

NOTE: The statistics in this report have been superseded. This mainly affects Chapters 3 and 4.5. Revised figures 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/achievementcurriculum- excellence-cfe-levels-2018-19/.

Further information on the revisions can be found in chapter 9.4 of the 2018/19 publication.

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 5).

The information is based on teacher professional judgements as at June 2018.  This publication provides detailed analysis on national and local authority level results for each stage. 

Full results are available from: www.gov.scot/stats/bulletins/01322

School level results (where available) are accessible here

Achievement of CfE Level data continue to be data under development and caution should be applied when making comparisons to previous Achievement of CfE Level results (see sections 1.5 and 1.6).

Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2017/18

Key Findings

• The percentage of pupils achieving the CfE level relevant for their stage was highest in listening and talking and lowest for writing in the primary stages.
• Across all primary stages, around 85 per cent of pupils achieved the expected CfE level for their relevant stage in listening and talking; at least 75 per cent for numeracy and reading and over 70 per cent for writing. 
• For each organiser (reading, writing, listening and talking and numeracy) around 90 per cent of S3 pupils achieved Third Level or better.
• For each organiser, a higher proportion of pupils living in the least deprived areas achieved the expected CfE level compared to pupils from the most deprived areas.
• The performance gap, between pupils from the most and least deprived areas, generally widens throughout the primary stages.
• At S3 (Third Level or better), the performance gap between pupils from the most and least deprived areas was 10 to 12 percentage points for reading, writing and listening and talking.  The gap for numeracy was 14 percentage points.
• Females outperform males across all stages and across all organisers.
• Pupils who have additional support needs or English as an additional language tend to perform lower than other pupils, at all stages and in all organisers.
• The overall pattern of performance by stage and organiser is very similar to that reported in the Achievement of CfE Level 2016/17 results.