Scottish Government

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 relatively 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 2009/10 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. additional support needs, pupil stage, etc. is taken from the September 2008 Pupil Census: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/04/01090908/0 . In a small number of cases (1,201) leavers were matched to the 2007 census, and 61 leavers could not be matched to either census.

2.5. This is the third 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. Figures for 2007/08 presented in this publication do not match those originally published in December 2008. Prior to publishing the follow up survey ('Follow up Survey of Leavers from Scottish Schools: Leavers from School Year 2007/08': http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/06/follow) a rematching exercise was carried out to improve the accuracy of the statistics. Details can be found in a Technical Note ( http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/06/followtech), and the methodology has been used again this year.

2.7. Analysts in Education Analytical Services have worked closely with Skills Development Scotland ( SDS) in the past three years to improve the accuracy of the school leavers data collection. In 2008/09 SDS carried out a data cleansing exercise to remove leavers from earlier years (in previous publications such leavers may have been inadvertently included), although a small number of leavers from the previous year who could not have been identified as such within the time scales SDS operates to may still be present. SDS has also increased the amount of information they collect that can be matched to the pupil census, and have carried out enhanced checks on records where information held by our two organisations does not match. In 2008/09, 99.7 per cent of leavers could be matched to a pupil census record by Scottish Candidate Number and at least one other piece of information, compared to 94 per cent of leavers in 2007/08 and 63 per cent in 2006/07 that could be matched on Scottish Candidate Number. For those leavers with no Scottish Candidate Number in the original data, matching on school, Student ID, 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:

2.8. Staying on rates make their first appearance in this year's publication. The first publication of staying on rates is normally in the Pupil Census, although the Pupil Census rates are based on a starting point of S3 rather than S4. Because the Pupil Census is being published earlier this year (November rather than January), the data is available for inclusion here. However, as the pupil census data was not quite finalised at the time of writing, the figures published here are provisional. It is not expected that final figures will differ noticeably from those published here.

2.9. The data relate to the latest known destination of leavers in September 2009. For example, a school leaver who left in June 2009 and travelled for several months but who is known to have taken up employment prior to September will be counted under 'employment'.

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 destinations are included in the Statistics Publication Notice. Destinations are based on how the school leaver describes their destination and hours spent in, for example, work or education, are not used to define destinations.

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. 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.

5.3. 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.

5.4. 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.

5.5. 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. Independent school leaver destinations come from a separate survey, and returns are not always complete in time for this publication. Any changes will appear in the next year's publication.

6.2. 147 leavers entered voluntary work in 2006/07, 131 in 2007/08 and 128 in 2008/09. 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 299 secondary 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 additional support 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 2008 Pupil Census. There are some 1,200 leavers who were matched to the 2007 census, which still included Main Difficulty of Learning as well as Reasons for Support. During the transition period of the Additional Support for Learning Act pupils could have been recorded under either category. The categories used in this publication result from 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. Leavers with Complex or Multiple Impairments are included under Other due to small numbers.

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.

6.9. Figures collected from the Pupil Census on pupils registered for free school meals are less accurate than those from the separate School Meals Survey, however only the census information can be linked to individuals and used in the context of this publication.

7. Enquiries

Copies of the tables are available on the Scottish Government's website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00774

Public enquiries (non-media) about the information contained in this Statistics Publication Notice should be addressed to:

Janet Lauchlan

+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 Vikki Pescodd on 0131 244 2972.