Education Glossary
This glossary explains educational terms and acronyms used on our website. If you come across other educational terminology or acronyms that you do not understand you can contact us via link at bottom of page and we will add to this glossary.
| Phrase Used or Acronym | Meaning |
| AA | Additional Assessment arrangements (AA) allow candidates who are disabled, and/or have been identified as having additional support needs, access to appropriate arrangements to complete assessments without compromising its integrity. |
| Advanced Higher | Advanced Highers are National Qualifications that consist of units and a course assessment. They involve a question paper (exam) or coursework (eg assignments and/or practical activities) or both. They are graded A to D or 'no award' |
| AOW | Assessment of Wellbeing |
| APSW | Advanced Pupil Support Worker |
| ASD | Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain. People with ASD often struggle with social communication and interaction, and restricted or repetitive behaviours or interests. |
| Attainment | Attainment is the measurable progress which children and young people make as they advance through and beyond school, and the development of the range of skills, knowledge and attributes needed to succeed in learning, life and work. |
| Attainment gap | The Scottish education system works well for most children and young people, who make good progress in their learning. However, there is still a gap between the progress which is made between those living in Scotland's most and least deprived areas. Many children and young people living in our most deprived communities, do significantly worse at all levels of the education system than those from our least deprived communities. This is often referred to as the 'attainment gap' |
| BGE | Broad General Education: Curriculum for Excellence is divided into two phases: the broad general education (S1-S3) and the senior phase (S4-S6). |
| CAT | CAT (Cognitive Abilities Test) is an assessment of developed abilities in areas known to make a difference to learning and achievement - namely verbal, non-verbal, quantitative and spatial reasoning. Is conducted early in S1. |
| Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) | Often shortened to CfE, Curriculum for Excellence is the curriculum in Scotland for all children and young people aged 3-18. |
| Data zone | The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) identifies the concentration of deprivation within each data zone. Data zones may be grouped according to concentration of deprivation. See also Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. |
| Deprivation | The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation considers deprivation by looking at income, employment, health, education, housing, access to services and levels of crime in an area. |
| ELC | Early learning and childcare |
| ELT | Extended Leadership Team |
| FIP | Faculty Improvement Plan |
| Free school meals (FME) | In accordance with Scottish Government legislation, pupils from low-income families are entitled to free school meals. In addition, children using funded early learning and childcare and in primaries 1-3 are also entitled to free school meals. |
| GIRFEC | Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) is Scottish Government commitment to provide all children, young people and their families with the right support at the right time. |
| GTC | The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTC Scotland) is an independent professional and regulatory body for teaching. |
| HGIOS | 'How Good is Our School' :A suite of quality indicators that support staff in all sectors to look inwards, to scrutinise their work and evaluate what is working well for learners and what could be better. |
| HGIOURS | 'How Good is our School' A framework for children and young people to have their say in how well your school is doing and how it can be improved |
| HWB | Health and Wellbeing |
| IDL | Inter Disciplinary Learning: Compared to traditional approaches, an interdisciplinary approach expands what students learn by allowing them to tackle problems that don't fit neatly into one subject. It also changes how students learn by asking them to synthesize multiple perspectives, instead of taking what they're told by a teacher at face value. |
| Insight | Insight does not include data relating to attainment in S1 - S3. Although Insight provides data on the attainment of a wide range of Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) awards from a range of providers, not all SCQF achievement awards are included. Find further information on Insight on the Scottish Government website. |
| IWS | Inclusion and Wellbeing Service: The Inclusion and Wellbeing Service (IWS) supports WL schools in improving the delivery of education provision, learning experiences and opportunities for children and young people with additional support needs across the curriculum in every educational context and setting. |
| LAC | Looked After Children |
| LFS | Learning for Sustainability |
| MAPA | MAPA® means the Management of Actual or Potential Aggression. MAPA® is about responding to people in a non-judgemental way, treating them with respect and dignity whilst supporting them to stay safe |
| Moderation/ Moderating progress | Helps raise standards, expectations and consistency of learning and progress in schools. |
| N3/N4/N5/ H/AH | Some of Scotland's National Qualifications. They involve a question paper (exam) or coursework (eg assignments and/or practical activities) or both. They are graded pass/fail or A to D or 'no award' dependent on level being sat. |
| Outcomes | Curriculum for Excellence includes experiences and outcomes for each curricular area. The outcome describes what children can achieve in the eight areas of the curriculum. |
| PEF | Pupil Equity Fund. This additional funding allocated to specific schools based on Free Meal Entitlement and targeted at closing the poverty related attainment gap. |
| Positive destination | Scottish education aims to support all young people to have a 'positive destination' when they leave school. Positive destinations include: higher education, further education, training, voluntary work, employment, activity agreements. This Scottish Government statistics publication has further information on school leaver destinations |
| PSE | Personal Social Education |
| PTC | Principal Teacher Curriculum |
| PTS/HOH | Principal teacher Support/ Head of House |
| Quality Indicators (QI) | Used by early learning and childcare settings, schools, Local Authorities and HM inspectors to consider what is going well and what needs to be improved. |
| Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) | The SCQF has 12 levels which indicate the level of difficulty of a qualification. SCQF levels allow broad comparisons to be made between qualifications and learning. |
| Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) | Small geographical areas called data zones are ordered by the concentration of multiple deprivation. This is based on an assessment of income, employment, health, education, housing, access to services and levels of crime in the area. Find out more about the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. |
| Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) | The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) develops, assesses and awards qualifications taken in workplaces, colleges and schools. The SQA provides qualifications across Scotland, the United Kingdom and internationally. |
| Senior Phase | Senior Phase : Curriculum for Excellence is divided into two phases: the broad general education (S1-S3) and the senior phase (S4-S6). |
| SGS | Small Group Setting |
| SIP | School Improvement Plan |
| SKERTS | Social Communication (SC), Emotional Regulation (ER) and Transactional Support (TS). SCERTS aims to help families, teachers and therapists work cooperatively to support autistic children. |
| SLT | Senior Leadership Team |
| SQR | Standards and Quality report |
| SSR | Statistical Summary Report |
| UNCRC | The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is a complete statement of children's rights and is the most widely-ratified international human rights treaty in history. |
| Virtual comparator | For each school leaver, ten matching school leavers are randomly selected based on gender, additional support needs, stage of leaving school (S4, S5 or S6) and the social context in which they live (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation). These characteristics were selected due to their significance in explaining differences in the attainment and destinations of school leavers in Scotland. |
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