Public performance reports

Education remains both a national and a council priority. The Education Resource Plan sets the context for improvement planning in schools, establishments and services within Education Resources. Each school publishes its own Improvement Plan and these can be accessed by following the links to individual school webpages from the council website. In taking forward the Council’s vision to ‘improve the quality of life for everyone’, we support a wide range of learning opportunities for children, young people, adults and families where the focus is on their health and wellbeing and developing their skills. Our purpose is to raise achievement and attainment, inspire learners, transform learning and to work in partnership with our communities so that children and young people have the best start in life and are supported to develop their skills for learning, life and work. To help achieve this our focus will be on taking forward the drivers in the National Improvement Framework and on ensuring inclusion and equality are at the heart of what we do.

There are over 49,000 young people attending nursery, primary, secondary and additional support needs schools in South Lanarkshire. There are 124 primary schools one of which provides Gaelic medium education, 17 secondary schools one of which provides Gaelic medium education, seven additional support needs schools and 23 supported provision bases in the South Lanarkshire area.  Pre-school education is provided in 85 Early Years establishments, along with our partnership agreements with external providers: facilities include 65 nursery classes in schools, 20 community nurseries and partnerships with 106 external providers.

You may find this ‘Glossary of Terms’ from the Education Scotland Parentzone website useful.

The attainment of examination results by our young people is one way in which we can assess how well we are fulfilling our duties to educate our children. The results reported are particularly notable as the highest levels ever recorded: 44.0% of pupils leaving school gained 5 or more Level 6 awards (Highers). 

The celebration of the success of young people also features prominently in schools and services as this helps to raise aspirations, self-esteem and wellbeing. Young people achieved nationally recognised awards through the Youth Learning Service, these included: Duke of Edinburgh Awards (Bronze, Silver and Gold), John Muir Awards, SQA Employability Awards, Dynamic Youth and Youth Achievement Awards. The Youth, Family, and Community Learning Awards Team undertook a virtual Award Ceremony which was broadcast in March 2021 via YouTube and Facebook with almost 500 views on YouTube.

The wider achievements of young people and their involvement in shaping their learning journey is having a positive impact with many achieving vocational qualifications, entering into modern apprenticeships as well as attending college to develop their skills through courses and learning programmes.

Further detail is available at: Scottish Exchange of Data: Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels

South Lanarkshire is a large authority with comparatively higher levels of deprivation. The ongoing work of the council and its partners to address the still significant issue of youth unemployment remains a priority. We continue to secure and offer many youth employability options catering for all levels of employability skills and experiences, including the Youth Employment Initiative, What’s With Work, H20 plus and Work it Out serving the earliest stages and young people with multiple barriers to employability. 

Our customer satisfaction scores shown below come from the Scottish Household Survey which is undertaken by the Scottish Government in which a small sample of residents are asked questions about our Services. This survey is not routinely conducted with parents/carers of pupils attending schools and so we also show the scores from South Lanarkshire Council’s own Household Survey which is issued to all residents in South Lanarkshire.

In 2015 South Lanarkshire Council had a vision to transform our old school buildings into high quality, vibrant, modern, inspirational places of learning and teaching fit for 21st century education and Curriculum for Excellence. This was a programme of consultation and communication involving stakeholder representatives from a mix of teaching and other staff, parents, children and the local community. Our children and staff deserve the best and, with a dedicated specialist team in place, we embarked on the largest school building programme in the UK. By autumn 2019 the council’s ambitious modernisation programme of all Nursery Establishments, Additional Support Needs (ASN), Primary and Secondary schools was complete. With a capital cost of approximately £1.2 billion the programme has consisted of the new build, or major refurbishment, of: 12 Nursery Centres; 124 Mainstream Primary Schools (including 63 nursery classes); 4 ASN Primary Schools; 3 ASN Secondary Schools and 17 Mainstream Secondary Schools – making a total of 160 modernised educational establishments.

Every school pupil in South Lanarkshire is now taught in a modern education establishment which supports and contributes to high quality learning and teaching.

National data is only collected one every two years. The table below gives a comparison of the last 3 available data collections.

Follow this link for Information on how to support your child through school 

Council Priority: Get it right for children and young people

• Trinity High school achieved an Marjorie Boxall Quality Mark Award for their work in Nurture. They are the first Secondary in Scotland and the UK to be re-accredited for this work and for the difference this is making to the lives of many young people.
• 579 participants engaged with the Youth, Family and Community Learning (YFCL) Awards Team and 197 have now completed either a Duke of Edinburgh (including sectional certificates) or John Muir Award, despite the restrictions of the pandemic.
• The South Lanarkshire Schools' Percussion Ensemble achieved a 'Gold Plus Award' at the virtual Scottish Concert Band Festival which live-streamed in December 2020. A tremendous accomplishment given the Covid restrictions.

Council Priority: Ensure communities are safe, strong and sustainable

• Parent Councils are being supported to meet on-line via teams and zoom meetings and parents continue to be involved in the appointment process for Head Teacher/Depute Head Teacher posts.
• A Summer Programme (2020) was provided to assist in reducing food poverty amongst families in South Lanarkshire. As part of the Emergency Childcare for key workers, approximately 450 participants accessed the Summer Sessions which ran within 10 locations across South Lanarkshire. Participants had access to free nutritious meals – breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack. More than 6,200 free meals were provided.

Council Priority: Improve health, care and wellbeing

• The Educational Psychology Service has developed guidance to support the promotion of positive health and wellbeing across educational establishments during the period of post COVID recovery- Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing through transition, reconnection and recovery: an attachment informed approach. A short film can be accessed link here.

Council Priority: Promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth and tackle disadvantage

• 85 learners have been engaged in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) activity since April 2020, primarily through online classes, and 80 learners have improved their language skills, with tutors confirming significant improvement.
• Schools have signposted to Cost of the School Day guidance and supports through the @SLCEquity Twitter Feed. There is evidence that schools are signposting financial supports and looking at Cost of the School day, Digital inclusion has continued to be addressed through the Scottish Government IT device scheme with over 5,700 Chromebooks and 800 MI-fi devices distributed to our most disadvantaged

Council Priority: Delivering the Plan and achieving Best Value

• Woodhill Early Learning and Childcare in Kirkmuirhill opened its doors to in September 2020.
• The nursery offers 63 places and is an important milestone in the expansion of early years capacity (Target SLC wide: 1658 places).

Resource Plans are prepared each year by all council Resources to outline the key developments they intend to take forward in the year. Performance and actions relating to Education of children can be found in the following Resource Plans:

• Finance and Corporate Resource Plan
• Community and Enterprise Resource Plan
• Education Resource Plan
• Housing and Technical Resource Plan
• Social Work Resource Plan

Twice a year, performance reports are presented to council committees on progress against the Resource Plans.  In addition, reports detailing progress against the Council Plan Connect Priorities are prepared. See Quarter 2 and Quarter4 performance reports for further information.

More information on our objectives can be found in the Coucil Plan Connect and also the Annual Performance Spotlights.

Local Government Benchmarking Framework  (LGBF) allows councils to work together, to use performance information in a way which will help understand variations, share knowledge, expertise and good practice, with a view to making improvements. At the core of the framework is an agreed suite of performance indicators. We report the results for these indicators, over time, on the website. Additionally, you can compare our LGBF results with other councils' using the mylocalcouncil tool. Not all local authorities are alike and so family groups of eight ‘similar’ councils have been set up for comparison purposes. Workshops take place throughout the year to discuss the indicators and results – South Lanarkshire Council is actively involved in these discussions.

The information contained within this report reflects the position based on the data available at the time of publication (February 2022).