The Forth Valley and West Lothian Improvement Collaborative serves an area of 3070 square kilometres. Stirling Council’s area covers 70% of the overall Collaborative geography which ranges from rural highland and lowland in Stirling, through urban and post-industrial mining, steel and manufacturing communities in all four authorities. Our Collaborative has a total population of 484,700 or slightly less than 9% of Scotland’s population.

Our Collaborative provides core education services to nearly 68,000 pupils in 173 Primary, 29 Secondary and 16 Additional Supports Needs Schools. This is just under 10% of Scotland’s school pupils and 9% of Scotland’s schools.

The teaching workforce is made up of 2425 Primary Teachers, 2306 Secondary Teachers and 217 Additional Support Needs Teachers. Early Learning and Childcare places are provided across our Collaborative for 7,875 three and four year olds.

Across Forth Valley and West Lothian Collaborative region 60 data zones fall within the 15% most deprived in Scotland according to SIMD 2016, with Clackmannanshire having 15% of their data zones in this category, Falkirk 11%, Stirling and West Lothian both 7%. Clackmannanshire is a Scottish Attainment Challenge (SAC) authority and there are SAC schools in each of the other LAs, as well as a significant amount of PEF funding being allocated across the region.