Item 11 - School Leaver Destinations 2021-2022
West Dunbartonshire Council · 21 June 2023
Back to Educational Services Committee — 21 June 2023 and its agenda
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WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE COUNCIL Report by Chief Education Officer Education Committee: Wednesday 21 June 2023 Subject: School Leaver Destinations 2021/2022 1 Purpose 1.1 This report provides members with an update on our partnership approach to improve the number of our young people leaving school and entering a positive destination. 2 Recommendations 2.1 It is recommended that Committee notes the improvement in school leaver destinations. 3 Background 3.1 Supporting young people to make the transition from school to their next destination is the work of multiple partners – schools, the WDC Senior Phase team, Skills Development Scotland (SDS), Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) West and Working4U. 3.2 The percentage of young people entering a positive destination on leaving school is a key metric of performance. This is recorded annually in a School Leaver Destinations Report (SLDR) through the national benchmarking tool Insight, and is a measure in the Local Government Benchmarking Framework. The SLDR report has been developed to provide Local Authorities and schools with individual level data for the school leavers reported within the Scottish Government’s school leaver destination statistics publications. All initial destinations are based on the snapshot destination as at the 1st Monday in October (including deferred entry to Higher Education). 3.3 Positive destinations can be from a number of categories – further or higher education, training, volunteer work, personal skills development activity or employment. 3.4 During the pandemic, our performance in school leaver destinations declined, resulting in us researching why our destinations had changed, and implementing an action with partners to improve our outcomes. This action plan was brought to committee in June 2022. ITEM 11
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4. Main Issues 4.1 The SLDR for 2021/2022 recorded 95.11% of our 910 school leavers in positive destinations in West Dunbartonshire, which is an increase of 4.12 percentage points from last years figure of 90.99%, but 0.63 percentage points below the national figure of 95.74%. 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 West Dunbartonshire 94.15% 93.62% 89.66% 90.99% 95.11% Virtual Comparator 93.16% 94.25% 92.23% 94.92% 94.79% West Partnership 94.44% 95.22% 93.66% 95.84% 96.27% National 94.4% 95.05% 93.36% 95.48% 95.74% 4.2 Each year, data can also be viewed by destination. Appendix 1 shows this for each establishment. For WDC, this is shown below for session 2021/22: Employment Further Education Higher Education Not Known Personal Skills Development Training Unemployed not seeking Unemployed seeking Voluntary work West Dunbartonshire 25.38% 27.93% 36.19% 0% 0.10% 5.40% 2.04% 2.85% 0.10% Virtual Comparator 24.31% 31.03% 34.39% 0.47% 0.63% 4.00% 1.87% 2.87% 0.43% West Partnership 21.30% 24.18% 46.13% 0.34% 0.53% 3.73% 1.18% 2.21% 0.40% National 25.11% 25.45% 41.27% 0.40% 0.51% 2.92% 1.54% 2.32% 0.47%
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4.3 When compared with 2020/21, we have seen: • Employment – an increase of 0.87 percentage points • Further Education – an increase of 5.4 percentage points • Higher Education – a decrease of 4.25 percentage points • Training – an increase of 1.99 percentage points • Unemployed not seeking – a decrease of 1.15 percentage points • Unemployed seeking – a decrease of 2.97 percentage points 5 People Implications 5.1 There are no direct people implications arising from this report. 6 Financial & Procurement Implications 6.1 There are no direct financial or procurement implications arising from this report. 7 Risk Analysis 7.1 Partnership working to ensure the greatest number of young people leave school and enter a positive destination is a key component part in our aspiration to have a strong and flourishing economy. Failure to ensure young people enter a positive destination would risk our delivery of our strategic priority of having a strong and flourishing economy. 8 Equalities Impact Assessment 8.1 No significant equalities issues were identified in relation to this report because the content provides an update on our partnership approach to service delivery rather than stating a change in policy. 9 Consultation 9.1 Legal, Finance, the Section 95 Officer and partners in the Strategic Employability Group (sub-group of the ‘Flourishing’ Delivery and Improvement Group), young people and schools. 10 Strategic Assessment 10.1 This report reflects the Council’s aspiration to have a strong and flourishing economy which is one of the strategic priorities for 2022-2027.
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Chief Officer: Laura Mason Service Area: Education Date: 19 May 2023 _____________________________________________________________ Person to Contact: Andrew Brown andrew.brown@west-dunbarton.gov.uk Appendices: Appendix 1: School Leaver Destinations Background Papers: None Wards Affected: All