Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations - Data Sources and Methodology 2025

Section 5. Other methodological details

Section 5.1 Attainment and destinations data matching

The school leaver destinations data from SDS is matched to the SG pupil census and to SQA data, so that pupil characteristics and attainment data can be linked to the destinations. Only leavers from the SDS data with a match to the pupil census are included in the analysis within this publication. This means that some leavers are excluded from the analysis.

All matching is done within certain constraints:

• Pupil census record must be in S3 or above, or categorised as SP (Special School), or AD (Adult Learner) in order to be included.
• School attended must be the main school attended by the pupil.

After being matched to the pupil census the destination data are then matched to the SQA attainment data using the Scottish Candidate Number (SCN).

Section 5.2 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD)

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) identifies small area concentrations of multiple deprivation across Scotland. The SIMD ranks small geographical areas – called data zones - from most deprived (ranked 1) to least deprived (ranked 6,976). The data zones can then be grouped into five quintiles, covering the 20% most deprived areas to the 20% least deprived areas.

In this publication, the SIMD is used to assess how the destinations and attainment of school leavers differ based on the level of deprivation in their home (or school) area. Pupils are assigned to a SIMD quintile based on the data zone recorded for their home address in the Scottish Government's pupil census. If the pupil does not have a data zone recorded in the pupil census data, the data zone of the pupil's school is used.

The SIMD is updated periodically (typically every three or four years) and therefore the SIMD used in these statistics is also updated in line with this to ensure that the most appropriate version is used. SIMD 2020 was used for the first time for the 2020-21 leaver cohort.

Section 5.3 Foundation Apprenticeships

Foundation Apprenticeships (FA) have been designed and developed with Skills Development Scotland (SDS), industry and the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), and are aligned to key sectors of the economy with current skills shortages and projected future jobs growth. They provide work-based learning opportunities with industry-recognised qualifications in the senior phase.

Supplementary Table Z1.1 covers the number of school leavers between 2019-20, and 2023-24 who have achieved a Foundation Apprenticeship by subject. The statistics in this table have been labelled as Official Statistics in Development reflecting the fact that work to ensure and improve their accuracy is ongoing. Note that attainment in Foundation Apprenticeships is not included in attainment statistics presented in Section 4 of the main report which covers National Qualifications only. The National Certificate and National Progression Award components of Foundation Apprenticeships do however contribute to the All SCQF measure (Section 5 of the main report) and to the Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce measure (Section 6.2 of the main report).

SQA provides two extracts of data to the Scottish Government (SG); one in August (pre-review data) and one in December (post-review data). The data in Table Z1.1 includes Foundation Apprenticeship attainment:

1. that had been certified by the date on which the data was taken for the first extract (August 2024) and had a result date between 01 August 2023 and 31 July 2024,
2. where a Foundation Apprenticeship was recorded on the first data extract with a result of E (this means that the FA was evaluated but did not have the required components to obtain a result) and then obtained the required components by the time of the second extract (December) or,
3. for which a Letter of Recognition (LoR) was issued. Note: The LoR was introduced in 2020 as a short-term solution during the pandemic and was issued to some students who were on track to achieve the full FA award but were unable to complete all components due to Covid-19 restrictions. Similarly, in 2021 a LoR was issued to some Accountancy FA students due to continued disruption to the exam process for professional accountancy units.

Foundation Apprenticeships at SCQF Level 6 have been available since 2016 and were delivered over two years initially, with a shorter more intensive one-year delivery option introduced as the qualification became embedded in schools. The first set of school leavers to attain Foundation Apprenticeships would have left school in 2018. However, Table Z1.1 presents data for 2019-2020 onwards.

Skills Development Scotland has been working with SQA, the Scottish Government and others to improve the recording of Foundation Apprenticeships in school attainment data. In 2021-22, the funding mechanism for FA changed, with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) taking responsibility for funding any FAs delivered through colleges. SDS retain responsibility for funding FAs that are delivered via independent Learning Providers or Local Authorities.

The data provide an initial indication of the number of school leavers who attained a Foundation Apprenticeship. Despite this, there will be some completed Foundation Apprenticeships that have not been included, largely due to timing variances in reporting across FA learning providers.

Work to capture all Foundation Apprenticeship results continued throughout 2024 and additional, updated information will be included in the joint SDS/SFC annual FA progress report, due for publication this Spring. The latest published version of this report (2022) is available from the SDS website. Please note that data published in SDS / SFC reports relates to individual Foundation Apprenticeship cohorts, rather than school leavers as presented in these statistics.

These statistics are being published as Official Statistics in Development to provide useful information for users, while reflecting that they are undergoing testing to ensure they meet quality standards of Official Statistics in future. The statistics are undergoing ongoing development work with stakeholders including SDS, SFC and SQA. They will remain with the ‘Experimental’ label for the duration of this work as more knowledge and quality improvements are built into the data to improve coverage in future outputs. Outputs will be compared on an ongoing basis with other sources to ensure that statistics presented are of sufficient quality.

Section 5.4 Changes to the publication

Prior to 2024 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. 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.

The All SCQF measure is an existing measure which has been used for a number of years by stakeholders in education to understand school pupils’ achievements. It has been available via ‘Insight’ - the benchmarking tool used by local authorities and schools - and to the public via the School Information Dashboard. These data have been included in this publication from 2024, in order to report on a fuller range of attainment gained by school leavers. To do this a back series has been created so that, as for the National Qualifications measure, data are available from 2009-10.

Alongside introducing the All SCQF measure, we are continuing to report on attainment under the National Qualifications measure. Again, consultation with stakeholders 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.

Previous versions of this publication have included an ‘All SQA Qualifications Attainment’ measure as statistics in development (previously referred to as Experimental Statistics). These have not been updated for this release on the basis that the All SCQF measure (Section 5 of the main report) provides a more complete picture of wider attainment amongst school leavers and so replaces the All SQA Qualifications measure. Data previously published for this measure remains available in previous versions of this publication.