National Improvement Framework for Scottish Education - 2016 Evidence Report

Key Driver: Assessment of children's progress

The range of robust evidence currently available on how children are developing and progressing (i.e. their outcomes) as they move through their early and school years, to the time they leave school, are now reported under each of the Key Priorities at the start of this evidence report.

These outcome measures help to identify where things are going well and whether changes in practice, or the interventions being implemented, are having a positive impact on these outcomes.

In addition, measuring outcomes also, in themselves, act as 'Drivers for Improvement', as they help to identify areas where, collectively, more needs to be done in order for further improvement in these outcomes to occur and whether improvement is occurring at the pace expected.

Teacher feedback

The PISA 2015 Scotland report has shown that:

Scottish students were generally more likely to report that teachers would give them feedback than students across the OECD.

12.1% Scottish students were significantly less likely to say that teachers “Never or almost never” told them “…how I am performing in this course” (12.1% compared with 27.1%) and more likely to say this would happen in “Some lessons” or “Many lessons”.

18.5% This pattern was similar for “The teacher gives me feedback on my strengths in this class” with Scottish students less likely to say “Never or almost never” than OECD students (18.5% compared with 38.2%) and more likely to say this would happen in “Some lessons”, “Many lessons” and “Every or almost every lesson”.

12.9% This was also the case for “The teacher tells me in which areas I can still improve” with Scottish students less likely to say “Never or almost never” (12.9% compared with 13.9%) and more likely to say this would happen for “Some lessons”, “Many lessons” and “Every or almost every lesson”.

15.1% For “The teacher tells me how I can improve my performance”, Scottish students were also less likely to say “Never or almost never” (15.1% compared to 28.0%) and more likely to say “Some lessons” and “Many lessons” than the OECD.

18.4% Scottish students were more likely than OECD students to report that “The teacher advises me on how to reach my learning goals” with less saying “Never or hardly ever” (18.4% compared to 31.7%) and being more likely to choose “Some lessons”, “Many lessons” and “Every or almost every lesson”.

Careers Information, Advice and Guidance ( CIAG) Services

100% of the 12 CIAG inspections carried out since June 2014 were graded as ‘good’ or ‘very good’ against “Customer progression and achievement of relevant high quality outcomes.