Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Higher achievements for Edinburgh school pupils

Exam results out today --- considerable family interest again this year! --- the relevant Edinburgh News Release is below, with some encouraging early statistics.

And excellent general advice from Young Scot; available here, and the many links therein.


Higher achievements for Edinburgh school pupils


The anxious wait is finally over for thousands of pupils across Edinburgh as they received their exam results today (Tuesday 4 August).

The anxious wait is finally over for thousands of pupils across Edinburgh as they received their exam results today (Tuesday 4 August).

Early indications are that candidates have once again improved on their performances in many areas from last year and that the overall good performance of City of Edinburgh Council schools has been maintained. 

A total of 40,425 resulted awards were certificated for 8,120 candidates (includes special schools, adults and mainstream secondary schools).

Highlights include:

By the end of S4 39% of the roll achieved five qualifications at National 5 Level which is an increase of over 1% from last year.

Across the city there were 17,700 presentations for National 5 courses (pass rate A-C of 80%).
By the end of S5 58% of all pupils achieved one or more Highers – a 4% improvement on last year and a 16% improvement since 2009.

Across the city there were 6,354 presentations for the revised Higher (pass rate A-C of 77%) and 4,693 for the new Curriculum for Excellence Higher (pass rate 82%).

By the end of S6, 63% of the S4 roll achieved one or more Highers – a 2% improvement on last year and a 15% improvement since 2009.

Overall for S4 pupils 1,325 awards were certificated at SCQF Level 3, 6,779 awards were certificated at SCQF Level 4 and 13,562 awards were certificated at SCQF Level 5.

Nicola Wilson, 16 years, is an S6 pupil at Broughton High School. She said: “I’m really keen to study Speech and Language Pathology at Strathclyde University so need at least 2As and 3Bs in my Highers. I did well last year in my exams so am hoping for the same again this year.”

Education Convener, Councillor Paul Godzik, said: “Early indications from the SQA exam results show that 2015 has been another really positive year for our pupils which is really encouraging . It’s a real achievement to have not only sustained but built on the successes of last year.

“I also want to congratulate all our teaching staff on their commitment to delivering learning experiences of the highest standards especially given the introduction of the new exams. Our pupils should be very proud of themselves too – all their hard work has certainly paid off and praise should also go to parents who have supported their children over the past year.

“The Council is committed to making sure all school leavers enter a positive destination of employment, training or further education. This year a record 93.1% of young people achieved and sustained a positive destination through initiatives such as the Edinburgh Guarantee. We will be looking to build on this in the future and look forward to seeing many more placements and positive results.”

Councillor Cathy Fullerton, Education Vice Convener, spoke to pupils and parents this morning at Craigmount High School where Minister for Education Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning paid a visit.

She said: “It was a real pleasure to chat to pupils today to hear how they had done in their exams. Their parents were rightly proud of their results and I hope everyone who was successful today achieves their full potential in whatever future career path they embark on.”

All candidates will receive their results by means of the traditional postal delivery on Tuesday 4 August. Those candidates who have activated their MySQA accounts, through which they can choose to receive their exam results by text in addition to their results certificate, will also receive these by 9am on Tuesday 4 August.


Additional information:
 
1. This is provisional information at this early stage with no national or comparator information available.

2. Analysis:

Results by end of S4
 
The changes in qualifications and in the wider education system as a result of Curriculum for Excellence continue in academic session 2014-2015.

There was a mix of the current National Courses (Access, Intermediates, Highers and Advanced Highers) and the new National Courses (National 2 to National 5 and New Highers) as well as Skills for Work Awards and National Certificates taken by candidates.

The changes both in the type of qualifications available and in the wider education system as a result of Curriculum for Excellence continued in 2015 with the introduction of the new National Highers. The different types of qualifications taken together with the different approaches to delivery mean that attainment patterns across SCQF levels will vary from those seen in previous years and will make direct comparisons of attainment over time extremely complex.

The new Senior Phase Benchmarking Tool called ‘Insight’ has replaced STACS (Standard Tables and Charts) in order to provide a wider range of measures against which schools will be benchmarked. These will include positive destinations as well as attainment and will take into account the socio-economic backgrounds of pupils and the performance of schools against comparator schools.

Results by end of S5*

5+ awards at level 3 or better - 91% (4 percentage points less than the previous year: a 2 percentage point improvement since 2009).
5+ awards at level 4 or better - 85% (1 percentage point more than the previous year a 7 percentage point improvement since 2009).
5+ awards at level 5 or better - 55% (2 percentage points less than the previous year but a 6 percentage point improvement since 2009).
1+ award at level 6 or better - 58% (4 percentage points more than the previous year and continues a five year improving trend and a 16 percentage point improvement since 2009).
3+ awards at level 6 or better - 35% (2 percentage point more than the previous year and an 8 percentage point improvement since 2009).
5+ awards at level 6 or better - 17% (1 percentage point more than the previous year an improvement of 4 percentage points since 2009). Please note that this is provisional and does not include attainment gained by partnership activity.

Results by end of S6*
 
1+ award at level 6 or better - 63% (2 percentage points more than the previous year and a 15 percentage point improvement since 2009).
3+ awards at level 6 or better - 44% (1 percentage point more than the previous year, a continuing improving trend and a 9 percentage point improvement since 2009).
5+ awards at level 6 or better - 31% (1 percentage point more than the previous year and a 7 percentage point improvement since 2009).
Advanced Highers at 1 award at level 7 - 22% (maintaining last year’s good results, and a 4 percentage point improvement since 2009).

*based on the percentage of S4 pupil roll.

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