BACKGROUND NOTES
1. National Statistics Publication
1.1. This is a National Statistics Publication. It has been produced to high professional standards set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice and Release Practice Protocol: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/about_ns/cop/default.asp
1.2. These statistics undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They are produced free from any political interference.
2. Sources
2.1. Information on the destination of leavers from publicly funded schools is provided to the Scottish Government by Skills Development Scotland.
2.2. Unless otherwise stated, all figures relate to publicly funded secondary schools.
2.3. Information from independent schools is collected directly from the schools and has been collected at pupil level for the fifth year. A handful of independent schools, with a small number of potential leavers, had not completed their returns by the time these tables were prepared. Additionally, the number of unknowns is high because schools may not have had information on whether some leavers had been offered a place at university at the time returns were sent in. Any revisions to this year's data will be made in the 2008/09 publication. Limited data on the characteristics of these leavers is available and has not been presented here.
2.4. Information on pupil characteristics, e.g. main learning difficulty, pupil stage, etc. is taken from the September 2007 Pupil Census: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/07/28100032/0
2.5. This is the second year that pupil level data has been available for publicly funded schools. The main advantage of this is that it allows the school leavers destination to be matched to other information held by the Scottish Government so that additional, more detailed analysis can be carried out.
2.6. A more detailed technical note detailing the process by which leaver destination was linked to pupil census results for 2006/07 was published alongside last year's statistical publication and is available through: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00631 . The same method was used for 2007/08 data; however this year 94 per cent of leavers could be linked to other information by Scottish Candidate Number compared to only 63 per cent in 2006/07.
2.7. For those leavers with no Scottish Candidate Number in the original data, matching on school, gender, postcode and date of birth is carried out. All matching is done within certain constraints:
- Pupil Census record must be in SP (Special School), AD (Adult Learner) or S3 or above to be included.
- School Attended must be main school attended.
The breakdown of how matches were assigned is shown in the following table:
Matched on | Records | Percentage |
|---|
SCN | 55,019 | 93.6% |
|---|
Gender and Date of Birth | 2,081 | 3.5% |
|---|
All Characteristics | 829 | 1.4% |
|---|
School, Gender and Postcode | 124 | 0.2% |
|---|
School, Gender and Date of Birth | 329 | 0.6% |
|---|
School and Date of Birth | 179 | 0.3% |
|---|
School and Gender | 125 | 0.2% |
|---|
School and Postcode | 60 | 0.1% |
|---|
Gender and Postcode | 33 | 0.1% |
|---|
Postcode, Gender and Date of Birth | 10 | 0.0% |
|---|
School, Postcode and Date of Birth | 2 | 0.0% |
|---|
Total Records | 58,791 | 100.0% |
|---|
2.8. For a small number of leavers, no unique match could be identified and these cases have been omitted from the analysis. For this reason, totals published here will differ very slightly from those released by Skills Development Scotland, which are based on the full data set.
2.9. The data relate to the latest known destination of leavers in September 2008. For example, a school leaver who left in June 2008 and travelled for several months but who is known to have taken up employment prior to September will be counted under 'employment'.
2.10. Percentages may not always total 100 percent due to rounding.
3. School Leavers
3.1. A school leaver is classed as a young person of school leaving age who left school during or at the end of the school year, where the school year is taken to run from 1 August to 31 July.
3.2. In practice, many young people do not decide whether or not to leave school until after they have received the results of external examinations, have tried to get a job or achieve entry to further or higher education or training. For many pupils, therefore, it is only possible to identify later whether they have effectively left school by 31 July.
3.3. It should be noted that this Statistics Publication Notice does not contain information on the destinations of leavers from special schools. The number of leavers from these schools is small and fluctuates from year to year.
4. Leaver Destinations
4.1. The following categories for leaver destination are included in the Statistics Publication Notice. The descriptions of the categories has changed since last year in that there is no reference to full-time education or employment. Skills Development Scotland has confirmed that destinations are based on how the school leaver describes their destination and that hours are not used to define destinations. This has always been the case and does not affect comparisons across the years.
4.1.1. Positive: includes higher education, further education, training, voluntary work and employment. This is in line with the definition of positive destinations set out in Indicator 10 of the Scottish Budget Spending Review 2007: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/11/30090722/18
4.1.2. Higher Education: includes leavers following HND (Higher National Diploma) or HNC (Higher National Certificate) courses, degree courses, courses for the education and training of teachers and higher level courses for professional qualifications. It also includes programmes at a level higher than the standard of the New National Qualifications (Intermediate 1, Intermediate 2, the new Higher) which were introduced in 1999/00, Advanced Higher, introduced in 2001, Scottish Certificate of Sixth Year Studies, and the National Certificate of Education of England, Wales or Northern Ireland at Advanced Level. Leavers with a deferred, unconditional place in higher education have also been included in this category.
4.1.3. Further Education: includes leavers undertaking full-time education which is not higher education and who are no longer on a school roll.
4.1.4. Training: includes leavers who are on a training course and in receipt of an allowance or grant, such as Skillseekers, but who are not employed. It should be noted that a large proportion of leavers entering employment may also be participants in training such as Modern Apprenticeships.
4.1.5. Employment: includes those who are employed and in receipt of payment from their employers. It includes young people undertaking training in employment through Skillseekers and Modern Apprenticeships.
