Scottish Government must abolish 'winter leaving rules' at schools to eliminate 'disadvantage', report finds

MPs urged the Scottish Government to consider the report

The Scottish Government has been urged to abolish “winter leaving rules” as it disadvantages students, a report has found.

The document, published by the Education Policy Institute, found requiring young people born between October and February to stay in school until at least Christmas of the following academic year increased attendance, but showed little benefit in terms of qualifications or employment.

Rank for Edinburgh: 21st. Overall rank for Scotland: 338th

Assessing how long-term changes in education and employment outcomes vary across the UK, the report also showed Scotland had consistently outperformed other UK nations in maintaining higher rates of Level 3 qualifications. Amongst those born in the 1980s, nearly 80 per cent of men and women in Scotland had Level 3 qualifications, which compares with about 70 per cent in England and Northern Ireland.

Addressing the issue of winter leaving rules, the report said: “Leaving school mid-way through the academic year could create various disadvantages for young people as many courses will already have begun. With this mind, policymakers in Scotland have created partnership agreements between colleges and schools to allow young people to start college early, whilst still being registered in schools until formal leaving date at Christmas.

“Despite this, the Scottish Government estimate that just over 3,000 young people leave school at Christmas during their S5 year. With a school leaving cohort consisting of just over 50,000 young people, that equates to about 6 per cent of each cohort of children in Scotland leaving at Christmas due to winter leaving rules.

“The Scottish Government should abolish winter leaving rules, so that all students in the same cohort leave school at the same time. This could either be at the end of S4, or S5 if the Scottish Government wanted all children to stay in school longer.

“This would eliminate the disadvantage faced by winter leavers and simplify the system for students, parents, and educators alike.

Christine Jardine MP urged ministers to listen to the report

“Colleges and schools currently create partnership agreements to effectively undo some of the potential disadvantage from winter leaving rules. It would be better if this wasn’t necessary.”

The report was funded by the Nuffield Foundation, an independent charitable trust that focuses on social well-being.

Scottish Labour MP Chris Murray claimed a generation of young people were being failed.

He said: “In the old days, Scottish education used to be leagues ahead. That’s clearly not the case any more - and we’re failing a generation of young people if we don’t address it. This is the pandemic and social media generation - they deserve far better.

“No idea should be off the table to encourage young people to stay in education or training. We need the young to spend more, not less, time upskilling - so we should ignore the Scottish Tory’s recent crazy idea of lowering the school leaving age to 14.”

Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine said: "I hope the Scottish Government takes into account what this important report has to say.

"We all want our young people to have the best possible start in life and anything that interferes with that should be reviewed I hope we now have a proper consideration of this issue.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Every young person should be supported to make positive choices about when to leave school and how to continue their learning afterwards.

“The latest figures show there has been a significant improvement in the proportion of young people who leave before the end of S5 going into work, training or further study in recent years, from 73.5 per cent in 2009-10 to 89.4 per cent in 2023-24.

“We recognise more needs to be done and we are already working with partners to enhance the support available for winter leavers.

"However, this report also shows the ongoing strength of Scottish education - the figures show there were higher rates of qualifications at Higher level and a smaller gap between men and women achieving at this level compared to the rest of the UK over a 50-year period.”