An Edinburgh primary school has been named one of the best in Scotland in the Sunday Times Primary School League Table 2023.
The annual list explores all the primary schools in the country and ranks P7 pupils in 1,200 schools according to reading, numeracy, writing, listening and talking performance levels.
St Mark's RC Primary School, in Edinburgh, has made it into the top ten in 2023, placing ninth. According to the Times, Edinburgh has the highest number of top-performing primaries with eight, followed by West Lothian with seven.
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The sample size is also taken into consideration, with St Mark's scoring 100 in each of the above categories, but only having 143 pupils. The Edinburgh school which placed closest to St Mark's was James Gillespie's, coming in at 24th, but still scoring 100 in each category.
The next three places were all taken by Edinburgh schools, with South Morningside Primary finishing 25th, Dean Park Primary 26th and Bonaly Primary School 27th respectively.
The Edinburgh school which was the worst ranked locally was Granton Primary School, with Pirniehall Primary and St David's RC just ahead.
However, the school ranked the best in the country was out west in Paisley. St Catherine's Primary, located in the Gallowhill neighbourhood performed flawlessly in reading, writing, numeracy, listening and talking among P7 pupils despite most living in deprived communities.
Sixty-three schools from more than 1,200 that submitted data scored top marks across all indicators. Edinburgh has the highest number of top-performing primaries with eight, followed by West Lothian with seven.
A Times Scotland spokesperson said: "We are always careful to clarify that The Times Scotland Primary School League Table is not ‘Scotland’s schools ranked from best to worst.
"It presents government data from primary seven, arguably the most important year for pupils preparing for high school, for parents to analyse standards across the 1,250 schools that published reportable results.
"The aim of The Times is to present data in an easily accessible format that parents can understand. Scottish ministers claim they ‘don’t do league tables’ and maintain this facade by calling their aggregated spreadsheet of pupil performance the “Acel”, which stands for Achievement in Curriculum for Excellence Levels. It is a challenge for parents to find this data on the government quango’s website, which is why this information is so important.
"These statistics do not capture the full range of success and adversity teachers and pupils face each day, but they do enable parents to grasp core information relating to the performance of their children’s schools."
The full league table is available to view here.
