Funding of over £11 m has been given to seven councils as the first allocations from the Scottish Government’s £100 m Attainment Scotland 
Fund.
Education Secretary, Angela Constance, visited Clackmannanshire – one of the seven councils – today as the allocations were confirmed.
Glasgow, Dundee, Inverclyde, West Dunbartonshire, North Ayrshire, Clackmannanshire and North Lanarkshire were announced as the first local authorities to benefit, following the establishment of the fund, in February this year. This funding is targeting local authorities with the highest concentration of primary aged pupils living in deprived areas.
Since February, each council has developed improvement plans focused on raising attainment and identifying areas where specific improvement is needed.
As an example, in Clackmannanshire, investment will be targeted in ‘change areas’ which will have heavy emphasis on literacy and numeracy, leadership in schools and engagement with parents and carers.
These locally-agreed plans set out what schools in the most deprived communities will do to support children so they get the same chance to succeed at school and in life, as their peers from better off backgrounds. Each council is expected to invest in activity that will help close the attainment gap and report regularly to the Scottish Government on what works.
Speaking during a visit to a school holiday club at Lornshill Academy, Ms Constance said:
“We know school education in Scotland is getting better. Official figures published last month showed the percentage of young people leaving school to go into work, education or training is at a record high, with the vast majority of pupils are reaching SCQF level 3 literacy and numeracy or above.
“Our new Scottish Attainment Challenge will play a key role in delivering further improvements, from Glasgow, Scotland’s largest local authority, to here in Clackmannanshire, the ‘wee’ county.
“Good things are happening in all seven of these local authorities, and more widely across Scotland, but our fund will intensify efforts to drive improvement where it is needed, with a sharper focus on earlier intervention to close the attainment gap.
“Through measures such as this fund, the provisions in our Education (Scotland) Bill and the development of a National Improvement Framework, we will do all we can to raise attainment and give our young people the best start possible.”
