Closing the Gap: are attainment measures working?

In its report into the Scottish Attainment Challenge, the Committee notes with concern evidence the variation in education performance across local authorities in Scotland. The report asks Scotland’s education agency to urgently investigate the variations and set out the actions it is taking to ensure consistency across the country.

Teachers are singled out for praise in the report, despite some of the challenges faced in working towards closing the attainment gap. The teachers and headteachers who spoke to the Committee during the inquiry are described as “inspirational”.

Some of the Committee’s other recommendations are around ensuring that the voices of classroom teachers, parents, carers and children and young people are at the centre of plans for attainment challenge spending. The Committee asks the education agency to monitor this so that funding is used as effectively as possible.

The report also calls on the agency to monitor how local authorities ensure stability of funding for third sector partners, take account of the needs of rural schools and make sure that schools have access to external expertise to ensure they can measure the effectiveness of their interventions.

Sue Webber MSP, Convener of the Education, Children and Young People Committee, said:

“During this inquiry the Committee heard positive stories about the work being done by schools to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap.

“However, in our report, we have noted Audit Scotland’s conclusion that there has been limited progress on closing the poverty-related attainment gap and that inequalities have been worsened by Covid-19.

“It is essential that the reforms to the Government’s education agency ensure the new schools inspectorate is able to monitor the effectiveness of the implementation of plans to close the poverty-related attainment gap.”

The allocation of funding is also examined in the report. Extra funding that was initially allocated to nine ‘challenge authorities’ is now being tapered in favour of a strategy which spreads funding across Scotland. The Committee recognises that poverty exists throughout Scotland but asks the Scottish Government to monitor the impact of the tapering of funds from the challenge authorities and to report its findings.

With regards to how funds are spent, the Committee would like to see more work done on measuring the impact. Its report asks the Scottish Government to set out how it will, as a matter of urgency, establish a national baseline for measuring progress in closing the attainment gap following the pandemic. It also asks the Government to explain how there will be sufficient challenge to ensure that both local and national targets are ambitious.