The attainment gap closes but remains wide across Scotland

A key takeaways from Scotland's exam results which were announced yesterday

The gap between the results achieved by students in the least deprived parts of Scotland and those in the most deprived areas narrowed slightly in this year’s figures, but remains significant.

Author | Palvinder Singh

The “attainment gap” measures the difference between the grades achieved by the top 20% of students from the most affluent areas and those in the bottom fifth of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD).

The way SIMD is used has changed this year, resulting in some revisions to previous figures.

The latest statistics show that the gap at National 5 is 15.6 percentage points, down from 16.4.

That reflects 86.6% of students in the least deprived areas achieving grades A to C, compared with 71% of those in the most deprived areas.

At Higher, the gap has narrowed to 15.9 percentage points, from 16.8 last year. At Advanced Higher, it has fallen to 12.1 percentage points, down from 13.3.

What else are we looking at?

In positive news, pass rates have increased from last year The number of pupils achieving an A, B or C grade at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher has increased slightly on last year.

The figure for the National 5 qualifications, taken by the majority of pupils at 15 or 16, rose from a 78.4% pass rate in 2025 to 79.2% this year.

The rate for Higher increased from 75.9% to 76.7%, and the rate for Advanced Higher rose from 76.7% to 77.6%.

Congratulations to all students that received their results. It's not the end of the world if you didn't do as well as you thought but if you did? Go out and celebrate!