National Standardised Assessments for Scotland: national report - academic year 2023-2024

Executive Summary

This summary of findings speaks in general terms about the assessments and categories of learners. The analysis here is based on SNSA outcomes as due to the number of MCNG assessments completed, a similar breakdown here would risk identifying individual learners^[1]. For the same reason, a number of graphical analyses in this report have been provided for the SNSA but not for the MCNG. For the ethnicity outcomes, to allow for the presentation of data the MCNG ethnicity groupings differ from those used in SNSA where more granularity can be provided without identification of completers.

In general, across all stages, a greater proportion of male learners tended to achieve outcomes in the higher capacity bands at all stages for the Numeracy assessments than female learners, but this was reversed in both Reading and Writing where female learners achieved outcomes in higher capacity bands.

In terms of the categories of Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), Free School Meal Entitlement (FME), Additional Support Needs (ASN), and Looked After Children (both at Home and Away from Home) greater proportions of learners from the least deprived backgrounds, with no FME and ASN and those who are not Looked After Children, tended to achieve outcomes in the highest capacity bands. This was observed across all stages and subject areas. These differences tended to become more pronounced as learners moved through the stages of their education.

In terms of ethnic background, at all stages, learners from “Asian” and “Mixed or multiple ethnic groups” backgrounds had higher proportions achieve outcomes in the higher capacity bands. Learners from “White” backgrounds had a higher proportion achieving in the higher capacity bands in earlier stages compared to later year groups.

In Numeracy, a greater proportion of learners who have English as their first language tended to achieve outcomes in the higher capacity bands at P1 but a greater proportion of learners with English as an Additional Language achieved outcomes in those higher bands at P4, P7 and S3. Similarly, for the other subjects, in early stages, a greater proportion of learners with English as their first language achieved outcomes in the higher bands, but the differences in attainment are reduced at later stages, with similar proportions of learners with EAL and all other learners achieving outcomes in higher capacity bands.

In Numeracy at P1 and P4, the modal band for Money, Time and Measurement tended to be lower than the overall band achieved by the largest proportion of learners for the assessment. At P7, Fractions, decimal fractions and percentages, saw the largest proportion of learners achieving a lower band than in the overall assessment. At S3, the largest proportion of learners achieved outcomes in the same band in the organisers as in the assessment as a whole.

In P1 Literacy, a significantly higher proportion of learners achieved outcomes in a higher band for Finding and using information than the other organisers.

In P4 Reading, the largest proportion of learners achieved outcomes in the same band in the organisers as in the assessment as a whole.

At both P7 and S3 for Reading, the modal band for Finding and using information was two bands higher than the one achieved by the largest proportion of learners for the overall assessment.

For P4 Writing, the majority of learners achieved outcomes in a band higher than the modal band for the overall assessment in Grammar and Spelling but a band lower than the modal band in Punctuation. At P7, the modal band was the same for the overall outcomes and each of the organisers. At S3, the band achieved by the largest proportion of learners for the overall assessment was the same as that achieved by the largest proportion of learners for Punctuation. The modal band for Grammar was one band higher than the modal band for the overall assessment and this was two bands higher for Spelling.