Question about Highers and school ranking

[Darlingyouvegottoletmeknow]

We are thinking about moving from England to Scotland and I am looking at the high schools ranking by 5 Highers in the newspapers. I know rankings aren't everything and it depends on many many factors, but they are really different between different schools - from over 80% of children achieving 5 highers to around 20% - which is very different! I'm just trying to understand what these figures mean and what the big differences between different schools mean, if anything.

Am I right in thinking that children can also sit Highers in S6, but the rankings only count Highers in S5? So it may be that some children are planning to sit additional Highers the following year that aren't counted.
Also am I correct in thinking that children are entered for different numbers of Highers - so some might have only been entered for four for example, so it isn't that they have failed the fifth, it's that they chose to only be entered for four. And I've seen some schools offering different types of qualifications e.g. Scottish Baccaleureate - is this a good thing?

Does anyone know why five Highers in S5 is chosen as the benchmark for ranking schools? Rather than a different benchmark? So for example would a school where children are entered for four Higher and score good marks in those four rank below a school where children get entered for five Highers but get lower marks in them.

Just trying to understand as it is very different to the English system and rankings.

I guess essentially what I'm trying to understand is - to what extent does the 5 Highers ranking reflect whether how good a school is at helping children reach their potential?

I havent had to look at tables for a few years, I do know that schools are measured against each other taking into account their intake and schools know if they arent achieving results that they should, unfortunately my DSs school is in this situation, looks quite good on paper, not getting results it should. I dont know how to find the figures but i used to compare free school meals figures with exam results to get an idea of the quality of the leadership team and the teaching. One thing to bear in mind is that a growing number of children do foundation apprenticeships instead of one higher, its a two year qualification in conjunction with FE colleges, a little bit like a Btec and thus lowers the number of kids doing 5. Some schools are more keen on these than others for various reasons.

Another thing to consider is how universities perceive results.

I think it's still the case that they rate 5 higher awards in one setting greater than adding S5 to S6 results, even if those combined results are better. I don't know if that makes sense?

To answer your basic question then yes, some schools have really poor performances at exam level. You can look at schools based on the free school meals (think it might be called something else now). I'm sure there's data correlating the 2.

Kids from certain areas can get to uni with lower grades. Again, can't remember the name of the scheme but basically a supported thing, friend's child got summer school at Edinburgh University free, the summer before starting, as an introduction as well as getting in on much poorer results.

This might help
link

Scottish Gov website

If you have an academic child who wants to go to uni choose a school with good d higher results, if theres a chance they will want to go to uni in England they will need to do Advanced Highers, not all schools offer these in a good range if subjects, smaller rural school and schools in low achieving areas don't always si check that too. Conversely often schools in less middle class areas have really brilliant practical and creative departments like art, design and technology, music technology, which can be a bit neglected in more academic schools. Some inner city schools get amazing results with a relatively high FSM %.
You should just ask about your shortlist, Scotsnet can usually offer opinions on schools in most areas, there are schooks at the top, schools at the bottom and a lot of schools that are very similar.

I think the ranking is based on highers passed regardless of what year they were taken so typically S5&S6 combined, although some pupils may sit some earlier if they are able and there school allows early presentation.

The total number of passes at higher grade drive the rank rather than the grade, I’m not sure you can see the grade split.

Universities care about how many are passed in one sitting, lower tariff entry for highers sat in S5, higher is S5 & S6 combined.

I don’t know anyone who has done the Scottish Baccalaureate.

The rankings are a very blunt tool - in my local authority area the less well ranked schools offer a lot more for sporty/creative pupils but also deliver for academic pupils.

Looking at this years tables a couple of schools had 0% getting five Highers. If kids are choosing to sit fewer Highers, and perhaps sit other qualifications instead, it seems odd that this is the main measure for ranking schools?

You should just ask about your shortlist, Scotsnet can usually offer opinions on schools in most areas
Thanks! Our kids are primary age now, but we would like to move somewhere where the secondaries are likely to remain good. So areas that are less likely to have difficulty with recruiting and retaining good teachers for example.
The areas we are interested in are:

near Dumfries (St Joseph's College, Kirkcudbright HS, others)
Drumnadrochit (Glen Urquart)
Kingussie/ Aviemore region (Kingussie HS, Grantown on Spey HS)
north of Inverness e.g. Beauly area (Charleston Academy)
Speyside area of Moray (Milne's, Elgin Academy and High School)

My husband was keen on Ullapool area but I imagine teacher recruitment would be harder there, and I saw some data from 2015 that fewer than 20% of children progress to university from Ullapool High School, I guess I'm worried that opportunities to reach potential if academic might be less? Also as distances to secondaries so far there isn't the option of choosing an out-of-catchment secondary.

