Top north and north-east primary schools for pupil performance 2024 – find out how your school scored

Seven primary schools in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Moray and the Highlands have scored full marks in our ranking for pupils’ performance in literacy and numeracy.

Out of more than 400 schools, only these gained a full house of 40 points for the proportion of children in P1, P4 and P7 meeting expected curriculum levels for reading, writing, numeracy and listening and talking.

Search for your school in our table further down this article to see how it did.

Highest scorers

In Aberdeenshire three primary schools – Auchenblae, Bracoden and Redmyre – achieved the top score.

In Aberdeen two did so – Cults and Milltimber.

Moray and Highland had one top scorer each – Bishopmill and Cromarty.

Lowest scorers

At the other end of the spectrum, the lowest scoring schools in each area were:

ABERDEEN – Kittybrewster 27, Sunnybank 27, Tullos 27, Woodside 27 and Manor Park 28.

ABERDEENSHIRE – Fraserburgh North 18, New Pitsligo & St John’s 23, Dales Park, 25, Peterhead Central 27, Sandhaven 27 and Turriff 27.

MORAY – Rothiemay 22, Pilmuir 26, St Peter’s RC 26, Lhanbryde 27 and Applegrove 28.

HIGHLAND – Raigmore 21, Cauldeen 22, Ardersier 23, Milton 23 and Tomnacross 23.

Find your school’s score in our searchable table

You can find out how your child’s school did by searching for it in our searchable table.

How were our scores awarded?

We scored schools based on the percentage of pupils in P1, P4 and P7 meeting expected levels in the Curriculum for Excellence, the curriculum used in Scottish local authority schools.

Pupils are assessed in four areas – listening and talking, reading, numeracy and writing – with teachers judging whether they have met expected levels.

Teachers do this in various ways, including observing children at work, assessing classwork, and talking to them about their learning.

They also use standardised assessments.

Our scores are based on the latest results for the 2022/23 academic year – known as Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels data – collated by the Scottish Government last June and published in December.

We awarded points for each of the four areas – one for 0 to 10% of pupils meeting expected levels, two points for 10% to 20%, up to 10 points for 90% or more – giving a maximum of 40 points.

For each school, the Scottish Government published only the percentage range – e.g. 80-90% – rather than an exact percentage.

No data was published for some smaller schools as the cohort size means individuals’ performance could be identifiable.