School qualification achievement by deprived students surges by up to THREE times in SNP era

Professor John Robertson OBA, for nearly 40 years a schoolteacher, a teacher education lecturer, Associate Dean for Quality Assurance, research methods lecturer, PhD supervisor and Faculty Research Ethics Chair

From Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations, No. 7: 2025 edition published in February 2025 (most recent figures), we can see that between academic years 2009/20120 and 2023/2024:

Nearly three times as many pupils from the most disadvantaged 20% of the population and nearly twice as many from the next most deprived 20%, achieved 1 or more Advanced Highers (SCQF Level 7).

At Level 6 or better, for Highers and above, there was a 70% increase in the most deprived group and a 33% increase in the next most deprived group.

These are significant positive trends in a fairly short period worthy of more media attention but not getting it.

5 thoughts on “School qualification achievement by deprived students surges by up to THREE times in SNP era”

  1. These school league tables and achievement results need to stop. There is no way scheme school kids can compete with middle class schools. Not only do the demoralise the kids , teacher’s at these underprivileged schools also feel worthless. Individually the brightest most intelligent person l have known went to Dovehill and Whitehill. The person is a prominent scientist in the field of Molecular Biology and is well respected in the UK and USA.

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    1. School ‘league tables’ based on examination attainment have never been part of Scottish education, as they are in England. However, the media and political parties have, by selective use of statistics, created these tables, with the aim of denigrating public education and particularly comprehensive schools (like Whitehill, which is Dennistoun, not a ‘scheme) and schools in less affluent areas.

      Data are important for schools to be able to identify their successes, which are many, to identify aspects which require some change and to evaluate how successful particular practices or other things have been. There is a huge amount of such data, but they require careful consideration.

      However, there are criteria which the Tories, when they established the system during the 1990s (and, shamefully continued by Labour) which were specifically chosen BECAUSE they knew a large proportion of non-private schools and non-selective schools would not be able to attain. The ‘league tables’ and ‘SAT’s were examples and were intended to reintroduce selection by stealth, which, sadly, happened in much of England. Politicians in Scotland, many in the Labour Party, managed to resist this and to maintain public control of schools, other than those which have always been private.

      An example of something the Tories rejected were measures relating to ‘added value’, i e increases in performance over time achieved by students. The most sophisticated of these suggested that most schools, whatever the socioeconomic status of the student group, achieved similar ‘added vale’. A few did better than the majority and a fair number of these were schools serving areas of high multiple deprivation. And a few schools did poorer and some of these were in the private sector or served affluent areas.

      Evaluating school performance is complex and requires a lot of data and not just examination results.

      However, one thing stands out – the proportion of funding for education allocated to pre school and early primary school should be significantly increased. The Blair Government did this with ‘Sure Start’. It was so successful that as soon as the Tories got into power in 2010 they scrapped it.

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  2. Dear Professor Robertson,

    I am trying to access this data source to expand on your blog for my teaching union – the SSTA. Is there an easily accessible source I could use to contend that the lowest quintile has made an empirical improvement even if the improvement relative to the upper quintile is minor?

    Paul Cochrane

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