All 21 High Schools in Greater Glasgow that ranked in the top 50 schools in Scotland for academic attainment

These are the best performing state high schools in Greater Glasgow that have appeared in the top 50 league tables of academic attainment, according to the latest data available.

Each school has been measured on the percentage of pupils who received the Scottish Government’s educational “gold standard” of five Highers, or their equivalent, in 2022 – based on data published by the Scottish Government on its own website.

The top performing school in Glasgow this year was Jordanhill High School - for the seventh year in a row, aided by the fact it is a school funded by the Scottish Government, and not the local authority.

Jordanhill is the only school of its type in Scotland, and it’s success could reflect that academic attainment is heavily influenced by the amount of money and attention given to the education in specific schools.

It’s also of note that the rest of the top five are from schools in local authority’s directly adjacent to Glasgow.

21 high schools in Greater Glasgow (within Glasgow or within council areas that share a boundary with Glasgow) appeared in the top 50 schools in Scotland for academic achievement - this means that Greater Glasgow schools make up 42% of the top 50 schools in Scotland.

In the case of second place, Bearsden Academy is right outside of the city boundaries, where 80 percent left with five highers or more. Third is St Ninian’s High School in East Renfrewshire, at 79 percent of pupils leaving with five highers or more.

In fourth place is Woodfarm High School, also in East Renfrewshire, with a figure of 78 percent. And in fifth place is Douglas Academy in East Dunbartonshire. There, 75 percent of pupils left school with at least five Highers.

Five high schools in Glasgow (16% of Glaswegian secondary education institutions) appeared in the top 50 schools in Scotland, while ten Glasgow schools(32%) appeared in the bottom 50 set of schools in Scotland.

These exam tables do not reflect schools or rank them in terms of ‘best to worst’ as that would fail to take into account factors such as the support offered to children with complex needs, the effort and quality of the teaching staff, working conditions for said staff, quality of the student experience, the funding the school receives from their local authority, or whether or not the school is serving an underprivileged and disadvantaged area.

These league tables are based on the percentage of pupils at each school who achieved the Scottish Government’s educational “gold standard” of five Highers, or their equivalent, in 2022.

Throughout our coverage, we use ‘Highers’ as a term to mean both Highers and equivalent qualifications at SCQF level 6 and above, such as Skills for Work Higher awards.

The 22 best performing secondary schools in Scotland includes 11 in and around Glasgow .

You can find a list of the full rankings of Scottish secondary schools across Scotland in this article for our sister title NationalWorld.

You can find our list of:

• the best performing schools in Glasgow here.
• the best performing schools in South Lanarkshire here.
• the best performing schools in East Renfrewshire here.

This should serve as an insight to the school system in Glasgow, and provide parents and students with insight into the performance of their school.