Sunnygirl - I think that it would indeed have been the issue that it was part the way through the year. That is the only time I have ever heard of someone who was "in catchment" not getting into their catchment school.
You need to treat the Scottish "league tables" with a large pinch of salt. The HMI reports to me would be a better indication.
The porblem with the statistics that they use to derive these elague tables is that they are misleading.
So, for example, a primary school could look like it is not meeting the expected pass rates for the numeracy or litracy levels for the appropraite ages. However, they only show those that passed at that age. So, if a school put through (I'll exaggerate) 50% of its P1s to do level A, and they "passed", and the remaining 50% did it in P2, then the attainment statistic would be "50% passed in P2" - against the government target of 75% passing by P2. I'm making up the numbers just as examples, but you get my drift.
In the same way, at secondary, schools are "judged" by how many kids sit 4 or more stndard grades (I think that is the number - but again, you'll get my drift). However, if a school doesn't offer a particualr subject, they will often liaise with a local college of FE (or even another school) so that the pupil can still do that subject. In that case, the school doesn't get the credit.
So, for example, a school could have a birght kid doing 3 subjects at the school and two at college - but the kid's results wouldn't count towards the school's results, as he/she was only doing 3 at the school.
That particualr anomoly is apparently being addressed.