Best Schools in Edinburgh: What the Data Actually Shows

Every parent in Edinburgh wants to know which schools are “best”. The answer depends entirely on what you mean by best — and the league tables most people look at are misleading.

How Scottish schools are measured

Scotland does not have Ofsted. Schools are inspected by Education Scotland, but inspections are infrequent and the reports focus on quality of teaching rather than producing a numerical score. There is no single “rating” like England’s Outstanding/Good/Requires Improvement.

For secondaries, the closest thing to a ranking is Higher pass rates — the percentage of S5/S6 pupils achieving Highers at grade A–C. For primaries, ACEL (Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels) data shows the proportion of P1, P4 and P7 pupils reaching expected levels in literacy and numeracy.

Neither measure tells you everything. A school in an affluent catchment will have higher raw results than a school in a deprived area — this reflects the intake, not the teaching. The best measure of a school is value added: how much progress pupils make from their starting point. Scotland doesn’t publish this systematically, which is why raw league tables are so misleading.

Edinburgh’s top-performing secondaries

Based on consistent Higher pass rates over recent years, these secondaries regularly appear near the top:

James Gillespie’s High School — Marchmont. One of Edinburgh’s highest-performing state secondaries. Higher pass rates consistently above the national average. Catchment covers some of the most desirable (and expensive) postcodes in the city. Placing requests from outside are very rarely successful.

Boroughmuir High School — Bruntsfield/Fountainbridge. Strong academic reputation, particularly in sciences and maths. The catchment includes the popular Bruntsfield and Tollcross areas. One of the most oversubscribed schools in the city.

Royal High School — Barnton. Consistently strong results across the board. Serves the affluent Barnton, Cramond and Davidson’s Mains areas. Recently moved to a new-build campus.

Craigmount High School — East Craigs. Strong performer with a broader demographic intake than the top three. Well-regarded for pastoral support alongside academic achievement.

Currie Community High School — south-west Edinburgh. Smaller, community-focused, with strong results and an excellent reputation for pupil wellbeing.

Broughton High School — notable for its specialist music programme, one of the strongest in Scotland.

Primary schools

Edinburgh has around 90 primaries. Ranking them meaningfully is harder because ACEL data is published at local authority level, not per school. The primaries that feed into the top-performing secondaries tend to be well-regarded — but a “good” primary is more about the head teacher, the school community, and the quality of classroom teaching than any published metric.

Visit. Talk to parents. Attend the open morning. A primary school that suits your child is more important than one that tops a table.

The catchment pressure problem

Edinburgh’s catchment system creates intense pressure around the most popular schools. Catchment boundaries can split a single street — one side feeds James Gillespie’s, the other feeds a different secondary entirely. House prices reflect this: a flat in the Gillespie’s catchment can sell for £20,000–50,000 more than an equivalent property two streets away.

If you’re buying or renting specifically for a school, always confirm the catchment using the council’s official school finder at edinburgh.gov.uk. Don’t rely on estate agents or Rightmove listings — they sometimes get it wrong, and boundaries do change.

Placing requests

If you want a school outside your catchment, you submit a placing request by 15 March. For Edinburgh’s most popular schools, the success rate for placing requests is low — if the school is full with catchment pupils, there is no spare capacity. You have the right to appeal a refusal, but appeals are only successful if the school can genuinely accommodate another pupil.

See our placing request guide and appeal guide for the full process.

Edinburgh’s independent schools

Edinburgh has more independent schools than any other Scottish city:

• George Heriot’s — central Edinburgh, strong all-round academic performance
• George Watson’s College — large, co-educational, strong in sport
• Fettes College — boarding school, very high fees
• Edinburgh Academy — traditional, co-educational from 2008
• Merchiston Castle — boys only, boarding and day
• Stewart’s Melville / Mary Erskine — same campus, single-sex in senior years

Fees range from £12,000 to £15,000 per year (day) before VAT. Since January 2025, 20% VAT applies — adding roughly £2,500–3,000 per year. Over five years of secondary (S1–S6 with the extra year), a day place costs £70,000–90,000.

The best Edinburgh state schools match or beat many privates on raw exam results. The private schools offer smaller classes (typically 15–20 vs 30+), wider extracurriculars, and facilities the state sector can’t match. Whether that justifies the cost is a family decision. See our state vs private guide.

