Catholic schools sweep board in performance survey

Catholic schools have swept the board in a recent survey of Scotland’s primaries, based on a range of early-school attainments.

A Catholic primary school in North Ayrshire has come top in a Times league table of best-performing schools in Scotland.

St Bridget’s scored a maximum 380 points in the survey, despite more than two thirds of the roll being classified as “extremely deprived” and 93 per cent being classified as “deprived”. The second- and third-place primaries were Catholic schools in Glenrothes, Fife, and in Fauldhouse, West Lothian.

Second in the table was St Paul’s Roman Catholic Primary in Glenrothes, Fife, where 63 per cent of pupils come from deprived families. In third place was St John the Baptist Primary in Fauldhouse, West Lothian.

All three received a score equal to that of Broomhill Primary in Glasgow’s West End, a feeder school for the high-performing Jordanhill.

All the other schools scoring a maximum 380 points in the survey that lists the percentage of pupils who meet key “milestones” using scores submitted by teachers to Education Scotland.

Schools were allocated a score which compiles attainment percentages in the four key skills of reading, writing, numeracy and listening and talking. Scores were then weighted according to the proportion of pupils living in areas defined by the Index of Multiple Deprivation as having particular social and economic challenges.

Opponents of the league tables point out that the results are not based on any common test or centrally sanctioned assessment but on teacher reports only, a controversial aspect of last year’s National 5 and Higher secondary qualifications which has led some to suggest that 2020 and 2021 senior school qualifications will not be considered accurate or reliable indicators of student capability.

There have been calls from educationalists associated with Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence for a well-designed national sample survey on the lines of the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy which was believed to yield sound and equitable data.