Education Outcomes for Looked After Children – 2024-25

Statistics have been published today on Education Outcomes for Looked After Children. The publication provides data from the 2024-25 school year on school attendance, exclusions, achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels, school leavers' stages and attainment, and school leavers' post-school destinations.

Key findings include:

School attendance

• The attendance rate for pupils who were looked after during the year was 83.8% for 2024-25 compared with 83.7% in 2023-24. The attendance rate for all pupils increased slightly over the same period from 90.3% to 91.0%. 
• The gap in attendance rates between looked after pupils (78.5%) and all pupils (88.4%) in secondary schools widened to 9.9 percentage points in 2024-25 (from 9.3 percentage points in 2023-24). For primary pupils, the gap increased from 3.3 percentage points to 3.8 percentage points over the same period.  

School exclusions

• Exclusion rates for pupils looked after within the year decreased in 2024-25, from 97 exclusion per 1,000 pupils in 2022-23 (when exclusions statistics were last published) to 77 exclusions per 1,000 pupils in 2024-25.  
• The gap in rate of exclusion cases for looked after pupils and all pupils has reduced substantially since 2009-10 to its lowest ever level in 2024-25. However, the exclusion case rate for looked after pupils remains around five times the rate for all pupils in 2024-25. 

Achievement of Curriculum of Excellence Levels

• Achievement levels across all subjects were lower for pupils looked after during the year compared with all pupils during 2024-25 for each stage (P1, P4, P7 and S3). 

School leavers stages and attainment

• The proportion of leavers looked after within the year who left school in S4 or earlier has declined substantially since 2009-10, from 62.8% in 2009-10 to 31.8% in 2024-25. This is a decrease from 35.1% in 2023-24. 
• 39.9% of school leavers looked after within the year have at least one qualification at SCQF level 5 or better. This compares with 40.7% of those most recently looked after since the age of 12, 52.8% of those most recently looked after between the ages of 5 and 12, and 84.1% of all pupils.
• The gap between the proportion of looked after leavers and all children who achieved at least one qualification at SCQF level 5 or better has decreased overall to 48.1 percentage points in 2024-25 from 63.9 percentage points in 2009-10. There has, however, been a gradual increase in the gap over the last three years, from a 42.1 percentage point gap in 2021-22. 
• Looked after school leavers who had a single placement in 2024-25 had higher levels of attainment than those with two or more placements, with 42.2% of looked after school leavers with at least one qualification at SCQF level 5 compared with 21.8% and 18.5% with two placements or three or more placements respectively. 

School leavers' post-school destinations

• Since 2009-10 the proportion of school leavers looked after during the year that enter initial positive destinations has increased overall from 58.1% in 2009-10 to 84.2% in 2024-25. However, this is a decrease from 85.3% in 2023-24.  
• Between 2009-10 and 2024-25 the proportion in a positive follow-up destination increased from 42.0% to 73.0%. This was an increase in the latest year from 72.4% in 2023-24. 

Background

This report provides data from the 2024-25 school year for school pupils who were looked after within the year, or for some duration since age five for school leavers. Statistics are included for all pupils and looked after pupils on school attendance, exclusions, Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels (ACEL), attainment, and school leaver destinations.

Looked after children are defined as those in the care of their local authority (Children Scotland Act 1995).

The full statistical publication is available with the Excel tables: Children's social work: statistics - gov.scot

Official statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics.