Education Outcomes for Looked After Children 2022/23

Introduction

Looked after children are defined as those in the care of their local authority (Children Scotland Act 1995). Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) covers a range of policies aimed at helping every child and young person in Scotland reach their full potential, including looked after children, as they grow and develop into successful learners. Scottish Government, Education Scotland and local government are working together to improve the educational outcomes of care-experienced children and young people as part of The Promise. This work aims to improve the experience, achievement, engagement in learning and attainment of those with care experience and support their transition from education. The Scottish Attainment Challenge aims to drive improved outcomes for children and young people, empowering headteachers and local authorities to take approaches that best suit the needs of their most disadvantaged children and young people.

An Official Statistics publication for Scotland

These statistics are designated as Official Statistics in accordance with the Statistics and Service Registration Act 2007. They have been produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Further information on Official Statistics is published by the UK Statistics Authority.

Official Statistics in Development

Prior to last year’s publication, this report focussed on the education outcomes of children who were looked after within the previous school year. In last year’s publication, we expanded this coverage through statistics in development about care-experienced children. This year, we have included attendance and exclusion statistics for care-experienced children. These statistics in development aim to improve our understanding of educational outcomes for children with previous care experience, including children who were looked after at earlier stages in their school journey. We plan to gather feedback to inform further development to these statistics from the next iteration of the report.

We have included three categories to describe care experience in this report: children who were looked after within the last year; children who have been looked after at any point since turning 5; and children who have been looked after at any point since turning 12. The latter two categories broadly represent children who have experienced care at any point since starting primary school (since turning 5), and those who have experienced care at any point since starting secondary school (since turning 12). These groups and the group of children looked after within the last year are not mutually exclusive. This means a child can belong to multiple categories, and all looked after or care-experienced children in the statistics are also included in ‘all pupils’ figures. For example, a child who was looked after continuously throughout primary and secondary school will be counted in all three looked after and care-experienced categories, as well as in the category containing ‘all pupils’ (or ‘all leavers’) which is provided for comparison.

For consistency, throughout this report we will refer to children who were looked after at some point during the period 1 August 2022 to 31 July 2023, for any duration of time, as pupils or leavers looked after within the year. Children who experienced care at any point, for any duration of time, since turning 5 will be referred to as pupils or leavers care-experienced at any point aged 5 or over. Children who experienced care at any point, for any duration of time, since turning 12 will be referred to as pupils or leavers care-experienced at any point aged 12 or over. More information on these additional categories is given in the methodology section of the background notes.

Overview 

The first two sections of this publication cover stages and attainment, and post-school destinations of young people who left school in 2022/23. An estimated 1,054 children who left school in 2022/23 had been looked after at some point between August 2022 and July 2023. They represent 1.9% of all 54,743 school leavers in 2022/23. They are included in the larger group of 1,518 school leavers who had been looked after at any point since turning 12, and the 2,131 leavers who had been looked after at any point since turning 5, who left school in 2022/23.

The third section focuses on the achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels (CfE). This covers 2,791 children who were looked after at some point during 2022/23, and 5,139 children looked after at any point since turning 5 across Primary 1 (P1), Primary 4 (P4), Primary 7 (P7) and Secondary 3 (S3) year groups. This also includes achievement of CfE statistics for children in special schools/units that cover 677 children who were looked after in the last year.

The fourth section covers school attendance, including attendance data for 10,739 children looked after in the last year, 16,458 children who were looked after since turning 5, and 6,097 children who were looked after since turning 12. The fifth section focuses on school exclusion data for the same cohorts of children.

The statistics cover pupils in publicly funded mainstream schools in the 32 local authorities, and one grant aided school.