The city believes it has achieved considerable successes in pupil attainment, despite HMI’s verdict in its inspection of the authority that “the links between deprivation, social exclusion and educational achievement present challenges for Glasgow which are collectively by far the most demanding in Scotland”.
In an annual Standards and Quality report presented to the education committee yesterday (Thursday), officials noted: “Over a period of years Standard grade results have been steadily improving. Performance at Higher grade has proved difficult to improve, but an improvement in the numbers accessing higher education has been achieved over the past five years.”
Although Glasgow schools have only half the national average of pupils going on to higher education, they have more leavers entering further education than the Scottish average - 25 per cent last session compared with 20 per cent for the country as a whole.
Targets for performance in reading, writing and maths among 5-14s are described as “challenging”, but there has been an improvement in writing where primary pupils last session scored just five points behind the national average at all 5-14 levels.
There have been improvements in S1-S2 in reading and writing but previous improvement in maths was not maintained last year.
At Standard grade and Higher, Glasgow acknowledges there have been improvements in some areas, but not in others.
One “very marked reduction” that has bucked the trend is the result of the city’s offensive to drive up attendance. Nationally, there has been a drop of one pupil per 1,000 who faced temporary exclusion since 1999-2000. In Glasgow, the fall was 15 per 1,000 pupils, the best improvement for any local authority in Scotland.
