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The SQA will be replaced by the new qualifications body in late 2025, after the 2025 exam diet. There will be a period of transition with transfer arrangements in place to support this process.

Teachers require a broad professional knowledge of early reading as a complex interplay of skills and background factors in order to improve children's literacy.

Phonics approaches form one aspect of an overall pedagogy for early reading.

Education Scotland is currently working to develop updated guidance and research-informed professional learning resources which will support teachers to develop children’s early reading. The resources will include guidance and advice on phonics as part of an overall reading pedagogy. In line with other items of guidance relating to Scotland’s curriculum, the resources are being developed within a broader context which seeks to empower teachers and schools to adapt their approach to meet the needs of individual learners.

The Scottish Government has an ongoing programme of evaluation on the employability services it provides.

A programme of evaluation has been in place for Fair Start Scotland (FSS) since its inception and all evaluation reports are publicly available on www.gov.scot . The evaluations have adopted a range of methodological approaches to represent and capture the experiences of a variety of contexts, including rural, medium, or large urban areas. The Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 FSS overall evaluation reports provide information on outcomes associated with taking part in FSS for individuals with a range of socio-demographic characteristics, including participants living in rural areas.

The Year 1 report is available at: Fair Start Scotland evaluation report 2: overview of year one - November 2019 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Year 2 report is available at: Fair Start Scotland - evaluation report 3: year two - overview - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Year 3 report is available at: Fair Start Scotland: evaluation report 4 - year 3 overview - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

An implementation evaluation of No One Left Behind and Young Person’s Guarantee was published in August 2023. The evaluation explored how effectively No One Left Behind and the Young Person's Guarantee had been implemented, the experiences of service providers and service users, and lessons from early delivery. The first stage of fieldwork included interviews with local employability stakeholders within several local authority areas, with areas selected to ensure a mix by geography (island, rural, medium / large urban), size and stage of implementation of service delivery.

The Implementation Evaluation of No One Left Behind and Young Person’s Guarantee Implementation is available at: No One Left Behind and the Young Person's Guarantee: implementation evaluation - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government will continue to undertake evaluation of its employability services, and plans for further evaluation activity are under development.

An implementation evaluation of No One Left Behind and Young Person’s Guarantee was published in August 2023.

This evaluation considered progress in implementation and delivery of No One Left Behind and Young Person’s Guarantee, the experiences of service providers and service users, barriers and enablers to implementation and identified lessons from early delivery. These areas are core features of process evaluations .

The Implementation Evaluation of No One Left Behind and Young Person’s Guarantee is available at: No One Left Behind and the Young Person's Guarantee: implementation evaluation - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Discussions with both COSLA and individual local authorities about breakfast provision have taken place over the last eighteen months. These have covered issues such as existing delivery, and the range of possible delivery models and costs. The Scottish Government is currently working with the local authority facilities management organisation, AssistFM, to develop a clear picture of the scale and uptake of breakfast provision across Scotland.

There is a currently a mixed delivery of breakfast provision across Scotland with a range of service providers including public, private and third sector. We have conducted provisional modelling of breakfast provision and have begun work with local authorities and key stakeholders to better understand and map provision. We are continuing our mapping work which will contribute to more detailed modelling in future.

There is a currently a mixed delivery of breakfast provision across Scotland with a range of service providers including public, private and third sector. We have begun work with local authorities and key stakeholders to better understand and map that provision. This mapping work will inform the development of a delivery strategy for breakfast provision designed around the needs of children and families.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of transition plans that local authorities have in place for children and young people as this is a matter for individual authorities.

Under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004, when a young person is expected to leave school the education authority has a duty to request and share information within specific timeframes to help support their transition. Local authorities are responsible for meeting their duties under the legislation and there are a range of planning mechanisms used by local authorities to meet children and young people’s needs.

The current iteration of the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research was undertaken with schools in Spring 2023, and will be published in in advance of the relationships and behaviour summit event currently scheduled for 28 November. This will allow participants in this event to use the research in their discussions on how to address the issue.

Prior to establishing the framework for delivering counselling services, officials engaged with professional counselling bodies who advised that therapeutic counselling is not appropriate for younger pupils. In light of this advice, our commitment is specifically to make counselling available to secondary, primary and special school pupils aged 10 and over.

School counselling is just one of a range of services that schools may have in place to support the health and wellbeing of children and young people. We provide local authorities with £15 million per annum to fund community-based mental health and wellbeing supports for children, young people and their families.

We have also supported school staff to understand and recognise the range of mental health and wellbeing concerns that young people may experience in a new professional learning resource introduced in June 2021.