Highland pupils improve reading, writing, listening, talking and numeracy levels.

The Highland Council’s Education Authority has considered the Scottish Government’s report on Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels 2017/18 published this week.

Dr James Vance, Highland Council’s Interim Head of Education explained: 

“We are delighted to report that for Highland’s P7 pupils:

• 73% reached level 2 in reading (which is up 4% on last year);
• 64% reached level 2 in writing (which is up 5% on last year); and 
• 80% in listening and talking (which is up 4% on last year).

He added: “We are also pleased to note that looking across ‘early level’ to level 4 we see that Highland Council has improved performance in:

• 4 of the 5 levels for reading;
• 4 of the 5 levels for writing; 
• 4 of the 5 levels for listening and talking; and
• 4 of the 5 levels for numeracy.”

Included in the Scottish Government’s publication is a new measure added to the benchmarking data with the release of a ‘literacy measure’ alongside the previous literacy components of listening and talking, reading and writing. 

Dr Vance said: “This new measure has been created from these literacy components. A pupil is only deemed to have achieved the expected level in literacy if they have achieved the expected level in all three literacy organisers: reading, writing, listening and talking. 

“Therefore 59% of pupils in P7 reaching level 2 for literacy has to be seen in the context of the high percentages of 73% in reading; 64% in writing and 80% in listening and talking that were attained.

Vice Chair of The Highland Council’s Care, Learning and Housing Committee said: 

“Congratulations to our young people for these achievements and to our staff for the impact of all their endeavours.

“The introduction of this new literacy measure is in its first year and The Highland Council will of course be looking to see improvements going forward with officers working with and supporting schools to achieve this. Given the improvement we have seen this year in terms of the component areas of Literacy, I am confident we will see improvement in this new measure going forward.”

The report can be viewed on the Scottish Government website at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/achievement-curriculum-excellence-cfe-levels-2017-18/