Looked after children are doing better at school and immediately afterwards, but fewer visually impaired youths are going on to further education

Pupils from poorer backgrounds or those who have experienced the care system are doing much better at school, new figures show.

However there is still work to be done to support looked after children and those who are blind or partially sighted to achieve educational success.

The Scottish Government published its annual education attainment figures this week, which showed that the gap between pupils from the most and least deprived areas who go on to university, college or a job after school has closed by over a fifth in one year.

The proportion of 2016/17 school leavers from the most deprived areas in work, education or training nine months after leaving school increased to 87.6% – reducing the gap with school leavers from the least deprived areas by 22%

The figures also showed that younger children’s literacy and numeracy has improved over the past four years and the gap in results between looked after children and other school leavers is closing. The amount of children said to be in positive destinations after school increased from 40% in 2009/10 to 76% for 2016/17.

Sara Lurie, director of The Fostering Network in Scotland, welcomed the improvements.

She said: “We are very pleased to see how much the gap in educational outcomes has closed over the last few years. There is still, of course, work to be done but these figures really are moving in the right direction and reflect years of targeted hard work by looked after young people, foster carers, social worker and educationalists.

“The figures show that looked after children with the most positive outcomes are in foster care, and this reflects what is already well known – that foster care is a protective factor, that foster carers have a vital role to play as first educators and that a secure family environment, with foster carers who prioritise education, gives young people every opportunity to flourish educationally.”

However Royal Blind highlighted that visually impaired youngsters still face an attainment gap compared to fully sighted pupils.

Mark O’Donnell, chief executive of the charity, expressed concern that only 32.2% of visually impaired school leavers go on to further education, compared to 35.9% in 2015/16.

He said: “Improvements in the number of blind and partially sighted pupils moving on to higher education, training and work are encouraging, but we are concerned about the number going to further education actually falling.

“Through our work in the Royal Blind School and Learning Hub we are aware there are concerns over the availability of specialist support available to vision impaired students in further education. We believe the Scottish Government should consider specific action in this area.”

Deputy first minister and education secretary John Swinney said that work to improve attainment for all pupils in Scotland will continue.

He said: “These figures are indicative of a high performing education system, which is testament to the efforts of our teachers, our school staff and our education leaders to give every child the opportunity to fulfil their full potential in life.

“Already the action of this government is delivering real improvement in our schools, and implementation of reforms to empower schools and school leaders will accelerate this.

“I’m particularly pleased to see an increasing proportion of looked after children leaving school with at least a higher or equivalent, but clearly the gap is still too wide.”