Education: National Improvement Framework and improvement plan 2024

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.

Local improvement planning

Schools and local authorities have a long history of improvement planning setting out priorities for local action based on local needs and self-evaluation. These plans and the priorities they set out have been instrumental in shaping the content and context of this NIF and Improvement Plan. The prioritising, targeting and implementation of local improvement activity is key to the delivery of the NIF vision and priorities. These local plans and activity have helped us to identify the new improvement activity in the national Plan that the Scottish Government and Education Scotland will be taking forward or supporting in 2024 and beyond.

As part of the annual planning cycle, and in line with statutory guidance on improvement planning, local authority and school improvement plans should inform and reflect the NIF priorities and ensure a clear line of sight between local and national expectations. The local authority plans, informed by the school improvement plans, identified a number of common themes, which are picked up below under the relevant NIF priority.

A key element of the recently updated Scottish Attainment Challenge: framework for recovery and accelerating progress is the requirement for locally identified stretch aims to be set out in local authority annual education reports and plans (or equivalents) to avoid duplication of effort. ISBN/9781835217870">Stretch aims for 2025/26, accompanied by an outline trajectory for progress, were submitted to the Scottish Government at the end of September 2023.

In summary, the aggregated stretch aims set by local authorities for raising overall attainment point to a collective ambition to make steady and sustained progress in overall attainment over the coming three years.

Local education authorities’ reporting should evaluate their plans and progress towards their ambitious, locally identified stretch aims through their education reports and plans in September each year.

Summary of local improvement plans

Placing the human rights and needs of every child and young person at the centre of education

All local authority plans demonstrated a commitment to upholding and promoting the rights of children and young people in a range of ways. These include ensuring that practitioners develop their knowledge and understanding of the UNCRC and incorporate it into self-evaluation of their practice. Local authorities also reported that quality improvement processes were being revised in order to evaluate progress towards implementation of UNCRC.

Local authorities are working on linking the UNCRC with their culture, values and ethos, skills and activities, curricular programmes, and targeted support. Local authorities are ensuring compliance with Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy, GIRFEC, Equalities Legislation, anti-racist policy, and LGBTQIA+ policies to ensure all children and young people are safe, supported and included.

Local authority examples relating to the NIF drivers of improvement include:

• Review and redesign processes and policies which apply to all learners (2-18) to ensure they are equitable, consistent, lean, coordinated, co-designed with relevant partners, and learner centered. (School and ELC leadership)
• Increase profile of Gaelic Medium Education including providing language learning opportunities and celebrating achievement with all staff and families (School and ELC Leadership & Parent/carer engagement and family learning)
• Whole Family Wellbeing Funding: implement preventative whole family support measures (Parent/carer engagement and family learning)

Improvement in children and young people’s health and wellbeing

Local authorities indicated that they would continue to develop policy and practice frameworks to promote inclusion at a strategic level through health and wellbeing strategies, counselling services in schools, and mental health leads and nurture.

Plans to review and develop the professional learning offer for staff working with partners including CAMHS and Educational Psychology Services is referenced by the majority of local authorities. Professional learning offers included areas such as: self-harm awareness and strategies, anti-bullying, anti-racist, emotional coaching, and Compassionate and Connected Classrooms.

Working with partners to provide targeted health and wellbeing interventions that meet the individual needs of children and young people has been referenced as a key area to be developed. Local authorities indicate that they will make use of data from their Health and Wellbeing Census to inform their improvement planning priorities. Plans to review and develop the health and wellbeing curriculum to address the needs of children and young people is referenced by local authorities.

Local authorities noted their commitment to improving the physical and mental health and wellbeing of children and young people through improving nutritional requirements, physical activities and sport. Collaboration with colleagues from other sectors to support in the planning and delivery in this area is referenced by many local authorities.

Local authorities made specific reference to promoting inclusion, and in particular supporting positive attendance, through self-evaluation processes including reviews of attendance procedures in school, tracking systems, and looking more widely at the reasons for poor/non-attendance. The direct prevention and management of exclusion of children and young people, including care experienced cohorts, is a priority for many local authorities.

Local authority examples relating to the NIF drivers of improvement include:

• Professional learning in de-escalation and interventions. (Teacher and practitioner professionalism)
• Develop and deliver a comprehensive programme of professional learning and targeted interventions across all sectors to support effective implementation of the mental, social and emotional strands of Health and Wellbeing. (School and ELC Improvement)
• Support schools to make effective use of health and wellbeing data to identify priorities and bring about improvement. (Performance Information)

Closing the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged children and young people

Closing the attainment gap continues to be a priority for all local authorities. All local authorities indicate a range of planned interventions, some of which included the use of Scottish Attainment Challenge funding to support improvement through evidence-based interventions which will improve the achievement of all children and young people.

