Clackmannanshire Council Online

Focus on Raising Attainment in Schools

The Council has outlined how a new programme will bring together a renewed focus on raising attainment in Clackmannanshire schools in a report to the Education Sport and Leisure Committee.

The Scottish Attainment Challenge will focus on primary schools and target improvements in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. It will build on, and complement, existing
activity to address the gap in educational attainment between our most and least advantaged communities. In Clackmannanshire the Challenge seeks to:

• Raise attainment for each child to enable them to make excellent progress in theirlearning and develop the skills and ambitions to improve their life chances. It aims to promote a breadth of attainment and achievement, consistently for all our children and young people.
• Close the gap in attainment and achievement between children from the most and least advantaged backgrounds. The Attainment Challenge in Clackmannanshire will target support to pupils and schools in deprived communities.

The Challenge in Clackmannanshire will focus on improving literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing in our primary schools and will have firm foundations within Curriculum for Excellence. It will be ambitious for every child and young person. It will build on the success of our schools in raising attainment and adopt approaches to enable our schools to be continuously self-improving. It will:

• Encourage collaboration where our schools work in partnerships to drive forward improvement and where Clackmannanshire works with other local authorities to share information and ideas and develop best practice.
• Build and strengthen effective partnership working between teachers, schools, pupils, parents, communities, employers and a range of other partners within Clackmannanshire and further afield.
• Support innovation with a clear focus on raising attainment, drawing on national and international research, literature and practice and utilising specialist advisors and wide professional expertise.
• Build capacity in our schools to ensure that improvements are sustainable for the future.

Cllr Ellen Forson, Convener of Education, Sport and Leisure said: "We have already started work in Clackmannanshire to raise the performance and learning outcomes of our young people, giving extra support to schools as part of Improvement Partnerships and focussing on improving attainment, and this extra support from the Scottish Government's Raising Attainment Fund is very welcome.

"Building on the foundation of Curriculum for Excellence, our education service has already submitted an improvement plan to the Scottish Government who will meet with them to discuss plans, resources and ongoing monitoring. Teams from our Education Service are drawing up detailed action plans to guide key interventions in the first year of the programme, and schools are identifying how they will work together to take forward the Challenge. I am confident that this extra support and focus will help us to ensure that we support our young people to help the very best of their talents and be ready for the challenges that face them in the years ahead."

Seven local authority areas, which includes Clackmannanshire, are the first beneficiaries of the Attainment Fund. These areas were selected as the local authorities with the highest concentrations of primary pupils in SIMD (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation) deciles 1 and 2. Once funding has been finalised, further steps will be taken to implement the Attainment Challenge in Clackmannanshire. Scottish Government and Education Scotland will take a key role in supporting the Attainment Challenge. A team of Attainment Advisors is being appointed to work collaboratively alongside local authority staff to support the Attainment Challenge across Scotland.