Initial destinations of senior phase school leavers: 2018 edition

1. Introduction

1.1. This publication presents data on initial destinations of leavers from local authority and grant aided schools in Scotland. Data is only presented on pupils leaving during the senior phase (S4-S6) and does not include pupils attending special schools.

1.2. Information on the initial destinations of school leavers is provided from the Opportunities for All shared dataset managed by Skills Development Scotland ( SDS). The initial destinations data presented in this publication provides information on the outcomes for young people as recorded in October 2017, approximately three months after leaving school.

1.3. Initial destinations data from SDS is matched to the Scottish Government’s ( SG) pupil census in order to identify the cohort of senior phase school leavers from local authority or grant aided secondary schools. A pupil is counted as a school leaver if they have a leaver record in SDS’s data, a pupil census record for the same academic year, and no pupil census record in the following academic year.

1.4. The cohorts of school leavers presented in this publication are consistent with the data presented in the education benchmarking tool ‘Insight’ and the Education Scotland ‘Parentzone’ website. For more information on the cohort definition, please see background note 5.2.

1.5. For the purposes of this publication school leavers who are engaged in higher education, further education, training, voluntary work, employment or activity agreements are classified as having a ‘positive destination’. Other initial destinations include school leavers who are unemployed not seeking employment or training, unemployed seeking employment or training, and individuals where their initial destination is not known. For full definitions of leaver destinations please see background note 5.3.

1.6. This bulletin includes data on 51,258 senior phase school leavers from local authority and grant aided secondary schools in 2016/17.

1.7. Following a stakeholder consultation in September 2017, and as part of an on-going period of rationalisation and improvement of school leaver destination statistics, it is proposed that this Initial Destinations of Senior Phase School Leavers publication will not be produced in future years. Data on the initial destinations of senior phase school leavers will continue to be available to local authorities and secondary schools on the education benchmarking tool ‘Insight’. For further details, please see background note 5.1.4.