East Dunbartonshire is one of the top authorities in Scotland for school children attaining the appropriate levels in literacy and numeracy and figures for session 2016/17 show an increase in almost all measures of attainment in this area.
Two of the key priorities within the National Improvement Framework in Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) are to improve attainment in literacy and numeracy and close the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged children.
Over the last two academic years, data has been collected from all schools regarding achievement of CfE levels at Primary 1, 2, 4, 7 and S3.
In reading, writing, talking and listening East Dunbartonshire pupils achieve well above the Scottish average with results indicating that the Council is one of the four top performing local authorities in each area of literacy. The largest increase of attainment in literacy occurred at p7 level, with a 10% increase for writing and 5% for listening and talking.
The numeracy attainment statistics show similar results with East Dunbartonshire being one of the top four highest performing authorities, with numeracy attainment in secondary schools the highest in Scotland.
Depute Chief Executive, Education, People & Business, Ann Davie, said, “Once again statistics show that East Dunbartonshire’s schools are among the very best in the country and We’re delighted that our children and young people have such high levels of attainment in numeracy and literacy at all stages of their schooling.
“Thanks to the drive and commitment of our Headteachers, the dedication of our teaching staff, the hard work of the pupils and the support from parents and carers, young people in East Dunbartonshire continue to receive a very good academic start in life.”
As part of the analysis, all primary schools have been scrutinising their tracking and monitoring systems to identify potential poverty related attainment gaps in literacy and numeracy.
In literacy the average pupil across all the stages assessed against the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) shows that there is a poverty related attainment gap in East Dunbartonshire. This gap decreases as children progress through primary and secondary stages indicating that schools in East Dunbartonshire are beginning to close the poverty related attainment gap in literacy.
However, in numeracy the attainment gap against the SIMD increases in the upper stages of schooling and the Council is focussing on this area and is working to decrease the gap for more disadvantaged children.
Ann Davie, continued, “We are working very hard to reduce the attainment gaps in literacy and numeracy across all stages of primary and secondary education. Support and funding is being provided to all schools to develop self-evaluation processes to identify areas for improvement and to ascertain next steps to narrow the attainment gap.
“Training in this area is being delivered across our schools and we are working with Education Scotland and using other external resources to assist in our drive to see high levels of attainment regardless of the where pupils sit on the SIMD.”
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