Thurso primaries ranked second best – and worst – in Highlands in Sunday Times primary school league table for 2025

Primary schools in Thurso have been ranked second best – and worst – across the Highlands in the The Sunday Times’ Scottish primary school league table, released today.

Miller Academy Primary School in Thurso, with a score of 390, was the second highest ranked Highland primary across a list of 47 schools rated in the Highland region, coming 110th overall in the whole of Scotland.

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At the opposite end of the table, Mount Pleasant Primary in Thurso was ranked the lowest in Highland, in 47th place, ranked 1181st overall in Scotland. Only three other Scottish schools were ranked lower.

Ranked 60th overall in the Scotland-wide list, Lochardil Primary in Inverness was the highest ranked Highland school, attaining a maximum score of 400 in reading, writing, numeracy, plus combined listening and talking.

Bridgend Primary in Alness and Craighill Primary, Tain ranked third and fourth.

Across the whole of Scotland, St Catherine's Primary School, Renfrewshire was ranked first, while Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School, West Lothian came second – despite nearly a third of pupils being deemed “very deprived” in the Scottish Government’s index of multiple deprivation.

Elsewhere across Caithness and its surrounding towns and villages, Newton Park Primary in Wick was ranked 13th in Highland (417th overall), while Noss Primary in Wick, achieving a score of 330, finished 26th in the Highland rankings (771st overall).

The Primary School League Table ranks success at P7 in around 1,200 schools, using the Scottish government’s Achievement in Curriculum for Excellence Levels (Acel) database.

Examining P7 scores is considered a useful measure of a school's performance at the conclusion of a pupil's academic journey at primary level.

There are over 2,000 primary schools in Scotland but more than a third do not submit Acel data each year.

The Acel database ranks the percentage of pupils meeting the four key indicators of reading, writing, numeracy, plus combined listening and talking.

It also counts the percentage of pupils that hail from deprived neighbourhoods, using the government’s Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.

A record 89 schools scored top marks this year, up from 85 last year and just 52 when the government first began compiling data in 2016/17.

The full searchable table of 1200 participating schools is available at: thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/scottish-school-league-table-2025-best-primary-xfnxxlv22

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