Scottish National Standardised Assessments: national report

Preface

This report has been developed to provide a summary of outcomes at a national level on the 'Scottish National Standardised Assessments' (SNSA) in the 2018 to 2019 academic year, the second year of the programme.

The report provides information on two main areas.

• It shows what SNSA set out to measure, by way of a high-level description of each 'organiser' included within the assessments. The descriptions are exemplified by a small number of questions from each of the organisers, with commentary on learner performance on this sample of questions. None of these items will be used in future Scottish National Standardised Assessments.
• Findings at a national level are reported, showing comparisons across the different organisers within the assessments, and focusing on selected learner characteristics including sex, Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), ethnic background, free school meals, additional support needs, looked after children at home and away from home, and English as an additional language.

The information in this report is intended to supplement the information already available to schools and local authorities for the 2018 to 2019 academic year, for their own setting, and is intended to provide staff with an insight into learner performance and engagement with the assessment at a national level. Schools and local authorities may benefit from using the information within this report to help determine strengths and areas for future improvement in relation to curriculum delivery, including support or interventions for specific cohorts or groups. In addition, schools and local authorities can make use of the information to identify trends in performance in areas of the curriculum that may benefit from an increased focus on learning and teaching.

This report is not intended to form the basis of an accountability measure against which performance will be tracked over time. The main aim of SNSA is to provide a diagnostic tool that can be used as part of a range of evidence to support teachers' professional judgement of children's and young people's progress in learning. The report is intended to support this aim through the dissemination of findings at a national level.