National Standardised Assessments for Scotland National Report for Academic Year 2024-2025

Summary of outcomes at a national level on the ‘Scottish National Standardised Assessments’ (SNSA) and ‘Measaidhean Coitcheann Nàiseanta airson Foghlam tron Ghàidhlig’ (MCNG) (collectively known as NSA) in the 2024 to 2025 academic year.

Introduction

What are the NSA?

In January 2016, the Scottish Government published The National Improvement Framework for Scottish Education (hereafter ‘the Framework’). The Framework set out the Scottish Government’s vision and priorities for Scotland’s children and young people. It was developed to support high-quality learning and teaching – the core principle of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). Over time, it was intended that the Framework would provide a level of robust, consistent and transparent data across Scotland to extend the understanding of what works, and drive improvements across all parts of the system.

To meet the aim of excellence and equity for Scottish children and young people, it was determined that gathering data on children’s progress at key points in their education, including data on differences between those from the least and most deprived areas, was essential. Improved data of this kind would support the planning of further interventions to ensure that all learners achieve as well as they can. Part of this information would be provided by SNSA (English Medium) and MCNG (Gaelic Medium).

The SNSA have been available for use in publicly funded schools in Scotland since August 2017 and MCNG have been available since December 2018. They are undertaken by children and young people in Primary 1, Primary 4, Primary 7 and Secondary 3 (P1, P4, P7 and S3) across Scotland, once in each school year at any point in time. Learners at P7 and S3 in Gaelic Medium Education (GME) may also undertake the SNSAs for Reading and Writing in addition to the MCNG assessments in the same areas; in S3, GME Learners may sit their numeracy assessment through either SNSA or MCNG depending on the language in which their numeracy education is delivered. Reports to schools and teachers are available as soon as a learner completes an assessment. Additional reports are available for local authorities. The SNSA and MCNG are delivered through a single platform which is accessible in English or Gaelic.

Outcomes from National Standardised Assessments provide one source of formative assessment evidence as part of a range of evidence to support teachers’ professional judgement of children’s and young people’s progress in learning. The Achievement of CfE Levels (ACEL) data is based on this teacher professional judgement – this data reports on the percentage of children and young people in P1, P4, P7 and S3 who achieve the expected CfE level in literacy and numeracy. ACEL data is published annually at school, local authority and national level.

The NSA:

  • are inclusive, accessible and adaptive;
  • provide teachers with immediate feedback to support them in guiding teaching and learning; and
  • can be used to monitor and evaluate educational interventions.

The user reports provided for NSA support a number of these points by providing teachers, school leaders and local authorities with diagnostic information about learners’ strengths and areas of challenge that can be used as part of a wider formative approach to assessment to plan next steps in learning. Alongside other assessment evidence, the information reported in NSA can also be used to inform teachers’ professional judgement on achievement of CfE levels. A central aim of NSA is also to provide information on the outcomes of Scottish children and young people in literacy and numeracy over time.

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