Falkirk pupils top of the class as numbers in 'positive destinations' keeps rising

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Falkirk was among the top performing Scottish councils for numeracy and literacy in 2022/23, while the percentage of pupils moving on to positive destinations is rising.

But despite the good news delivered to Falkirk Council 's Scrutiny Committee today (Thursday), the new director of education, Jon Reid, said he was aware that the challenge ahead of him now is to "ensure that we can continue to achieve results such as these - in terms of destinations and attainment - but which will also help the council's financial position".

Mr Reid - formerly headteacher at Larbert High School - took up his new role in May, just as a row was breaking out over plans to reduce school hours for Falkirk pupils by finishing early on Friday afternoons. Read more: John Swinney pledges to work with Labour to secure future of Grangemouth refinery At the Scrutiny Committee, councillors welcomed the very positive report, while Mr Reid acknowledged that the focus now will be on looking at the feedback from engagement with parents, pupils and partners.Looking back on the results from 2022-23, however, he was particularly pleased to see that more pupils than ever in Falkirk had moved on to 'positive destinations' when they left school.The report offered a 'snapshot' of Falkirk leavers on October 3, 2023, which showed that 95.4 per cent were either in work, training or education - a 1.2 per cent increase from the previous year’s figure of 94.2 per cent.But that slight increase took Falkirk from 26th in the list of local authorities for positive destinations for school leavers to 16th, moving the area into the second quartile.The figures in the end of year report for 22/23 also show the attainment gap narrowing once again after the negative impact