Parents are scrambling to get their children into Lord Byron's old school in Aberdeen

Hundreds of placing requests made last year for Aberdeen Grammar School

New figures suggest Aberdeen Grammar School is the most in-demand council-run school in Scotland.

Data released to The Scotsman shows there were 335 out-of-catchment placing requests for the school in 2022/23.

No other school in the country has had close to that number in recent years, according to statistics provided by the majority of councils under freedom of information laws, including Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeenshire.

Lord Byron - generic.

In Glasgow City, the highest last year was Notre Dame High School, with 207.

East Renfrewshire has several secondaries which are regularly placed in the “top 10” schools according to league tables based on exam results, but its figures for 2021/22 show no school had more than 200 out-of-catchment requests.

Aberdeen Grammar School is one of the oldest schools in Scotland, dating back to 1262.

It boasts Lord Byron among its former pupils, with a statue of the poet sited in the grounds of the Skene Street school, although he had attended the school when it was at a different site, in Schoolhill.

Despite its name, which was briefly changed to “Rubislaw Academy” in the 1970s, the school is non-selective.

According to league tables produced earlier this year, 59 per cent of pupils at the school achieved five or more Higher passes in 2021/22, which gave it a rank of 25th in Scotland.

League tables put the school as the second “best-performing” in Aberdeen, behind only Cults Academy, which was sixth in Scotland.

Unlike the suburb of Cults, however, Aberdeen Grammar School is located n the city centre and its upmarket west end.

After the 335 placing requests for Aberdeen Grammar, the next highest in the city last year was Hazlehead Academy with 194, followed by Harlaw Academy with 174, Bridge of Don Academy with 142, Cults Academy with 132 and Oldmachar Academy with 116.

In terms of primary schools, the highest in Aberdeen last year was the 106 requests for Gilcomstoun School, which is the city’s Gaelic-medium primary, and feeds into Aberdeen Grammar School.

This was followed by Ashley Road and Mile-End, with 97 and 73 respectively, both of which are also within the catchment of Aberdeen Grammar School.