This article appears as part of the Lessons to Learn newsletter.

More than a decade ago, the SNP declared it would “eliminate” the attainment gap.

As I’ve explained before, this was always a stupid thing to promise, because it is just not possible. That ‘gap’ isn’t a function of weak teachers or failing schools – it is what poverty and inequality look like through the lens of education.

Anyone who really thought that a few tweaks to education policy could make the effects of deep-rooted, multi-generational poverty disappear was misguided. Yet here we are.

It rapidly became clear that the party had made promises it could never deliver, and so over time the language changed. Ambitions to “close the attainment gap completely” were eventually reduced to simply “narrowing” it. This looked much more achievable and, although this isn’t well known, a series of specific targets were then set – you might even say the record against which they should be judged was established.

In 2016/17, the attainment gap for primary literacy was 22.1 percentage points, while the figure for numeracy was 17.6 percentage points. In secondary schools, there was a 13.6 point literacy gap and a 14.9 point numeracy gap.

By 2024/25, all four of those figures were to be reduced to just five percentage points.  

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