Summary statistics for attainment and initial leaver destinations, no. 6: 2024 edition

Section 1. About these statistics

This section outlines data sources, concepts and methodology associated with the data used in this publication.

Section 1.1 School leavers

In this publication a school leaver is defined as a young person of school leaving age, who left during or at the end of the school year. For 2022-23 school leavers, the leaver year is 14th September 2022 to 12th September 2023.

For most young people, S4 (≈15-16 year-olds) is the last compulsory year of school, but the majority choose to stay on and complete S5 (≈16-17 year-olds) and S6 (≈17-18 year-olds). (Please note pupil ages are based on approximate age ranges; more information is available from the pupil census supplementary statistics.)

Initial leaver destination statistics and school leaver attainment in National Qualifications include school leavers from all stages of secondary school.

The statistics on attainment in all qualifications and learning programmes accredited under the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (the All SCQF measure discussed in Section 1.5 and in Section 5) cover school leavers from S4-S6 only.

Figures in this report are based on pupils in publicly funded mainstream schools, in the 32 local authorities and one grant-aided school. Figures including school leavers from publicly funded special schools are available for initial destinations and for the National Qualifications attainment measure in the supplementary tables.

Section 1.2 School leaver initial destinations

This publication provides information on the initial destinations of 2022-23 school leavers, relating to outcomes approximately three months after the end of the school year (2nd October 2023).

A separate publication - ‘Summary Statistics for Follow-up Leaver Destinations’ – will follow in June 2024 and will provide information on the follow-up destinations of 2022-23 school leavers, approximately nine months after the end of the school year (1st Monday in April 2024).

School leaver destinations data is based on the Skills Development Scotland (SDS) ‘Opportunities for All’ shared dataset, matched with pupil census records for the school year 2022-23. More information can be found in section 8.1.

Destinations are grouped in the following categories within this statistical bulletin:

Positive Destinations

• Higher Education
• Further Education
• Employment
• Training
• Voluntary Work
• Personal Skills Development

Other Destinations

• Unemployed Seeking
• Unemployed Not Seeking
• Unknown

Section 1.3 School leaver attainment in this publication

This year, for the first time, school leaver attainment statistics are presented for two different measures.

The first measure presents leavers’ attainment in National Qualifications only. National Qualifications are awarded by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and, for the purposes of this publication, are the National Courses (National 3, National 4, National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher) and Skills for Work. This is the measure which has been presented in previous versions of this publication. More information is included in Section 1.4.

The second measure, referred to as the All SCQF measure, is new to this publication this year. It covers school leavers’ attainment in all qualifications and learning programmes on the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF), from a range of providers. Further information on this new measure is provided in Section 1.5.

For both measures, the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) is used as the basis for reporting levels of attainment. The SCQF is Scotland’s national qualifications framework which allows broad comparisons to be made between qualifications. The SCQF level indicates the level of difficulty of a particular qualification or learning programme. It allows learners, employers and the public in general, to understand the range of skills and learning that should be achieved at each level.

For both the National Qualifications measure and the All SCQF measure this publication reports the number of passes or awards attained at a given SCQF level or better and the highest SCQF level achieved, at SCQF Levels 3 to 7.

Section 1.4 National Qualifications measure

The school leaver attainment data in Section 4 covers Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) National Qualifications, achieved throughout all stages of a pupil’s education at school. The data include leavers from all stages of school, including leavers from S3 and other stages.

The National Qualifications measure consists of the National Courses (such as National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher), plus Skills for Work courses.

It does not include attainment in the SQA’s National Units, the Scottish Baccalaureate, or National Qualifications below Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) Level 3 (such as National 1 and National 2).

More information is available in Section 8.2.

Section 1.5 All Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (All SCQF) qualifications measure

The school leaver attainment data in Section 5 covers attainment by school leavers in any qualification or learning programme on the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF, see Section 1.3). It covers qualifications and learning programmes achieved during the senior phase of school (years S4 to S6), and relates to pupils who left school from years S4-S6. For simplicity, throughout the remainder of this publication the range of qualifications and learning programmes on the SCQF will be referred to simply as ‘qualifications’.

The qualifications in the All SCQF measure include National Qualifications – as in Section 4 – and also other qualifications. They include qualifications provided by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and also by other providers. They do not include National Units or the Scottish Baccalaureate (although the Highers and Advanced Highers that make up the Scottish Baccalaureate are included), or qualifications below SCQF Level 3.

More information on the qualifications included in each measure is provided below, and Figure 1 provides an illustration of examples of qualifications included in each measure.

