School Attainment and Qualifications of School Leavers in Scotland: 1997-98

Annex: Notes and definitions

1. Sources

1.1 Most of the information on school leavers is collected on two statistical returns completed by individual schools; one covers first term leavers (LSL1), the second covers second and third term leavers (LSL2). For 1997-98, The National MIS system for schools has been used to derive the second and third term information for around 80 schools. Since 1986-87, the LSL1 and LSL2 returns covered all secondary and special schools.

1.2 Details of the leavers’ Scottish Certificate of Education (SCE) and National Certificate (NC) qualifications are added by computer matching to the records obtained from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA). This process achieves a high rate of successful linkage, but in some cases mismatching or non-matching can occur. A detailed examination of the matching process has shown that these errors give rise to small underestimates of the number of qualifications held, but that this bias has been relatively constant over time.

1.3 Staying-on rates are derived from the School Census returns, which collect the numbers of pupils who are on the school roll in September each year. Age of pupils is as at 31 December. Information on those leaving during the first term, from the LSL1, is used to calculate the voluntary staying-on rates. From 1993-94, pupils leaving from the first term included only those who left school between the School Census date and the end of December. Previously, pupils who returned after the summer holidays but left before the School Census date were also included. This minor discontinuity affects Tables 10, 12, 13 and 22; and Charts 5 and 6.

2. Definitions

2.1 The introduction of a more integrated modular structure for non-advanced further education in Scotland has led to increasing numbers of pupils attending both school and college and/or more than one school. This has complicated the definition of a school leaver in recent years. On the school leaver returns from 1990-91 onwards, schools were asked to ignore 'resumers', that is, those who were restarting rather than continuing their education in the September of the year. These pupils would already have been counted as having left from some earlier session. They were also instructed not to count as leavers those who were continuing their education, either on a full or part-time basis, based in a school (rather than a college) in the September of the year.

2.2 The arrangements for leaving school were laid down in the Education (Scotland) Act 1976 and the Education (Scotland) Act 1980. Pupils are regarded as having left on achieving the school leaving age in 1996-97 if they: reached age 16 between 1 March and 30 September 1997 and left school on 31 May 1997; reached age 16 between 1 October 1996 and the end of February 1997 and left school at the end of the winter term. These arrangements therefore allow some pupils to leave school while they are still 15 years old.

2.3 Pupils who have completed 4 years of secondary education and would reach school leaving age before the end of the following term may be exempted from attending school to take a full time course of further education (one lasting 18 weeks or more). Such pupils are counted as leaving school on attaining the school leaving age at the end of the summer term, even though they have continued in compulsory education during the winter term of the following session and might more correctly be recorded as leaving from the winter term of the following year. Pupils on short term or 'link' courses are not recorded as having left in the summer before they started such courses.

2.4 The Audit Unit of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Schools produce the publications ‘Examination Results in Scottish Schools’ and ‘Leaver Destinations from Scottish Secondary Schools’’. Tables 1 to 3 of this bulletin provide an analysis of qualifications obtained in S4 and S5 using similar categories to the Audit Unit report, but there is no analysis of results at individual school level. The information on leaver numbers published in the Audit Unit report on leaver destinations is collected from the careers services companies and the managers of independent and grant-aided schools. This collection is carried out at a different time point in the year from the information in this bulletin.

Aggregate figures for school leavers may, as a result, differ from those provided in this bulletin, which come directly from the schools themselves.

2.5 The individual subjects included with the subject grouping categories at Table 23 are shown in the table below.

2.6 The symbol (**) has been used in some tables. This indicates that numbers are not significant.