Literacy and numeracy stats are revealed

Schools in South Lanarkshire are above the national average in literacy and numeracy.

At the Education Resources Committee today (February 14), the latest Curriculum for Excellence statistics were revealed to councillors.

The Scottish Government published Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels for 2021/2022 on December 13, and the data takes in information from literacy and numeracy at the stages of P1, P4, P7 and S3 across all South Lanarkshire Council schools.

The council reported Curriculum for Excellence data for 14,258 young people across 142 schools in 2021/2022, and this was the first year in which a full data set was collected for the four stages since the Covid pandemic began.

In South Lanarkshire primary schools, both literacy and numeracy levels were above the national average.

There was a 71.3 per cent achievement of primary literacy which is above the national average of 70.5 per cent. Literacy levels have improved by 1.1 per cent points between 2020/2021 and 2021/2022.

In the recent report, there was a 79.1 per cent achievement of primary numeracy levels which is above the national average of 77.9 per cent. Primary numeracy levels in South Lanarkshire Council have improved by 1.2 per cent between 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 and are now higher than 2018/19, before the pandemic.

For secondary, S3 third level literacy, there was an achievement of 90.5 per cent which is above the national average of 85.5 per cent.

The recent report also outlined a 92 per cent achievement of S3 third level numeracy which is above the national acreage of 89.1 per cent.

For S3 fourth level literacy in South Lanarkshire, there was a 59.2 per cent achievement, which is above the national average of 47.7 per cent.

And for S3 fourth level numeracy, there was a 65.1 per cent achievement which is above the national average of 59.3 per cent. This is the highest level since 2016/2017.

Councillor Katy Loudon (Cambuslang East), praised the work done, and she said:“With the caveat that obviously this is older information now, but this is obviously good news not only with the national comparators but with the gap beginning to narrow in some areas, especially with what’s been done since the pandemic.”

Councillor Alex Allison (Clydesdale East), welcomed the progress, and said: “I think it is pleasing to see South Lanarkshire is performing better than the average statistics throughout Scotland and we need to ensure that our staff are given the credit they are due to be able to do that.”

The newest data reveals that schools in South Lanarkshire are making positive steps in relation to recovery from the pandemic, with progress being made across most indicators and school steps.