Question reference: S6W-08368
- Asked by: Oliver Mundell, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 18 May 2022
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Current status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 June 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what the average reading age of a young person leaving school in Scotland has been in each of the last five years.
Answer
The Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels publication provides information on the number of publicly funded school children in Primary 1, Primary 4, Primary 7 and Secondary 3 who have achieved the expected Curriculum for Excellence level in the literacy organisers (reading, writing and listening and talking) and numeracy.
Schools were closed in Scotland between March 2020 and the end of the academic year as a result of the pandemic meaning that they were closed on the date of 8 June 2020. It was concluded that it would not be possible to collect consistent data that was fit for purpose and that any attempt to do so would add considerably to other pressures on school and education authority staff. The decision was therefore taken to suspend the data collection in 2019-20.
The latest publication collected data for 2020-21 for Primary school (P1, P4 and P7) pupils only. Secondary school and special school data was not collected due to other pressures on these schools including implementation of the SQA National Qualifications Alternative Certification Model which was used to award National 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers in 2021.
The current intention is to collect all data– for Primary, Secondary and Special school pupils – in 2021-22, although this will be kept under review.
The latest information on Reading can be found at the following table and the link provided:
Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2020-21 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
Table 1: Percentage of pupils achieving expected CfE Levels, 2016-17 to 2020-21 | ||||||
Year | Stage-Level | Reading | Writing | Listening & Talking | Literacy | Numeracy |
2020-21 | P1 - Early Level | 77 | 74 | 84 | 71 | 81 |
P4 - First Level | 73 | 67 | 82 | 64 | 72 | |
P7 - Second Level | 76 | 69 | 82 | 66 | 72 | |
P1, P4 and P7 combined | 75 | 70 | 83 | 67 | 75 | |
S3 - Third Level or better | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | |
S3 - Fourth Level | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | |
2019-20 | P1 - Early Level | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] |
P4 - First Level | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | |
P7 - Second Level | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | |
P1, P4 and P7 combined | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | |
S3 - Third Level or better | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | |
S3 - Fourth Level | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | [no data] | |
2018-19 | P1 - Early Level | 82 | 79 | 87 | 76 | 85 |
P4 - First Level | 78 | 73 | 85 | 70 | 77 | |
P7 - Second Level | 80 | 74 | 86 | 71 | 76 | |
P1, P4 and P7 combined | 80 | 75 | 86 | 72 | 79 | |
S3 - Third Level or better | 91 | 90 | 91 | 88 | 90 | |
S3 - Fourth Level | 55 | 52 | 57 | 48 | 59 | |
2017-18 | P1 - Early Level | 81 | 78 | 87 | 75 | 85 |
P4 - First Level | 77 | 72 | 85 | 69 | 76 | |
P7 - Second Level | 79 | 73 | 84 | 70 | 75 | |
P1, P4 and P7 combined | 79 | 74 | 85 | 71 | 78 | |
S3 - Third Level or better | 90 | 89 | 91 | 87 | 89 | |
S3 - Fourth Level | 53 | 51 | 55 | 46 | 56 | |
2016-17 | P1 - Early Level | 80 | 77 | 85 | 74 | 83 |
P4 - First Level | 77 | 71 | 83 | 68 | 75 | |
P7 - Second Level | 76 | 69 | 81 | 66 | 70 | |
P1, P4 and P7 combined | 78 | 72 | 83 | 69 | 76 | |
S3 - Third Level or better | 90 | 89 | 91 | 87 | 88 | |
S3 - Fourth Level | 51 | 48 | 51 | 44 | 56 |
In addition, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 results show that Scotland's score for reading had increased between 2015 and 2018, with a statistically significant improvement. This demonstrates that we are on the right track, making progress where it counts - in the classroom.