Scottish Attainment Challenge - Local stretch Aims: 2023/24 to 2025/26

Introduction and background

The introduction of local stretch aims has been a key development in recent years to support and drive progress in raising attainment and closing the poverty-related attainment gap. Stretch aims were introduced through the Scottish Attainment Challenge Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress in 2022. This includes a requirement for local authorities to set ambitious but achievable stretch aims for progress in overall attainment and in closing the poverty-related attainment gap in the 2022/23 academic year across a sub-set of the 13 National Improvement Framework measures of the poverty-related attainment gap.

For 2022/23 the measures used were:

a) Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels (literacy for P1, P4 and P7 combined and numeracy for P1, P4 and P7 combined);

b) the proportion of school leavers attaining 1 or more pass in National Qualifications at SCQF level 5 or better based on the "Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations" publication;

c) the proportion of school leavers attaining 1 or more pass in National Qualifications at SCQF level 6 or better based on the "Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations" publication;

d) the proportion of 16-19 olds participating in education, employment or training based on the Annual Participation Measure (APM) produced by Skills Development Scotland; and

e) a locally identified aim for health and wellbeing, to be measured using local datasets.

The measures listed above are referred to as “core” aims. Local authorities also set additional (“plus”) aims, which recognise that progress is identified in a broader range of ways at local level than those set out nationally. These aims are of equal importance to the core aims.

In this ground up approach to identifying stretch aims for progress, local authorities are responsible for implementing their local plans to make progress in raising attainment and for closing the poverty-related attainment gap. Their own stretch aims and their trajectories for annual progress towards them are included in their statutory improvement plans and published on local platforms.

An aggregation of local authorities’ stretch aims was published in December 2022.