Scott took up his current role as Director of Education on a permanent basis in October last year, having held the position of Assistant Director of Education from 2022, and brings extensive experience in educational leadership and improvement.
Prior to that, he led South Ayrshire’s Inclusion Service as Quality Improvement Manager and Coordinator. This role also saw Scott lead on a number of service priorities designed to improve the outcomes of young people across the authority.
Before this, he was Depute Head Teacher at Dundonald Primary School, having originally trained as a primary teacher and has worked in various schools across South Ayrshire. He built extensive experience nationally with His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) as an Associate Assessor in the primary school inspection programme and through his work with the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland.
His presentation highlighted positive work undertaken across South Ayrshire’s schools, progress made by Educational Services over the 2024-2025 school session, and the continued efforts by staff to improve the overall service. Key areas of improvement included school attendance and attainment.
This year, the attendance in primary schools reached 93.5%, an increase of 0.8% from the 2023-24 session. In South Ayrshire secondary schools, an improvement of 1.7% saw attendance rates increase to 88.3%. This has brought the overall attendance rate to 90.9%. As part of the strategy to raise attendance, Scott revealed the “Every Learner, Every Day” (ELED) campaign to promote the importance of going to school. This campaign starred some of the Authority’s very own school pupils to help spread the positive message across a variety of media channels.
In total, ELED campaign materials were viewed a total of 3.7 million times this session, helping to deliver a strong and consistent message about the importance of attending school.
South Ayrshire Education also improved upon the already impressive figures for school leavers moving on to positive destinations. Figures published by the Scottish Government in February 2025 showed that for 2024, South Ayrshire had risen to 98.7%, an improvement on the previous year, and above the national average of 95.7%.
With over 14000 pupils in 40 primary, 8 secondary and 35 early years schools, there are many challenges. Scott highlighted the Authority’s four current priorities in detail; Belong; Excel; Evolve; Improve; and then he addressed the big AI issue versus Humans using a very simple but striking slide which demonstrated the huge advantages of being human including meaning, trust and judgement.
Ayr Rotary was privileged to hear the positive message from Scott and how he and his whole team plan to address the current challenges facing our children. Rotarian John Ace delivered a humorous and well deserved vote of thanks.