UNISON welcomes the committee’s inquiry into closing the attainment gap. There is widespread agreement that children from low income households do significantly worse at school than those from better of households and that this gap starts early and continues. What there is little agreement on is what to do about it. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation also points out that “the quality and quantity of attainment data from primary and early secondary school pupils vary widely. This makes data-driven project design and evaluation difficult”. If we are to succeed with evidence based policy making the Scottish Government needs to get much better at collecting and collating data and ensuring that it is available for researchers to use… https://unison-scotland.org/wp-content/uploads/ClosingTheAttainmentGap_ResponsetoSPEducationCtte_Feb2015.pdf
Scotland's biggest and liveliest public service trade union, representing workers delivering public and related services across Scotland.