Results gap between best and worst city high schools widens

Published on Wednesday 15 December 2010 09:56

THE gap between the Capital's best and worst secondary schools is widening, with exam results falling in some of the city's most deprived areas.

New statistics show that schools in Wester Hailes, Craigmillar and Muirhouse have all seen a drop in the number of pupils gaining good marks in five or more Standard Grade exams.

In contrast, schools in more affluent areas of the city, such as Viewforth and Currie, have seen a rise in results in the same category, with Boroughmuir High gaining three percentage points on its Standard Grade results in 2009-10 from the previous year and Currie gaining an extra two.

At Higher level, the gap between the city's best and worst schools is also prevalent, with James Gillespie's in Marchmont coming out on top with the highest percentage of S5 pupils gaining three or more Highers, followed by Boroughmuir and Firrhill.

As with the Standard Grade results, the schools in the bottom three are Craigroyston, Wester Hailes Education Centre (WHEC) and Castlebrae. Craigroyston had no pupils gaining three or more Highers in 2009-10.

Cameron Rose, education spokesman for the Tories, said the "one size fits all approach" is not working.

He said: "It underlines that our system does not have it right at the moment and we are failing children in the more challenging areas and poorer areas in particular.

"We have got to address these issues in a different way because the one size fits all approach we have at the moment fails those who don't fit the pattern. We should allow specialist schools and outside specialists with a proven track record to come in because the council control is not producing the results."

Councillor Paul Godzik, Labour's education spokesman, said: "The council has to look at these figures very carefully and take appropriate action to ensure that all students, no matter where they go, receive an excellent education and are given the best possible opportunity to get the appropriate grades.

"There is a need to look at issues within areas of deprivation."

He added that the drop in the number of young people receiving the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) and the rise in tuition fees south of the Border are all contributing to pricing poor pupils out of the education system.

He said: "If we want to achieve equality of opportunity, we have to pursue policies that feed into that and that's why decisions on EMA and tuition fees have been so disappointing because they discourage children from more deprived backgrounds from sticking in at school."

Overall, Edinburgh's schools performed slightly below the national average at Standard Grade level, with 76 per cent of pupils gaining five or more good passes compared with 78 per cent nationally.

Pupils in the Capital performed better than the Scottish average in their Higher exams, with 28 per cent of city S5 students gaining three or more passes, compared with 24 per cent.

City education leader Cllr Marilyne MacLaren said: "I'm confident that our efforts to embrace innovative ways of ensuring our pupils get the best possible education are working well, despite the large savings we've had to make."