Scottish Attainment Challenge - local stretch aims: 2022 to 2023

Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress – stretch aims

As noted above, the Scottish Attainment Challenge Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress introduced a requirement for local authorities to set ambitious, achievable stretch aims for progress in overall attainment and towards closing the poverty-related attainment gap in the 2022/23 academic year. Stretch aims are to be embedded in local authority education service improvement plans.

Through the range of commentary on the Scottish Attainment Challenge published in 2021 (Scottish Government 5-year report referenced above, Audit Scotland and OECD reports), it was clear that progress had been made in closing the poverty-related attainment gap, but that more work was required to do so at a greater pace. The Covid-19 pandemic increased the urgency of this.

To build on the progress to date and in particular the change in the culture and ethos across the education system to raise the profile of equity in education, it is now necessary to increase our collective focus on outcomes for children and young people. The refreshed mission does this and is supported by the introduction of locally identified stretch aims. Following a great deal of engagement across the education system, it was clear that a ground-up approach to setting aims for the pace of progress would secure greater buy-in from local authorities and schools than setting national stretch aims for 2022/23. This has enabled local authorities to account for their own local contexts, starting points and cohorts in setting their ambitious stretch aims for progress in 2022/23.

In summary, the requirement for stretch aims was introduced to support the following aims:

• to contribute to the mission of the Scottish Attainment Challenge: to use education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, with a focus on tackling the poverty-related attainment gap;
• to drive an enhanced focus on outcomes and a transparent culture of using data for improvement;
• to ensure ownership of progress in closing the poverty-related attainment gap is shared appropriately between Scottish Government, Education Scotland and local government;
• to implement a ground-up approach to informing a national picture of the collective ambition of the education system; and
• to help tackle unwarranted variation in attainment and progress in closing the poverty-related attainment gap.

These stretch aims represent key elements of local authorities' ambitions for recovery and accelerated progress for the 2022/23 academic year. By definition, local authorities have been asked to set stretch aims and will do all they can to achieve them. They have been set based on rigorous local processes, supported and challenged by Education Scotland, to interrogate local data and understand how best to target resources and develop approaches to best support children and young people fulfil their potential.

It is these locally developed and locally owned stretch aims that underpin a national picture of the ambitions of local authorities.

Stretch aims have been set using a "core plus" model: i.e. a "core" set of measures for which all local authorities have set stretch aims, "plus" a range of further measures which local authorities have identified as specific local priorities.

As set out in the Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress, the core aims are a subset of the 11 measures of progress towards closing the poverty-related attainment gap in the National Improvement Framework and a locally identified health and wellbeing aim:

a) Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels (literacy for P1, P4 and P7 combined and numeracy for P1, P4 and P7 combined);

b) the proportion of school leavers attaining 1 or more pass at SCQF level 5 based on the "Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations" publication;

c) the proportion of school leavers attaining 1 or more pass at SCQF level 6 based on the "Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations" publication;

d) the proportion of 16-19 olds participating in education, employment or training based on the Annual Participation Measure (APM) produced by Skills Development Scotland; and

e) a locally identified aim for health and wellbeing, to be measured using local datasets.

In addition to these core aims, local authorities have set additional aims which recognise that progress is identified in a broader range of ways at local level than those set out nationally. These aims are of equal importance to the core aims.

A summary of local authorities' stretch aims is set out below.