WORK by East Ayrshire Council to raise attainment is to be inspected by Education Scotland.

The council is one of nine local authorities across Scotland that are to be inspected as part of a review of the attainment-related aspects of their education functions.

The Interim HM Chief Inspector of Education, Graeme Logan said the year-long programme will look at progress with improving learning, raising attainment and narrowing the poverty related attainment gap.

Mr Logan said: “We have a clear national priority to raise attainment and close the poverty-related attainment gap. We have chosen to inspect progress being made in the nine local authorities with the highest concentrations of children living in poverty.

“Each authority has been working to improve the educational outcomes in Scotland’s most disadvantaged communities for many years, and is receiving significant additional investment through the Scottish Attainment Challenge. Through the inspections we want to identify good practice and highlight areas for further improvement.

“While there have been improvements in children’s progress in literacy and numeracy across Scotland, it is still too variable. Until this variability is addressed we will not achieve the national ambition of excellence and equity for all learners.”

Working with an external reference group, with support from the Association of Directors of Education (ADES), HM Inspectors have developed a bespoke inspection framework. This will be piloted with West Dunbartonshire Council before being finalised and used with other authorities.

Mr Logan added: “We have welcomed the support from the ADES in establishing an external reference group and we will continue to work with this group.

“I am pleased that West Dunbartonshire Council has agreed to work in partnership with Education Scotland to pilot the inspection model and we look forward to reviewing their work in October.”

The inspections are due to be completed by December 2018 and an evaluative report will be published for each.