Attainment and school attendance down for looked after children in Scotland

Educational attainment for looked after children in Scotland has fallen in the most recent data, with school attendance rates also declining.

The number of exclusions among looked after pupils increased during 2022/23, taking place at a rate around five times higher than pupils as a whole.

A Scottish Government report noted that school leaver attainment of at least SCQF level 4 was at 75.7%, down from 78.3% the previous year.

The attendance rate dropped by just over three percentage points to 84.4%, compared to 90.2% for all pupils.

There were 97 exclusions per 1,000 looked after pupils, with the equivalent figure for all pupils being 17.

However the rate of looked after children recorded as being in a “positive follow-up destination” increased slightly to 71.1%.

Looked after children are defined as those who are in the care of a local authority including residential care, foster care or being look after at home.

An estimated 1,054 children who left school in 2022/23 had been looked after at some point in the year, representing 1.9% of all school leavers.

The Conservatives said the SNP had failed to live up to their promises of narrowing the attainment gap for looked after children.

MSP Roz McCall said: “The SNP are continuing to shamefully let down the pupils in Scotland who need them the most.

“These figures are just the latest in an endless series which show the attainment gap in Scotland’s schools is getting ever wider – despite us being told almost a decade ago by Nicola Sturgeon that eradicating it was her number one priority and current First Minister John Swinney describing it as the SNP government’s ‘defining mission’.

“The truth is the SNP has failed all Scotland’s children with their abject failures in overseeing education since 2007, and its disadvantaged youngsters – including those brought up in care – who suffer the most from their incompetence.

“Shockingly, young people across Scotland now see their chances of success increasingly determined by their own personal background circumstances and where they live.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said it was “committed to ensuring all care-experienced children and young people receive the vital support they need to improve their life experiences and their educational outcomes”.

They added: “Over £60m has been provided to local authorities through the care-experienced children and young people fund as part of the Scottish Attainment Challenge and we are working with Education Scotland and local government to improve the educational outcomes of care experienced children and young people.

“The attainment gap between care experienced school leavers and all children has been narrowing at all levels since 2009/10, and we welcome the news that this gap has continued to narrow at the highest levels of achievement.

“While the gap has widened slightly for lower-level qualifications, it is still half the size it was in 2009/10, and narrower than it was pre-Covid.”