We rank the best schools in north-east

Cults Academy leads the board in The Press and Journal’s north and northeast take on the Scottish schools league.

The Aberdeen school tops our league table for the third year in a row, one of two city schools to make our top 10.

Remarkably, the percentage of school leavers earning five or more Highers in 2023 at Cults is down 10% from the previous year. Yet the school still managed to retain top spot.

Cults Academy did, however, drop out of the prestigious top 10 in the national schools list.

We ranked 69 secondary schools across our patch, using newly-released Scottish Government data.

Five or more Highers is considered a benchmark of achievement as it is a common entry requirement for university.

You can find out how your school performed, on the right-hand page, in our table of Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Moray, Highland, Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles local authority secondary schools.

High performers included Westhill and Banchory academies in Aberdeenshire, Ardnamurchan and Gairloch high schools in the Highlands, and two Western Isles schools.

Ardnamurchan and Gairloch were the most improved schools in the north and north-east, with 29% more leavers earning five or more Highers compared to the previous year.

Moray offered a bleaker picture, with only Milne’s High School in Fochabers scraping into the top 30. However, Milne’s Higher attainment sank 17%.

Ullapool High School saw the biggest drop, 35% down in 2023 compared to 2022.

Alness Academy came in at 69th and last place in our table, with just 10% of leavers achieving five or more Highers.

However, in the interests of fairness we have included data from the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) for each school. Alness Academy had the second most pupils from the most deprived quintile, behind only Inverness High School, which also struggled – a Higher attainment score of 13% leaving it in 67 th place, third bottom.

The top performers in each region were Cults Academy (Aberdeen), Westhill Academy (Aberdeenshire), Milne’s High School (Moray), Ardnamurchan High School (Highland), Stromness Academy (Orkney), Anderson High School (Shetland), and Sir E Scott School (Western Isles).

The Sir E Scott School (7th) and fellow Western Isles secondary Castlebay School (9th) both made our top 10.

Each year the Scottish Government publishes attainment data for every school in Scotland.

The figures our 2024 school league table is based on are the proportions of leavers to achieve five or more qualifications at SCQF level 6.

As well as Highers, this can include qualifications such as a National Certificate or Modern Apprenticeship.

Publication of school league tables is controversial, seen by many as an index of deprivation rather than a measure of individual schools’ performance.

Indeed, in all of our 2024 top 10 schools, fewer than a tenth of pupils live in deprived areas (designated quintile one in the SIMD).

All of the secondary schools where at least a fifth of pupils come from the most deprived areas are in the bottom 11 places in our table.

Portlethen Academy was rated 18th in the table.

Oldmachar Academy ranked 11 with 45% earning five or more Highers.

Mackie Academy came in mid-table at 14th position.

Bridge of Don Academy was just in the top 30 at 28.

Westhill Academy also made it to the top of the league.

Banchory Academy was a high performer.

CLASS ACT: Cults Academy leads the board for the third year.