The creation of stretch aims and the development of local authority strategies and policies to track and evaluate progress of these, to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty is an area of focus for all local authorities.

Innovative approaches to professional learning programmes are being developed by local authorities to strengthen practitioner approaches, providing rich opportunities for children and young people to achieve and attain, and reduce the poverty-related attainment gap. Local authorities will continue to work collaboratively across a range of networks to support the development and sharing of highly effective practice that reduces the poverty-related attainment gap.

Almost all local authorities indicated that they will be focusing on national programmes to support recovery and progress, including the roll out of Motivation, Commitment and Resilience Pathways, implementation of ‘The Promise’ (Corporate Parenting Action Plan), addressing the key recommendations from the Additional Support for Learning Review, Support for Learning: All our Children and All their Potential (The Morgan Review) and implementing revised models for Scottish Attainment Challenge and Pupil Equity Funding.

Local authority examples relating to the NIF drivers of improvement include:

• Work with Island authority partners and the Scottish Government to further develop approaches to identifying and addressing poverty in a remote and rural context. (School and ELC Improvement)
• Continue ‘Leading Learners’ programme to support young people at risk of not achieving working grades, with a particular focus on social inequalities. (Curriculum and assessment)
• Increased participation and confidence of parents and carers in supporting their children’s learning and development including development of an authority approach to inform parents / carers of their child's progress towards developmental milestones. (Parent/carer engagement and family learning)

Improvement in skills and sustained, positive school-leaver destinations for all young people

All local authorities have planning in place to support improvement in skills and sustained, positive school-leaver destinations for all young people. To ensure that children and young people have access to an extended range of learning pathways through which they are developing skills for learning, work and life and securing sustainable positive destinations, local authorities indicate that they will continue to develop their strategy for growing existing partnerships and for establishing new partnerships. Making links with organisations such as Skills Development Scotland, businesses and employers, and further education providers as well as an increased focus on skills and vocational based learning were included in plans.

Local authorities indicate the range of ways they plan to develop their curriculum offer and approach to extended pathway planning, to ensure their curriculum is built around the learner, and that children and young people have access to a wider and extended range of learning pathways which meet their needs. Local authorities reference developing their digital capacity in order to maximise the number and range of opportunities available to young people.

Through the interrogation of school leaver destination data, local authorities specified further targeted support and transition planning for vulnerable groups, including care experienced children and young people and those with additional support needs, to support improvement in employability skills and sustained positive destinations for all young people. Local authorities identify key roles to support this priority such as a Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) coordinator.

Local authority examples relating to the NIF drivers of improvement include:

• Through DYW coordinators and other partners, embed approaches to planning, supporting, and tracking post-school destinations for all school leavers. (School and ELC leadership)
• Review labour market information and align learning experiences to future workforce opportunities in the local authority. (Curriculum and assessment)
• Develop the curriculum model for senior phase pupils, inclusion of learner voice in curriculum planning and improving communication about the curriculum offer. (School and ELC improvement)

Improvement in achievement, particularly in literacy and numeracy

Local authorities have detailed planning in place to support improvement in achievement, particularly in relation to literacy and numeracy. This focuses on developing practitioner knowledge and skills in the planning, progression and assessment approaches within literacy and numeracy to ensure a consistent approach is achieved across all settings within their local authority.

Many improvement actions within this priority focus on the implementation of targeted interventions or enactment of local authority-wide policies and strategies. Most local authorities explicitly referenced actions to be undertaken to implement strategic approaches related to improvement, either specifically related to literacy and numeracy strategies or more general raising attainment strategies.

Supporting teacher professional judgement within the broad general education is a priority for local authorities through the development of moderation networks including developing the Quality Assessment and Moderation Support Officer (QAMSO) leadership role to support the planning and delivery of professional learning in assessment and moderation.

Local authority plans describe improvement actions which target approaches taken to improve learning, teaching and assessment which, as a result, will improve attainment in literacy and numeracy. A particular approach taken by many local authorities is identifying a specific area within literacy and numeracy and developing professional learning in this area for example First Level writing. For the early years, specific reference is being made to developing approaches to learning through play and developing play pedagogy.

Through a range of approaches designed to reduce inequity and close the attainment gap, opportunities for family learning to support improvements in literacy and numeracy are outlined by local authorities.

