Best Schools in Glasgow: What the Data Actually Shows

Glasgow has 29 secondary schools and around 140 primaries — the largest school estate in Scotland. The variation in attainment between schools is also the widest. Here's what the data shows, and why deprivation context matters more in Glasgow than anywhere else.

How Glasgow schools are measured

Scottish school performance is tracked through several data points: the percentage of pupils achieving five or more National 5s at A-C by the end of S4, the percentage achieving one or more Higher by end of S5, positive destination rates (the proportion entering employment, training or further education after leaving), and attendance figures.

These are published by the Scottish Government and form the basis of most “league tables” you see in the press. What the league tables rarely show is SIMD context — the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, which measures the deprivation level of the area each pupil comes from.

This is not an excuse. It is a statistical reality that every serious analysis of Scottish school data — from Education Scotland to the Improvement Service — explicitly accounts for. If you are comparing Glasgow schools, you need to compare like with like.

The top-performing secondaries

Based on publicly available attainment data, these Glasgow-area secondaries consistently appear at the top of headline measures.

Jordanhill School stands alone. It is the highest-attaining state school in the Glasgow area by a wide margin, regularly recording 80%+ of pupils achieving five or more Highers. But Jordanhill is not a Glasgow City Council school — more on that below.

Among Glasgow City Council secondaries:

• Hyndland Secondary — strong and consistent attainment, particularly in Higher and Advanced Higher pass rates. Located in the West End, it benefits from a relatively affluent catchment
• Hillhead High School — another West End school with solid academic performance and a notably diverse student body. Hillhead draws from a wider socioeconomic range than Hyndland
• Knightswood Secondary — often overlooked, but has shown steady improvement in recent years and serves a more mixed catchment than the West End schools

Parents also frequently cite Williamwood High School in East Renfrewshire as a “Glasgow school.” It is not — it falls under East Renfrewshire Council, which is a separate local authority. Williamwood and other East Renfrewshire secondaries (Mearns Castle, Eastwood High) benefit from serving some of the least deprived catchments in central Scotland. Their results are genuinely strong, but they are not Glasgow schools, and comparing them directly with Glasgow City Council schools without acknowledging the deprivation gap is misleading.

The deprivation factor

This is where Glasgow is different from every other Scottish city.

Edinburgh has pockets of deprivation. Aberdeen has some. Glasgow has entire postcodes classified as the most deprived in the country. Schools in the north and east of the city — Springburn Academy, Smithycroft Secondary, St Andrew’s Secondary — serve communities where child poverty rates exceed 40%. These schools face challenges that a school in Bearsden or Newton Mearns simply does not.

When Education Scotland inspectors visit these schools, they assess them against the context of their intake. An inspection that rates a school in Drumchapel as “good” may reflect a far greater achievement than a school in the West End rated “good” — because the starting point is so different.

Denominational vs non-denominational

Glasgow has a large network of denominational (Catholic) schools — roughly a third of the city’s secondaries, including St Paul’s High School, Holyrood Secondary, John Paul Academy, and Notre Dame High School. These schools follow the same Curriculum for Excellence, sit the same SQA exams, and are funded identically to non-denominational schools.

There is no consistent evidence that denominational schools in Glasgow outperform or underperform non-denominational schools once you control for the demographics of their intake. Individual schools vary. What differs is the ethos: Catholic schools embed faith values in school life, including Religious Observance and Religious Education taught from a Catholic perspective.

For families who value that ethos, it is a genuine reason to choose a denominational school. For families who do not, it should not be treated as a proxy for quality. Both types of school can be excellent — and both can struggle — depending on leadership, staffing and community context.

The West End premium

Hyndland Secondary and Hillhead High School are the two most discussed state schools in Glasgow — and their catchments are among the most expensive places to live in the city. This is not a coincidence.

House prices within the Hyndland Secondary catchment carry a measurable premium. Families buy or rent specifically to secure a catchment place, which pushes prices above comparable properties in neighbouring postcodes. The same effect — well documented in Edinburgh around schools like Boroughmuir — operates powerfully in Glasgow’s West End.

This creates a self-reinforcing cycle: affluent catchment produces strong results, strong results attract more affluent families, house prices rise, and the socioeconomic profile of the intake becomes even more skewed. It is worth understanding this dynamic before concluding that these schools are “better” in any absolute sense. They have significant advantages that other Glasgow schools do not.

Placing requests in Glasgow

If you want a school outside your catchment, you make a placing request to Glasgow City Council by the statutory deadline of 15 March for entry the following August.

For popular schools — Hyndland and Hillhead in particular — placing requests are extremely competitive. These schools are routinely oversubscribed from catchment demand alone, which means there is little or no capacity for out-of-catchment pupils.

Glasgow City Council publishes data on placing request outcomes. In recent years, refusal rates for the most popular secondaries have exceeded 80%. If you are banking on a placing request to get into a West End school from a different catchment, the odds are not in your favour.

If your placing request is refused, you have a statutory right to appeal to an Education Appeal Committee. Success at appeal is possible but uncommon when the refusal is based on capacity.

The Jordanhill anomaly

Jordanhill School deserves its own section because it is genuinely unique. It is the only state school in Scotland that is not run by a local authority. It was originally the demonstration school for Jordanhill College of Education and, when the college merged into the University of Strathclyde, the school continued as a standalone institution.

Jordanhill is funded directly by the Scottish Government, governed by its own board of managers under the Jordanhill School (Governance) Order 2003, and sets its own admissions policy. It charges no fees. Its pupils sit the same SQA exams. But it is not subject to Glasgow City Council’s placement system — it has its own defined catchment area, and applications go directly to the school.

The school’s results are consistently among the best in Scotland, state or independent. Its catchment is relatively affluent, covering parts of the West End and Jordanhill/Scotstounhill. Getting a place outside its catchment is exceptionally difficult.

Parents should understand that Jordanhill is a state school in funding but operates more like a standalone institution in governance. It is not a model that can be replicated across the city — it exists because of a specific historical arrangement, not because of a scalable policy.

What actually makes a good school

League tables measure outcomes. They do not measure what a school adds to a child who walks through the door.

When choosing a Glasgow school, consider factors that no attainment table captures:

• Leadership and stability — schools with consistent, experienced leadership teams tend to perform better regardless of catchment. High headteacher turnover is a warning sign
• Pastoral care — how does the school support pupils who are struggling, whether academically, socially or emotionally? Ask about the guidance system, not just the exam results
• Breadth of curriculum — some Glasgow secondaries offer a wider range of subjects at Higher and Advanced Higher than others. If your child has specific interests, check the column choices
• The school’s own improvement trajectory — is attainment rising, stable or falling? A school that has improved over three years may be a better bet than one coasting on a good catchment
• Inspection reports — Education Scotland publishes inspection reports for every school. Read the actual report, not just the headline rating. The narrative sections on learning and teaching are more informative than any league table

Glasgow’s school system is complicated by deprivation in a way that no other Scottish city faces to the same degree. A parent who reads the league tables without understanding SIMD context will draw the wrong conclusions. A parent who visits the school, reads the inspection report, talks to other families and considers what their child actually needs will make a better decision every time.