Figure 1 - Examples of award providers and qualifications included in the National Qualifications measure and the All SCQF measure

National Qualifications measure

• SQA – National 3
• SQA – National 4
• SQA – National 5
• SQA – Higher
• SQA – Advanced Higher
• SQA – Skills for Work

All SCQF measure (examples, not an exhaustive list)

• SQA – National 3
• SQA – National 4
• SQA – National 5
• SQA – Higher
• SQA – Advanced Higher
• SQA – Skills for Work
• SQA – National Progression Awards
• SQA – National Certificates
• SQA – Awards
• SQA – Professional Development Award
• SQA – Scottish Vocational Qualification
• Open University – Making your learning count (SCQF Level 7)
• Scottish Schools Education Research Centre - SCQF Level 6 Award in STEM Leadership
• Sports Leaders UK - Qualification in Sports Leadership
• Young Enterprise Scotland – Young Enterprise Scotland Company Programme
• SafeCert - SCQF Level 6 Award in Emergency First Aid at Work

More information is available in Section 8.3.

1.5.1 Why have we introduced the All SCQF measure?

Historically this publication has presented attainment in National Qualifications i.e. National 3, National 4, National 5, Higher, Advanced Higher and Skills for Work. However, many school pupils in Scotland take a range of other types of qualifications either instead of, or in addition to, National Qualifications. Attainment by school pupils in a broader range of qualifications has been increasing over the last few years, although the extent of this varies across the country depending on local presentation policies. Consultation with a range of internal and external stakeholders demonstrated a user need for recognition of the wider range of attainment by pupils in schools in Scotland. Therefore the All SCQF measure has been added to this publication.

The All SCQF measure has been in use for a number of years by stakeholders in education to understand school pupils’ attainment. It has been available via ‘Insight’ - the benchmarking tool used by local authorities and schools - and to the public via the School Information Dashboard.

The data visible on the Insight tool presents information on the five most recent years of school leaver attainment under the All SCQF. For this publication a back series has been created so that, as for the National Qualifications measure, data are available from 2009-10.

As the Insight tool was developed for a different purpose, there are a number of methodological differences between the All SCQF measure and the National Qualifications measure. These are described in Section 1.5.2.

Alongside introducing the All SCQF measure, we are continuing to report on attainment under the National Qualifications measure. The user consultation identified a need to continue to report on this basis. The National Qualifications measure provides three of the key measures used by the Scottish Government in its National Improvement Framework to measure progress over time in closing the poverty-related attainment gap. By continuing to report on attainment under the National Qualifications measure, these statistics provide a consistent time series in measuring that progress.

1.5.2 What are the differences between the two measures of attainment?

The main difference between the National Qualifications measure (Section 4) and the All SCQF measure (Section 5) is that the National Qualifications measure considers school leavers’ attainment only in National Qualifications. The All SCQF measure considers attainment in any qualification on the SCQF. See section 1.5 for more information.

A summary of the other differences between the two measures is provided below. It is important to understand these differences when deciding on which measure of attainment to use (see Section 1.5.5).

More details on each of the methodologies are available in Section 8.

National Qualifications measure:

• Qualifications and award providers: Includes National Qualifications provided by the SQA
• SCQF credit points / notional learning hours: All qualifications at a given SCQF level are associated with an equal number of notional learning hours and SCQF credit points (see Section 8.2.2)
• Treatment of Grade Ds: A grade D is counted as a pass at the SCQF level below (e.g. a grade D achieved at SCQF Level 6 is counted as a pass at SCQF Level 5)
• Leaver cohort: All school leavers from mainstream publicly funded schools
• Stage of schooling in which qualifications are attained: Considers all attainment achieved in the previous 6 years, irrespective of the stage in which it was achieved

All SCQF measure:

• Qualifications and award providers: Includes all qualifications and learning programmes on the SCQF which are reported to the Scottish Government Insight team. From a variety of providers.
• SCQF credit points / notional learning hours: Qualifications at a given SCQF level can be associated with differing numbers of notional learning hours and SCQF credit points. Each qualification, irrespective of this, is counted as a single pass or award. (see Section 8.4.2)
• Treatment of Grade Ds: A grade D is counted as a pass or award at that SCQF level (e.g. a grade D achieved at SCQF Level 6 is counted as an award at SCQF Level 6)
• Leaver cohort: S4-S6 school leavers from mainstream publicly funded schools
• Stage of schooling in which qualifications are attained: Considers attainment achieved in S4-S6 only

Other factors which may affect attainment under the All SCQF measure which should be kept in mind are:

• The numbers of award providers, and qualifications, included in the All SCQF measure has risen over time. This could be because new providers or courses have been added to the SCQF framework, because the Scottish Government has started receiving data for courses or from providers we were not previously receiving data from, or it could reflect changing presentation policies in schools or local authorities. See section 8.3.2 for more information.
• There may be some award providers delivering awards that are on the SCQF to senior phase pupils in schools that do not report this to the Insight team at present – this attainment will not be included within the measure.
• The numbers of SCQF credit points (based on the number of notional learning hours) associated with the qualifications included in the All SCQF measure have changed over time. See section 8.3.3 for more information.
• Just as there can be differences in the make-up of the qualifications included in the All SCQF measure over time there can also be differences from one local authority to another, due to differing presentation policies in courses of differing SCQF credit points. There can also be variation within a single local authority over time. See section 8.3.4 for more information.

