Aberdeen City Council praises success of secondary school pupils
17 November 2016
The achievements of Aberdeen secondary pupils in exams and other courses and awards was acknowledged by Aberdeen City Council today (Thursday 17 November).
The Education and Children Services Committee were updated on the attainments of the city’s secondary pupils using Insight, the Scottish Government’s national benchmarking tool.
Pupils and staff were commended by the committee for their hard work and dedication in making progress against three national benchmark measures for attainment and achievement.
Councillor Angela Taylor, Education and Children’s Services committee convener, who said: “We are delighted to see continued improvement over the last five years in the level of attainment of our secondary school pupils and that they are continuing to perform above the national averages for the three benchmarks.
“I am also very pleased that the committee has had the opportunity to formally acknowledge the hard work of both staff and pupils alike over the last five years which has resulted in this very encouraging national report. The report highlights that Aberdeen is a city where pupils from every background can attain and the indications are that this good work will continue over the coming years.”
Gayle Gorman, Director of Education and Children’s Services said: “It’s great to see the varied, flexible and innovative curriculum offered by our schools pay dividends with these impressive results. The pupils and staff in all our secondary schools deserve a lot of credit for their hard work, dedication and creativity”.
The three measures are:
· Improving attainment in Literacy and Numeracy – the percentage of secondary 4 pupils gaining a level 4 in this has increased over the last 5 years from 62% to 85.9%. While the number gaining level 5 in this area has increased over the same period from 23.2% to 49.1%.Aberdeen City has always performed above the national average
· Improving attainment or all - the top 20% of Aberdeen secondary 6 pupils have continued to stay above the national average for the last three years as has the middle 60% and lowest 20%
· Tackling disadvantage by improving the attainment of lower attainers relative to higher attainers – the data showed that Aberdeen is a city in which the attainment gap is narrowing and disadvantage is being reduced taking into account both attainment charts and attainment versus deprivation indicators.