4.1.6. Voluntary Work: includes those undertaking voluntary work, paid or unpaid, who are not 'unemployed and actively seeking', as per the unemployed definition. Included in this category would be individuals who are on a gap year, those participating in Project Scotland/ CSV or other voluntary programmes.
4.1.7. Unemployed and seeking employment or training: includes those who are registered with Skills Development Scotland and are known by them to be seeking employment or training. This is based on regular contact between Skills Development Scotland and the client. This does not refer to the definition of 'unemployed' used by the Benefits Agency to calculate published unemployment rates.
4.1.8. Unemployed and not seeking employment or training: includes all those individuals who are not seeking employment or training for a range of reasons. The reasons may involve sickness, prison, pregnancy, caring for children or other dependents or taking time out.
NOTE: the above two categories are comparable to the single 'other known destination' category from publications prior to 2002/03.
4.1.9. Unknown: includes all leavers whose destination is not known either to Skills Development Scotland or to the school attended.
5. Interpretation of figures for individual Education Authorities
Many factors affect the destinations of leavers. Examples include the following points which should be noted when comparing figures for individual Education Authorities.
5.1. A number of school leavers take a 'year out' before continuing their education or entering employment. Apart from pupils with a deferred unconditional place for Higher Education, pupils taking a 'year out' are included in the 'unemployed and not seeking employment or training' category.
5.2. The destination of leavers from individual Education Authorities may depend partly on location.
5.3. Economic factors may affect the availability of employment in the local area. A major construction project or the opening of an industrial enterprise may present many new opportunities. Equally, lack of local employment may encourage leavers towards further education or training.
5.4. In certain areas, or particular years, the pattern of school leaver destinations may be affected by the opportunities available through Skillseekers and Modern Apprenticeships, partnerships between education and business or special arrangements for entry to higher education.
5.5. There may be a strong local tradition for pupils either to stay on at school or to leave school as early as possible, affecting the numbers who stay on long enough to gain the necessary entrance qualifications for higher education.
5.6. Fluctuations in the figures from year to year are likely. For example, differences in the proportion of leavers proceeding to higher education may derive from the ability of pupils in a particular year group. Similarly, there may be short-term opportunities for employment in some localities. In Education Authorities with only a few leavers, a small change in the number of leavers in each destination category can make a big difference in percentage terms from year to year.
6. Notes
6.1. In 2006/07, the guidance sent to independent schools was revised to make it clear that leavers with an unknown destination would be counted as being not in education, employment or training. This may account for the increase in the number of leavers from Independent schools going into unemployment and the decrease in the proportion of unknowns in 2006/07. Data for 2007/08 may be incomplete at the time of publication, with some schools still waiting for confirmation that leavers have received an offer of a university place.
6.2. 147 leavers entered voluntary work in 2006/07 and 132 in 2007/08. These leavers are now shown separately. Prior to 2006/07 leavers who went on to do voluntary work could not be identified and were counted under 'unemployed and not seeking employment or training' in all tables unless otherwise stated.
6.3. A total of 448 school leavers who moved outwith Scotland have not been included in the results.
6.4. For those pupils who had a Record of Needs (RoN) immediately prior to the commencement of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, on 14 November 2005, the education authorities must, within 2 years (November 2007), establish whether or not such pupils require a Co-ordinated Support Plan ( CSP). The provision being made for the recorded pupil is preserved as a minimum level of support unless there is a significant change in the individual's additional support needs or until the date that it is established that they require a plan, or if they do not require a plan, 2 years from the date that it is established. Such pupils are referred to in this publication under the heading "with RoN".
6.5. Individualised Educational Programmes ( IEPs) are written plans setting targets that a child, with special educational needs, is expected to achieve. Targets should be limited in number and focus on key priorities of learning. They should be simple, clearly expressed and measurable.
6.6. Pupils may have an IEP with another record of support needs, but they cannot have both a CSP and a RoN. Pupils with any combination of support needs are categorised as having Additional Support Needs.
6.7. Data on schools leavers with additional support needs is taken from the 2007 Pupil Census. During the transition period of the Additional Support for Learning Act pupils may be recorded under the previous 'main difficulty of learning' or the new 'reasons for support' categories. The categories used in this publication have been made by combining the two sets. As the categories do not always match exactly the data are indicative only. Details of how the two sets of categories were linked can be found in 'Attendance and Absence in Scottish Schools, 2006/07', Annex B ( http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/12/11160723/0 ). In the current publication, leavers with dual sensory impairment are not shown separately due to small numbers, but are included in both the hearing impairment and visual impairment categories.
6.8. Figures collected from the Pupil Census on the number of children looked after by local authorities appear to be incomplete when compared with similar data from social work services departments. The Scottish Government is working to support Local Authorities with improving the sharing of information in respect of children in their care as part of their Corporate Parent duties.
7. Enquiries
Copies of the tables are available on the Scottish Government's website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00701
Public enquiries (non-media) about the information contained in this Statistics Publication Notice should be addressed to:
Janet Lauchlan
Scottish Government
Education, Information and Analytical Services: Schools Unit
Area 1-B South, Victoria Quay
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ.
+44 (0)131 244 7976
school.stats@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Media enquiries about the information in this Statistics Publication Notice should be addressed to Tom Whittles on 0131 244 2530.