What the league tables don’t show

Raw results reward schools with affluent catchments and penalise schools serving deprived communities — regardless of how well the school teaches. A secondary in a deprived area that gets 60% of pupils to achieve 3 or more Highers may be doing a better job than a school in Barnton that achieves 80%, because its pupils started from a much harder place.

Edinburgh has genuine variation in deprivation across the city. The schools in Craigmillar, Niddrie and parts of Leith serve very different communities from those in Morningside and Corstorphine. If a school in a deprived area has improving results, supportive staff, good inspection reports, and a strong community — that may be a better school for your child than one with higher raw numbers but a pressured, competitive culture.

Visit. Talk to the guidance teacher. Ask about pastoral support, not just pass rates. The “best” school is the one where your child will thrive.

How to read the achievement data

The attainment figures published for Edinburgh secondaries are SQA (Scottish Qualifications Authority) outcomes — the percentage of pupils achieving passes at National 5 and Higher across different year groups. These are the numbers behind newspaper league tables. Understanding what they mean — and what they do not mean — is essential before drawing any conclusions.

What the numbers measure

• National 5 outcomes (S4): The proportion of pupils in S4 achieving five or more National 5 passes at grades A–C. This is the standard “floor” measure for secondary schools
• Higher outcomes (S5/S6): The proportion of pupils achieving one or more Higher, or three or more Highers, by the end of S5 or S6. This is the figure most often cited in rankings
• Advanced Higher and UCAS points: Relevant for comparing schools that feed pupils into competitive university courses, but only meaningful at schools where a large enough cohort stays to S6

Why raw Higher pass rates do not tell the full story

Three factors distort raw comparisons between Edinburgh schools:

1. Prior attainment — a school whose S1 intake is already performing well above average will almost certainly produce strong Higher results. This is a characteristic of the intake, not evidence of exceptional teaching. Schools serving mixed or lower prior attainment cohorts that achieve broadly similar outcomes are, by any fair measure, performing better
2. Deprivation index — the SIMD (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation) profile of a school’s catchment is the single strongest predictor of raw attainment outcomes. Edinburgh has significant internal variation: Morningside and Barnton are among the least deprived areas in Scotland; Craigmillar and Niddrie are among the most deprived. Raw comparisons between schools in these areas are not meaningful
3. Subject entry policies — some schools enter nearly all pupils for Higher, accepting that some will not pass. Others are more selective about entries, presenting only pupils likely to achieve. A school that enters 90 pupils for Higher and achieves 75% passes may be doing more for its cohort than one that enters 60 pupils and achieves 85%, because the former is giving more pupils access to the qualification

Scotland does not publish systematic value-added data at school level. This is a significant gap. Until it does, the right response to any league table is caution.

Choosing between Edinburgh secondary schools

Once you have understood what the attainment data does and does not mean, there are several practical factors that genuinely differentiate Edinburgh’s secondaries for individual families.

Subject breadth in S4–S6

Not all Edinburgh secondaries offer the same range of subjects at Higher and Advanced Higher. Larger schools — Boroughmuir, Craigmount — can typically support a wider column choice, particularly in less common subjects (Mandarin, Music Technology, Philosophy, Engineering Science). Smaller schools may offer fewer choices, which matters if your child has specialist interests. Check the school’s published SQA column choices, not just the overall pass rates.

Ethos and pupil wellbeing

Edinburgh schools participate in the national Health and Wellbeing surveys, and some publish their results. These cover pupil sense of belonging, experience of bullying, and confidence in speaking to a trusted adult at school. Inspection reports from Education Scotland provide narrative commentary on relationships, behaviour, and the quality of pastoral care that no attainment table captures. Read the inspection report on the Education Scotland website before making any decision.

Transport links for out-of-catchment placing requests

If your placing request is granted for a school outside your catchment, the council is not obliged to provide free school transport. For families in Edinburgh’s outer suburbs or in Lothians villages, this is a practical and financial consideration. Check Lothian Buses and school transport routes before assuming an out-of-catchment school is workable. A school that is nominally 20 minutes away by car can be 60 minutes by public transport for a 12-year-old navigating the city alone, and this matters for S1 pupils especially.

Comparing schools beyond the capital? See our city guides for Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and Perth, Stirling and Inverness.