Schools will share £400k cash boost

Attainment gap funding

Secondary schools in Stirling and Clackmannanshire are to receive almost £400,000 for projects to close the attainment gap.

More than a hundred secondary schools across Scotland are getting a total of £11.5 million, Deputy First Minister John Swinney confirmed this week.

Clackmannanshire will receive around £300,0000 to assist three secondary schools, while Stirling has been allocated £93,047 to help one secondary school.

The funding will enable schools with pupils living in areas of deprivation to improve their literacy, numeracy and health and well-being.

Stirling Council’s education committee is to discuss exactly how the windfall will be spent at a meeting on Thursday.

Mr Swinney said: “Delivering equity and excellence across Scotland’s education system is this government’s defining mission.

“I am firmly committed to substantially closing the gap in the attainment of pupils from our most and least deprived areas during the lifetime of this parliament.

“The funding we are allocating to secondary schools is part of the additional £750 million we will make available to support schools to close the attainment gap over the same period.

“It will enable more than a hundred secondary schools to improve literacy, numeracy and health and well-being through a range of projects devised by the schools.

“This builds on our existing work with hundreds of primary schools to ensure no child or young person in Scotland is held back because of their background.”

The Deputy First Minister extended the Scottish Attainment Challenge to include secondary schools earlier this year.

Scotland’s nine challenge authorities were invited to submit proposals - Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Glasgow, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire, East Ayrshire and Renfrewshire.

An additional 28 secondary schools not in challenge authority areas were invited to submit proposals because they receive children from primary schools currently in receipt of challenge funding, with more than 20 percent in areas of multiple deprivation.