1.5.3 How might the levels of attainment be different, under the two measures?

Attainment as measured under the All SCQF measure will typically be the same as, or higher than, attainment as measured under the National Qualifications measure. This is because the All SCQF measure includes attainment in National Qualifications and also attainment in other qualifications. There may be some small exceptions due to other methodological differences between the measures but, typically, the attainment figures presented in Section 5 will be higher than those presented in Section 4.

The difference between the two measures is likely to be larger when considering greater numbers of passes. The reason for this is explained in the next two paragraphs.

The headline statistics in this report focus on school leavers with one pass or award or more at a given SCQF level or better. Where a school leaver has attainment in both a ‘wider’ qualification and a National Qualification they will be counted as having one pass or more under both measures. For example, a school leaver who has achieved a National Progression Award at SCQF Level 6, and also has a Higher, will be counted as having 1 pass or more in both the National Qualification measure and the All SCQF measure. Therefore the differences in attainment under the two measures may not be very large when comparing them at ‘one pass or more’.

This report also presents figures on the proportions of school leavers who have larger numbers of passes (2 passes or more, 3 passes or more, 4 passes or more etc.) at a given SCQF level. In the example above the school leaver would be counted as having 2 passes under the All SCQF measure but only one pass under the National Qualifications measure. The differences between the National Qualifications measure and the All SCQF measure may therefore be larger when considering greater numbers of passes.

Figure 3 illustrates this.

1.5.4 What can be concluded by comparing the two measures?

The main difference between the two measures is the wider set of qualifications which are included in the All SCQF measure compared to the National Qualification measure.

Comparisons between the two measures will give an indication of the impact of the wider range of qualifications (i.e. non-National Qualifications) on school leaver attainment. However, the difference between the two measures does not equal attainment in non-National Qualifications. Many pupils with attainment in the wider set of qualifications covered by the All SCQF measure will also have attainment in National Qualifications and so will be included in both measures.

It should also be kept in mind that there are some other methodological differences between the two measures which may also affect comparisons (see section 1.5.2).

1.5.5 Which measure of school leaver attainment should I use?

Use the National Qualifications measure of attainment when:

• You want to consider school leavers’ attainment in the SQA’s National Qualifications. These are the National Courses – e.g. National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher – and Skills for Work.
• You want to compare to the three school leaver attainment measures included amongst the 13 National Improvement Framework key measures of the poverty-related attainment gap.
• You want to consider school leavers’ attainment in qualifications where all the qualifications counted at a given SCQF level have the same number of SCQF credit points associated with them.

Use the All SCQF measure of attainment when:

• You want to consider school leavers’ attainment in all courses on the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework.
• You want to consider the Scottish Attainment Challenge local stretch aims for 2023/24 to 2025/26 set by local authorities.
• You want to consider school leavers’ attainment, aligned to what is available on the Insight tool (used by education professionals in Scotland) and the public Secondary School Information Dashboard.

If using the All SCQF measure, keep in mind that not all courses at a given SCQF Level will be associated with the same numbers of credit points (notional learning hours). See Section 8.4.2.

Section 1.6 Impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on these statistics

Data for some years in this publication is affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The statistics in this publication provide an accurate reflection of school leavers’ initial destinations and attainment in each of the years included. But the effects of the pandemic should be kept in mind when making comparisons over time. This applies when considering any changes in the data between 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23, and between these years and previous years.

Impact of the pandemic on school leaver attainment

The pandemic led to changes to the assessment and certification of National Qualifications from 2019-20 onwards. This will have directly affected the attainment of school leavers under the National Qualifications measure in this publication. The biggest impacts are likely to have been seen for leavers in 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22, but there may still be effects for some leavers in 2022-23. For more information, see section 8.7.2.

The attainment of school leavers as measured under the All SCQF measure will also have been directly affected by the pandemic. As well as the changes to the assessment and certification of National Qualifications, the assessment and certification of many other qualifications also changed in 2019-20 and subsequent years, in response to the pandemic. Again, the biggest impacts are likely to have been seen for leavers in 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22, but there may still be effects for some leavers in 2022-23. For more information, see section 8.7.3.

In addition, the pandemic may also have indirectly affected school leavers’ attainment, through any effect it had on pupils’ decisions about when to leave school. For more information, see section 8.7.1.

Impact of the pandemic on school leaver destinations

The pandemic will have directly affected the statistics on school leaver destinations through its impact on the availability of certain opportunities (e.g. employment opportunities). The greatest effect of the pandemic on school leaver destinations is likely to have been seen for school leavers in 2019-20.

However, it is likely that there has been some ongoing impact on the destinations of some school leavers in subsequent years. One reason for this may be the effect of the different approaches to certification of qualifications since 2019-20 on pupils’ attainment and, consequently, on the opportunities available to them. The pandemic may also have influenced some pupils’ decisions on when to leave school, in turn affecting their total attainment and/or the opportunities available to them.

For more information, see section 8.7.1.