Identifying The Future Of Child Protection In The Highlands

Issued by THE SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE

Scots schoolchildren have started 2006 with a new identity as the Scottish Candidate Number (SCN) is rolled out in schools across the Highlands.

The SCN will bring major child protection benefits by allowing pupil records containing key information to be quickly shared between schools and councils.

The unique pupil ID numbers will also play a key role in developing the school to school transfer system, currently being created to improve record-sharing and monitor progress when pupils change school.

It will also particularly benefit the Children Missing Education project, launched last year to help find children who have disappeared from the education system. Since its launch in August, the project has successfully traced 114 children referred to them by councils.

Deputy Education Minister Robert Brown said:

"In today's society, child protection is of the utmost importance, so it's extremely important that key pupil information can be shared quickly and effectively between authorities.

"That's why simple measures such as the SCN are so important. These unique numbers will improve existing procedures, helping to ensure that our children are kept safe and well."

Donnie Macdonald, Head of Education Services at The Highland Council said:

"In a world of increasing requirements for information the introduction of the SCN as a unique pupil identifier for all school pupils is a welcome move. This has been in place for secondary pupils for some time and is now being extended to pupils in primary schools.

"This means each pupil will have one key identifier throughout their school career. It will assist the transfer and share of pupil information across local authority boundaries in an age where there is increasing mobility of the population."

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The SCN as a unique pupil identifier has already been introduced into all publicly funded secondary schools in Scotland, and is currently being developed for use in primary and special schools by the summer. Numbers will be available to issue to all new pupils starting primary one or entering into the Scottish education system from the summer of this year.

2. SEED's Children Missing Education project was launched in August 2005. Further information on this and the school to school transfer system can be found at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/08/0191408/14154

3. The SCN was originally allocated to pupils, usually in third year of secondary school, as a unique identifier for SQA exam presentation purposes. It's now being rolled out to include all pupils in publicly funded schools in Scotland to form the basis of the unique identifier system.