Looked after children: education outcomes 2015-2016

Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels (Experimental Statistics) - children looked after for part of the year

Generally, a slightly lower proportion of children who were looked after for part of the school year achieve the Curriculum for Excellence ( CfE) level relevant to their stage compared to children who were looked after for the entire school year

This section presents data on the achievement of Curriculum for Excellence ( CfE) levels is aspects of literacy (reading, writing, and listening and talking) and numeracy of the 1,048 children and young people who were looked after for part of the school year - those who stopped or started being looked after between 1 August 2015 and 31 July 2016, and who were in Primary 1, Primary 4, Primary 7 and Secondary 3 stages during the 2015/16 school year.

Scottish Candidate Numbers ( SCNs) provided by local authorities in the Looked after Children data return in 2015/16 were used to match pupils to their CfE data, along with date of birth and gender. There is variation in the provision of SCNs for looked after children across local authorities, particularly for children at the earlier stages of school, ranging from where some local authorities did not provide any SCNs to other local authorities providing SCNs for most/all of their LAC (see background note 2.6, and Table 5.1 in the Excel tables published alongside this publication).

Due to this large variation in SCN coverage between local authorities, the analyses presented in this section may differ from the real picture, particularly if there are differences in the characteristics of the populations between local authorities, differences in the types of placements used by local authorities, and variation in the number of placements experienced by children in different local authorities. As these are experimental statistics, we are working to improve the reporting of SCNs in the LAC return and as a consequence improve the reliability of these statistics.

Therefore, caution should be made when interpreting the results provided in this section, and the results this year should be seen as 'indicative' of how children who are looked after are generally achieving against CfE levels compared with all pupils.

The achievement of CfE levels statistics are currently labelled "Experimental Statistics" as they are in the process of being developed and have been published to involve users and stakeholders in their development, and to build in quality and understanding at an early stage (see background notes for further information about these statistics).

The achievement of CfE levels data collection was introduced in the 2015/16 school year, and the information presented are based on teacher professional judgements as at June 2016. All figures for reading, writing and listening and talking are as achieved in the English language.

All underlying data are available here: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Children/EducOutcomesLAC

Stage

There are generally a slightly lower proportion of children who are looked after for part of the school year achieving the CfE level relevant to their stage compared to children who were looked after for the entire school year.

As seen for children who were looked after for the entire school year, the proportion of looked after children for part of the school year achieving the CfE level relevant for their stage is generally highest for listening and talking and lowest for writing across all primary and secondary stages. Similarly, the proportion of looked after children looked after for part of the school year achieving the CfE level relevant for their stage generally falls throughout the primary stages, but increases when looking at the percentage of S3 pupils achieving CfE 3 ^rd level or better.

Type of accommodation

Table 4.3: Percentage of Primary 1, Primary 4, Primary 7 and Secondary 3 children who were looked after for part of the school year achieving the CfE level relevant to their stage ⁽¹⁾, by accommodation type, 2015/16 ⁽²⁾

(1) See background notes for information regarding the CfE levels relevant to a pupil's stage.
(2) Cells containing * represent small numbers that have been suppressed to maintain confidentiality.
(3) Includes with prospective adopters.
(4) Includes in voluntary home, residential school, secure care accommodation or crisis care.

Achievement of CfE levels varies across the types of accommodation in which looked after children are placed. Generally, a higher proportion of children who were looked after for part of the school year, and who lived with foster carers provided by the local authority or with friends/relatives, are achieving the CfE level relevant to their stage, compared with children who were looked after for part of the school year and who were looked after at home, living with foster carers purchased by the local authority or living in residential accommodation.

Number of placements

By far the majority of children who were looked after for part of the school year only experienced one placement whilst being looked after (with very few experiencing 3 or more placements). Therefore, care should be taken when interpreting these figures.

Taking this into account, table 5.2 shows little variation in the percentage of looked after children achieving the CfE level relevant to their stage by the number of placements they experienced.

Table 4.4: Percentage of Primary 1, Primary 4, Primary 7 and Secondary 3 children who were looked after for part of the school year achieving the CfE level relevant to their stage ⁽¹⁾ by number of looked after placements they experienced whilst being looked after in 2015/16

(1) See background notes for information regarding the CfE levels relevant to a pupil's stage.