5 Highers by the end of S5 seems to be the gold standard for universities. Around 2,500 students a year in Scotland get 5 As at Higher to put this into perspective. Many pupils will also take fewer Highers or a mix of Nat 5s and Highers in fifth year.

It's also worth checking how many subjects are offered at Advanced Higher as many students now choose to stay on for S6 and may wish to specialise in a subject rather than broaden their education by adding extra Highers in S6.

When my son left High School last year, he was sent a questionnaire to fill in with his leaver destination, ie. which uni and course. Perhaps it is worth asking whether the school will provide this as this could also be a good measure to compare schools?

I think the information on school leaver destination used to be available on the school inspection website - sorry I can't remember what that's called and I haven't had cause to look for that kind of info for a while.

Yes I looked up the school leaver destiantions, as far as I can find they now just publish positive destination %, but not broken down into different destinations. So a positive destination could be uni, work, voluntary work, training. Previously they used to break it down into the different types of positive destinations, which was more useful.

The thing to keep in mind is that going to university is not the norm within a lot of rural families so the stats can be skewed a bit, doesn't mean that the DC haven't done well. A lot go to work in family businesses or do apprenticeships or go into further education later.

It doesn't really matter if only 20% go on to uni if that's the 20% who want to go. The best schools academically don't always attract the best teachers either, some really good teachers want to work in schools that struggle so that they feel they can make a bigger difference. I know one Maths teacher that tutors on the side and consistently gets his tutor pupils As but works in one of the lowest performing schools where he likes working with low achieving disruptive pupils that no -one else wants, some of whom can barely add when they arrive in High school. He'd be bored by a cohort of high achieving pupils :o

The biggest influence on a child's academic success is parental support.

Another small aside some of the top "ranking" (hate the league tables they are a postcode measurement and nowt else) schools have the highest uni drop out rates alongside independent schools.

Small class sizes, hot housing, behavioural issues are all gone in the world of HE.

I completely agree with Wax about the example of the Maths teacher and parental input. Much as I love pontificating about my literary faves with an awesome Higher class to a certain extent they arrive at me a "done deal" due to years of sharing literature with their parents .

But my class size capped at 10 due to SEBN pupils who regale me in town years later. That's where I made a difference .

small aside some of the top "ranking" (hate the league tables they are a postcode measurement and nowt else) schools have the highest uni drop out rates
That's very interesting, where do you get that data from?

The thing to keep in mind is that going to university is not the norm within a lot of rural families so the stats can be skewed a bit, doesn't mean that the DC haven't done well. A lot go to work in family businesses or do apprenticeships or go into further education later.
Good point, thanks.

Yes I agree that the rankings are only a very blunt measure, and I don't want a hot-housing/ narrow focus school that just focuses on results at the expense of a well rounded education. It's just hard to know which measures to look at when trying to select an area based on schools.

It just feels odd that on the most common measure of comparing schools some are getting 80% and some are getting 0%! It feels unnerving to be looking at schools that are scoring very low on the main comparison. Very helpful to hear that some kids will be choosing other qualifications, and that some kids will be choosing to sit fewer than 5 Highers (rather than the numbers reflecting that kids have sat five and failed some).

I suppose I'm drawing on my own bad experience of going to an English secondary where it was very hard to achieve your potential as the teachers spent half the lesson dealing with behavioural issues, getting good grades was seen as very uncool, and the teachers didn't stretch the more academic kids and mostly just left us as they were preoccupied trying to get other kids to stay in their seats.... I was very unhappy at that school. The school also had limited opportunities for extra-curricular activities and lots of social problems amongst the kids (drugs/ smoking/ law breaking etc), I remember finding it all very upsetting. In that case the school scored poorly in terms of exam results, and that reflected real problems in the school. But I can see that the two aren't necessarily linked, especially if the way of scoring results (5 highers) isn't a very meaningful measure.

