Children's learning overview

Data is from the 2022 annual school pupil census, published by Scottish Government in March 2023. 

Missing data for primary schools: primary schools by SIMD and local authority, asylum and refugee status by local authority, language by local authority, and disabillity by local authority. 

Missing data for secondary schools: average class size. 

Summary

Click on our infographic to see the key facts from this indicator set. 

In 2019 there were nearly 70,000 children attending Glasgow City Council schools: 41,725 primary school pupils, 26,839 secondary school pupils and 1,266 pupils were enrolled at schools providing additional support for learning. 3.3% of pupils had a disability. 

24% of pupils were from an ethnic minority background and just over 3,000 pupils (4.4% of all pupils) were from asylum seeker or refugee families. Reflecting the increasing diversity of Glasgow’s population, nearly a quarter (24%) of pupils come from a home where the main language is neither English nor Gaelic and 129 different languages are spoken by Glasgow’s school pupils.

Primary school attendance has remained fairly steady since 2003/04 and was 93.3% in 2018/19. Secondary school attendance has risen from 86.6% in 2003/04 to 90.7% in 2018/19. Primary school attendance levels in Glasgow are lower than in neighbouring local authorities in the Glasgow City Region (GCR), while secondary school attendance levels are close to the average in the GCR.

School attainment levels in the city’s schools have been rising steadily over the last decade, although Glasgow pupils on average still have lower attainment levels than pupils in other local authorities.

In recent years, the proportion of school leavers from publicly funded Glasgow schools entering ‘positive destinations’ (higher education, further education, employment, training or voluntary work) has increased to 92.8% in 2019/20. There have been particularly notable rises in school leavers going onto higher and further education. In 2019/20, 41.4% of school leavers (from publicly-funded secondary schools in Glasgow) went on to higher education, 30.3% went on to further education and 17.2% went into employment or training.

In making sense of Glasgow's educational performance it is important to be aware that the city has higher levels of deprivation than other local authorities in Scotland, as illustrated in the children's population and children's poverty sections of Understanding Glasgow.  

The data on the Understanding Glasgow website comes from a variety of administrative sources and surveys, and the frequency of updates to these sources varies. The graphs and text on each page should indicate the period to which an indicator refers. In some cases, where more recently published data is not available, we still use older published sources, such as the 2011 Census.