Local authority examples relating to the NIF drivers of improvement include:

• Identify a Leader of Learning in all schools for, assessment, literacy, numeracy, and wellbeing. (School and ELC leadership)
• Develop consistent approaches to teaching of numeracy through professional enquiry project in partnership with Education Scotland. (Teacher and Practitioner professionalism)

Improvement of the curriculum

It is important that the curriculum is continuously improved to ensure it remains relevant, forward looking, cognisant of future skills needs as well as the contemporary needs of our children and young people, and ultimately supports high quality teaching and learning. That is why, in 2024, we will be instigating a regular Curriculum for Excellence improvement cycle, which will consider curricular areas in a planned and systematic way as has been seen to work effectively in other high performing jurisdictions. This will include considerations around the relevance of curriculum content, role of knowledge, transitions between primary and secondary, and alignment between the broad general education and senior phase. The expertise and insights of our teachers, practitioners and subject specialists, amongst others, will be key to the continuous improvement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). Given we have a 3-18 curriculum in Scotland, when considering a particular curricular area as part of this improvement cycle, the qualifications body will also consider the content of the associated qualifications to ensure strong progression and alignment between S3 and the senior phase. Numeracy and mathematics will be prioritised as the first curricular area to undergo this improvement cycle in 2024.

National response to improving achievement, particularly in literacy and numeracy

The National Response to Improving Mathematics (NRIM) brings together national and local government, alongside maths specialists, teachers, national agencies, including the Inspectorate, universities, and initial teacher education providers. Its objective is to deliver a “one-system” response to improving maths; one that is focused on improved levels of mathematical literacy and improved attainment.

Similarly, the National Response to Improving Literacy (NRIL), launched in February 2023, will provide a “one-system” response on literacy by improving the national support offer to teachers and practitioners so that they in turn can support children and young people to progress in the literacy skills and knowledge needed for 21^st century learning.

The work of NRIL and Education Scotland will be complemented by national literacy programmes already benefiting schools such as ‘Read Write Count with the First Minister’ which helps ensure that all families have access to high quality books and other learning resources; and Reading Schools which recognises and rewards schools for building and sustaining a whole-school inclusive reading culture.

The key priorities of the NRIM and NRIL for 2024 are set out under the curriculum and assessment driver in the Improvement Plan.

PISA

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an assessment of 15 year-olds’ skills in mathematics, reading and science. Eighty one countries and around 690,000 students participated in PISA 2022 - including all four nations of the UK. PISA 2022 focuses on mathematics, with reading and science as the minor domains. In 2018, reading was the major domain, and in 2015 it was science.

Individual countries were at different stages of their transition out of COVID restrictions when the survey was carried out. In Scotland the assessments were undertaken 18 months after the end of the period of school building closures, and seven months after the end of COVID restrictions in schools. The results reflect the cohort of young people who experienced unprecedented disruption to their education as a result of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The PISA 2022 results for Scotland show:

• reading performance was above the OECD average and higher than 24 other countries
• maths was similar to the OECD average
• science performance was similar to the OECD average
• Scotland’s overall performance in mathematics and reading was lower in 2022 than it was in 2018, and was similar in science. The OECD average for mathematics and reading also fell, with 30 OECD countries/economies achieving a lower score in mathematics than in 2018
• the proportion of pupils performing at the highest levels of achievement ("Level 5 and above") was higher in Scotland than the OECD average in reading, and similar in maths and science
• in mathematics, the strength of the relationship between social background and performance was higher in 2022 than in 2018, and was similar to the OECD average, having been lower than the average in 2018. For reading and science, the variation explained by social background was similar to 2018.

An additional questionnaire on creative thinking was part of PISA 2022. The results of this will be published in mid-2024.

The national activity and local authority examples in the sections above highlight the key improvement actions relating to the PISA domains on reading and maths. Further actions relating to the final PISA domain (science) include the Young STEM leader awards, STEM Nation programme, STEM bursaries and funding to support teacher professional learning are aiming to maximise the number of people highly educated and skilled in STEM subjects.

Inclusion, wellbeing, and equality

The Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research (BISSR) 2023 report was published in November 2023. This was the fifth wave of time series research first conducted in 2006. Both primary and secondary school staff reported generally good behaviour among most or all pupils in the classroom and around the school. However, there has been a perceived decline in pupil behaviour since the research was last conducted in 2016, with primary and secondary staff reporting decreases in most positive behaviours and increases in most of the low level disruptive, serious disruptive, and other negative behaviours around the school.