Darling - not sure where it would be in the public domain. As I am in the educational setting we are informed on more than just the initial positive destinations data.

small aside some of the top "ranking" (hate the league tables they are a postcode measurement and nowt else) schools have the highest uni drop out rates

I've heard that on a number of occasions from both people who work in Glasgow' Education Department and people responsible for the first year intake at Glasgow Unis.

When I asked one of the Glasgow Uni people about whether East Ren had a high drop out rate, as I'd heard, she said, "It doesn't have a high drop out, it has the highest drop out rate"

She regularly gets calls from parents of East Ren students complaining that their little darlings kids aren't being told what to do

OP, I'm a careers adviser in Scotland

Positive destinations are imo better than Higher percentage.

Just because 80% are getting 3 or more Highers, doesn't mean they are all going to university (and if they are, it doesn't mean they will all sustain that degree, some drop out!)

I know a high school with a very low percentage of kids getting highers but for the last 4 years, 100% of school leavers have gone to HE, FE, employment and apprenticeships.

We follow up at time of leaving, 6 months and a year after leaving. This school has sustained the 100% positive destinations for the year.

In this current climate, there will be a lot less university courses and going to university will just delay youth unemployment a few years - are there going to be any jobs this year or even in 4 years time? will the job market get better?

So vocational education is going to be much more important than highers and A levels going forward. Apprenticeships will be increasing.

The biggest influence on a child's academic success is parental support

OMG yes to this

The number of parents I know who are doing fuck all with their kids and saying "we aren't teachers" is really fucking pissing me off. I know that these parents are SAHPs so its not cause of shifts at work, its cause they can't be arsed.

I don't like it either, but I'm bloody doing it and we both work full time.

My DCs attend(ed) a state school in the top 7-15 placed in the league table (depending on year). It's in the North East of Scotland.

IMO, the success of the school is due to generally good teaching, parental support and ability of intake. The pupils are from a background of a larger proportion of professional parents (oil industry) who could afford tutoring if required.

I don't think the school is a hot house and I could think of many grievances of not stretching the most able, etc but they seem to succeed mostly due to good home support. Parents evenings are always well attended which is another good sign of parental involvement.

In my son's 2019 leaver year of around 150 pupils, there were various places awarded at well regarded universities such as - more than one Oxbridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Durham, and Medicine (2), veterinary etc.

@Darlingyouvegottoletmeknow oh dear, i cant help you with any of those schools, I'm better at central belt schools.
I love visiting all the areas you mention but would choose some over others for transport related reasons, those wiggly narrow roads get very tiresome after a while. I'd probably choose Elgin or Kingussie out of that list. Another tip is to check out school websites, they often have course choice information pages which will tell you whats on offer in 4th, 5th, and 6th year.
You will be narrowing all your children's choices if you move somewhere like Ullapool, exam subjects, friends, hobbies, easy travel, jobs, college. Im in a rural village in the central belt, only an hour from big cities and we are struggling to access the right college course and job opportunities for all my DCs due to distance and transport issues. Ive spent the last 10 years driving high schoolers all over the place!

I don’t agree with this attitude that DC can do well anywhere. The quality of teaching and class sizes is one issue, but a far bigger one imo is the cohort.

Private schools are not only successful because of their facilities and teaching- it is largely because they have a group of students who are generally motivated and an environment where the pupils want to do well.

Clearly it is not impossible for DC from a poor state school to do well, but it can be very difficult when you have a school full of students who are not really interested in education, poor behaviour and a school that is not really set up in terms of subject choice for academic students.

It is very difficult for even the best students to stay focused in such a school, so you will always have problems imo if a DC is easily led. League tables only tell part of a story- really you’ve got to visit the school and speak to current or past parents to find out what the behaviour is like and what the school is like in terms of positive destinations.

For some schools, 80% of DC getting 5 higher will not be possible. What you want is a school where the behaviour and atmosphere is good and that every pupil can achieve the outcome that is best for them- whether that is 5 As and a university course or a good apprenticeship.

I think the 5 highers thing is just passes though. A lot of the so called better schools push kids into doing 5 highers to keep their place in the tables even though the child only get 5 C’s whereas if they did 4 they might get Bs . I’ve known quite a few not that bright kids do badly doing 5 because they were really much more suited to doing 4 but the school push it. Personally I’d look at how many get 3 highers as a better guide.