Explanation
Your guide to these listings
The tables use officially-published exam results for Scotland's maintained secondary schools and independent schools, excluding special schools.
See below for warnings about the results.
The schools are listed alphabetically, by education authority and nationally. For ease of viewing their relative performance, they are also ranked on key indicators of their Standard and Higher level results, where applicable.
In each type of ranking, the exam performance on which the ranking is based is shown alongside the rank achieved.
Independent schools have (IND) after their name.
Clicking on any establishment's name in the lists takes you to a page showing its results and other information.
Page-by-page
On the individual school pages, results are presented in graphs as well as in figures, to show performance at a glance. The graphs are scaled from zero to 100%.
For each level, the equivalent figures for the previous two years are also given.
The "score" column shows the key results indicators.
At Standard level, the "Eligible" figure is the number of students on the S4 roll in September 2001 - the official basis for the percentages gaining various awards.
At Higher level, the heading shows the % staying-on rate from S4 into the S5 year. A low staying-on rate might be part of the explanation for a low % of awards, while a rate above 100% indicates that pupils have joined the school for S5.
There are also the averages for this year for the relevant education authority as a whole, and for all of Scotland. Averages are not published for Independent schools - though on their pages we have given the national averages for the state-maintained schools, for comparison purposes.
The exam results indicators
The results relate to the new Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework levels. These courses are made up of units and an examination. Only results for fully completed courses are included in the tables.
They show cumulative attainment. For example, attainment by the end of S4 may include the results of Standard Grade or Intermediate courses completed by the same students when they were in S3.
Results are not given for schools with fewer than five candidates, to protect pupils' anonymity.
The STANDARD indicator is the percentage of the S4 year roll who achieved five or more awards at Level 4 or better by the end of S4 - equivalent to Standard Grades 3-4.
As a tie-break in the listings, schools achieving the same rank are further ranked on the number of students who achieved five or more awards at Level 5 or better (Standard Grades 1-2) - and are then listed alphabetically.
The HIGHER indicator is the percentage of an S4 roll who achieved three or more awards at Level 6 or better by the end of their S5 year - equivalent to Higher Grades A-C.
As a tie-break, schools achieving the same score are further ranked on the percentage of the S4 roll who achieved five or more awards at Level 6 or better - then alphabetically.
NA in the tables indicates that there is no data or that the category is not applicable.
The reasons for this vary: For example, it might be a new school this year - or, in historical data, did not exist at the time - or did not have any relevant exam entries, or had fewer than five candidates.
Warning over the results
In some cases, schools' results appear artificially high because pupils joined after the S4 roll census was taken in September. Apparently impossible "results" of more than 100% are an indication, but otherwise there is no way of telling which schools are affected.
State schools marked (+) after their name also take in students at S5 from secondary schools which cater only for S1 to S4 students. The effect is to inflate their Highers results, but it is not possible to tell by how much.
Similarly, many independent schools take in significant numbers of students at S5. The effect is that staying-on rates and results - calculated on the basis of the S4 roll in the previous session - can be very high, over 100% in a number of cases. This effect is most marked in the case of St Mary's Music School.
Sometimes differences in results from year to year may be due to fluctuations in students' abilities rather than to any underlying trend in school performance, particularly where relatively small numbers of students are concerned.
The figures for some schools are affected by students presented for examinations at other schools or in further education colleges. This includes students from special schools who are presented for examinations at a different secondary school. Awards are credited to the presenting centre.
Some schools provide for students with special educational needs, for example in special units attached to the school. These students are included in the school roll, which can significantly affect the school's apparent attainment.
Some independent schools appear to do relatively badly because they present pupils for other exams, typically GCSEs and A-levels, which are not recognised in the official data. They are marked with an asterisk (*) after their name.
Note
The Scottish Executive says the figures for Fraserburgh Academy are understated because the Scottish Qualifications Authority was given incorrect results for some Higher units.
Types of school
Almost all schools in Scotland are either education authority schools - publicly-maintained - or independent schools which charge fees.
Queen Victoria school ("Independent") is funded and managed by the Ministry of Defence to provide education for services children.
One school - Jordanhill in Glasgow - is not under local authority control but is funded directly by the Scottish Executive.
| | |
