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.

How to read the achievement data

The attainment figures published for Glasgow schools are SQA (Scottish Qualifications Authority) outcomes: the proportion of pupils achieving passes at National 5 and Higher. These underpin every league table you see in the Herald or The Times Scottish rankings. They are real data — but they are systematically incomplete without context.

What the numbers measure

• National 5 outcomes (S4): The percentage of S4 pupils achieving five or more National 5 passes at grades A–C. This is the standard baseline measure
• Higher outcomes (S5/S6): The percentage achieving one or more Higher, or three or more Highers, typically by end of S5. This is the figure most often cited in rankings and placed prominently in newspaper tables
• Positive destinations: The proportion of school leavers entering employment, further education or training. This is often a better signal of school effectiveness than exam results alone, particularly in communities where university entry rates are low

Why raw pass rates are a partial signal

Three factors make direct comparison between Glasgow schools unreliable without adjustment:

1. Prior attainment of the intake — a school receiving S1 pupils who already read well above average and come from households with consistent study support will produce better raw Higher results than one where significant numbers of S1 pupils are reading below level. Teaching quality is only one variable in the outcome
2. SIMD profile — as described above, over 40% of Glasgow pupils live in SIMD 1–2 (the most deprived 20% nationally). Schools in east and north Glasgow face a structural disadvantage in raw attainment tables that has nothing to do with the quality of their teachers or the effort of their pupils
3. Subject entry policies — schools differ in how selectively they enter pupils for Higher. A school that enters 85% of its cohort for at least one Higher accepts a lower pass rate as the cost of giving more pupils access to the qualification. A school that enters only its most confident candidates will report a higher pass rate from a smaller cohort. League tables do not distinguish between these approaches

Scotland does not publish official value-added data at school level — which would show how much progress a school generates relative to the expected outcomes for its intake. Until it does, any league table should be read with these caveats firmly in mind.

East Renfrewshire vs Glasgow City Council schools

One of the most consistent features of Scottish school league tables is the dominance of East Renfrewshire Council schools at the top. Williamwood High School, Mearns Castle High School, Eastwood High School and St Ninian’s High School regularly occupy the upper reaches of any ranking of Scottish secondaries. Understanding why matters for families thinking about where to live.

Why East Renfrewshire schools appear at the top

East Renfrewshire is consistently one of the least deprived council areas in Scotland. Its main residential communities — Giffnock, Newton Mearns, Clarkston, Eaglesham — have among the lowest rates of child poverty and the highest rates of graduate-level employment in the country. The council’s secondary schools serve an intake where the vast majority of pupils come from SIMD 4–5 (the least deprived 40%), with access to books, tutoring, stable housing and consistent parental engagement. These are the structural conditions that predict strong exam results, independent of what happens in any classroom.

East Renfrewshire schools are also consistently well-resourced, and the council has a strong record in school improvement. The combination of advantaged intake and effective governance produces results that are genuinely excellent — but genuinely excellent in the context of a council that starts with significant structural advantages.

What this means for families considering the area

If you are considering moving to East Renfrewshire specifically for school access, the attainment data is real and reflects schools that are well-run. The schools your children will attend are, by reasonable measures, among the strongest state secondaries in Scotland. However, you should understand that:

• The attainment advantage partly reflects intake composition, not solely school quality
• Entry to catchment schools is straightforward if you live in the catchment; placing requests from outside are competitive
• The council runs both denominational (Catholic) and non-denominational catchments across the area

The house price premium reality

Property in East Renfrewshire — particularly in Newton Mearns and Giffnock — carries a significant premium over comparable properties in neighbouring parts of Glasgow. Estimates vary, but buyers typically pay £30,000 to £70,000 more for a three-bedroom semi in the East Ren catchment than for an equivalent home across the boundary in Glasgow City. Some estate agents advertise school catchments explicitly, particularly for St Ninian’s and Mearns Castle.

Families who cannot or do not wish to move to East Renfrewshire should not conclude that Glasgow City Council schools are failing their children. Many Glasgow secondaries have genuine strengths — and the schools in the West End, in particular, are capable of delivering excellent outcomes for pupils who engage with what is on offer.