There was a general trend of positive behaviours decreasing, and negative behaviours increasing as pupils’ ages increase, with most of the low level and negative behaviours more commonly reported in secondary schools than primary schools. The exception was physical aggression and violence, both directed at other pupils and towards staff, which were more often experienced in primary schools compared with secondary schools.

The qualitative research identified new and emerging patterns of disruptive behaviour including vaping and in-school truancy, a rise in misogynistic views expressed by male pupils, and problematic use of mobile phones and social media. The Cabinet Secretary has set out a five step plan in response to BISSR, the details of which are set out under the school and ELC improvement driver in the Improvement Plan. The inspectorate will strengthen the evidence gathered during school inspections, to ensure we have an accurate picture of behaviour in Scotland’s schools to support improvement.

We know that the number of pupils identified with additional support needs has increased substantially since 2010 - 259,036 pupils (37%) were recorded in the pupil census as having an additional support need in 2023. This has been driven partly by a change to how additional support needs statistics were gathered in 2010 and, of course, by more children being diagnosed.

It is for local councils to determine the most appropriate educational provision, taking account of their legal responsibilities and the individual circumstances of the children and young people in their care. However, the Scottish Government takes its commitment to all pupils with additional support needs very seriously.

In 2020, the Morgan Review considered implementation of additional support for learning, and confirmed that there is no fundamental deficit in the principle and policy intent of the existing Additional Support for Learning Act and guidance. Therefore, the focus is on the collective actions that need to be taken to improve the experiences of children, young people and their families. The Scottish Government and COSLA jointly responded to the review, and confirmed acceptance of the recommendations.

At the same time, the Scottish Government and COSLA published the ASL Action Plan, which set out 76 Actions to be taken to deliver the recommendation of the Morgan Review. As part of that response, we have committed to publishing regular progress reports, and two have been published since then. The latest progress report, published in November 2022, confirmed that, at that time, 24 of the 76 actions had been completed.

In order to secure progress on delivery of the actions at pace, the Scottish Government and COSLA have established the ASL Project Board. The role of the Project Board is to oversee the delivery of the ASL Action Plan and associated workstreams. 

Throughout the life of this plan, there has been continued progress towards the achievement of these actions, and this has continued since the publication of the last report in November 2022. We expect to see further progress before the next progress report in Spring 2024.

It is acknowledged within the ASL Review report that the “recommendations are not a quick fix” and that they will “challenge and cause discomfort”. We are confident that, by working together, maintaining a focus on outcomes, and implementing the recommendations of the review, we will achieve the necessary change.

Attendance

We want all children and young people to get the support that they need to reach their full capacities, and teachers and support staff play a crucial role in this. The Scottish Government will continue to support local authorities, schools and parents to ensure good attendance in addition to our considerable investment in raising attainment. We want schools and local authorities to engage with parents and carers whose children are at risk of missing out on education.

With all local authorities having set a stretch aim for 2023-26 to improve attendance, there is a clear commitment to support children and young people to prevent missed learning opportunities.

In September and October 2023, Education Scotland carried out a deep dive on attendance to provide the following outcomes:

1. A deeper understanding of the current barriers and challenges experienced by schools, children and young people and their families and which influence school attendance, including the impact of the pandemic.

2. Clear examples of effective strategies that are supporting improved attendance.

3. Clarity on what further support, or intervention, is required in areas where attendance is not improving.

4. An understanding of how well current national approaches to data collection, analysis and presentation support local authorities and schools to fully understand and address attendance issues.

The report sets out some actions for consideration at both a local and a national level – national level actions are included under the school improvement driver in the Improvement Plan.

Although the findings are based on evidence gathered from local authorities and schools, they are also relevant for early years establishments, and for supporting learners beyond school leaving age.

Equality

The Scottish Government’s commitment to embedding equality, inclusion and human rights in everything it does is of particular importance when it comes to children and young people, in order that they grow up feeling loved, safe, respected, and can realise their full potential as adults who are well educated, skilled and able to contribute to society.

These ambitions underpin our 2023-24 Programme for Government which contains a number of commitments which will improve the lives of children and young people including to:

“Further advance inclusive education in our schools through our Anti-Racism in Education Programme which will continue to embed anti-racist practice and principles in initial and ongoing professional development for teachers and educators, including the promotion of a decolonised curriculum which reflects diversity, social justice and Scotland’s role in the trans-Atlantic enslavement, and the development of robust measures for tackling racist incidents in schools. ”

The Scottish Government’s Anti-Racism in Education Programme consists of a broad set of ambitions which will put in place measures which embed anti-racism in schools, resulting in minority ethnic young people and staff experiencing an education system which is free from racism and is underpinned by culturally-responsive practice.