Progress in closing the poverty-related attainment gap is “limited”, according to the auditor general, who published a report this morning saying that the Scottish government needs to push forward faster with its bid to drive up the attainment of disadvantaged pupils.

But what do the statistics show about the progress so far? We have reproduced below two of the key graphs published by Audit Scotland to support its findings, showing changes in the attainment gap in recent years across a range of indicators in primary and early secondary school, and in the senior phase of secondary.

The third graph, however, shows the huge gap that still exists in terms of the qualifications that students from the least and most deprived areas leave school with.

It shows that the attainment gap in terms of the proportion of advantaged and disadvantaged students leaving school with three awards or more at Higher level is almost 40 percentage points.

The change in the attainment gap in primary schools

The change in the gap in secondary

The gap that remains in secondary